Mortar is a kind of artillery weapon used for high-trajectory fire of the hidden targets and destruction of the field fortifications. In the Second World War, the mortar shelling was the typical reason for the death of snipers and scouts. Yet in the prewar period, the Soviet Union developed the system of mortars consisting of the 50-mm company mortar, 82-mm battalion and the heavy ones - the 107-mm mortar for the mountain troops and 120-mm regiment mortar. At the end of the war, in 1944, the author of this system Borys Shavyrin started development of the heavy 240-mm mortar. It started service 6 years later.
There were 329 samples of the M-240 mortar produced. It was the most powerful serial Soviet mortar with a caliber of 240 mm. Its peculiarity was the breech loading while other mortars are muzzle-loaders. That was because of the large caliber and the heavy weight of mine - more than 130 kilograms.
This mortar could fire with all the types of the powerful 240-mm mines, reactive mines with the enhanced range, mines controlled by laser beams. It could be used for firing the special mines carrying nuclear warheads. The range of shooting with the reactive mines is up to 19 kilometers, with the blast mines - up to nine and a half kilometers.
In the Soviet times, it was actively used during the war in Afghanistan. In any weather conditions, it hit the target from the first or second shot.
Based on the M-240 mortar, the self-propelled mortar “Tulip” was designed in the mid-1960s.
