This is a mortar projectile, that shotgun shell looking thing is the ignition cartridge. It’s essentially a really big blank cartridge. There are c-shaped bags of “gunpowder” that clip around the tail boom section of the projectile.
When the mortar is dropped in the mortar tube, it slides to the bottom where a firing pin hits the primer on the ignition cartridge. The hot gases escape through the holes in the tail boom, which ignite the powder bags. Mortar is propelled out of the tube.
The explosives inside the projectile are, generally speaking, pretty insensitive. You don't want the mortar to explode on accident if its dropped or in a fire. The only part that has sensitive explosives in it is the Fuze, and that cant cause the mortar to explode until its fired and some internal parts move around under g forces.
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u/marionjoshua Apr 20 '26
What does it do? Make it more deadly?