IRAQ MORTAR ATTACK INJURES 11 US TROOPS

[MaryH]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top11jun30,1,526948.story

Baghdad, Iraq - Insurgents fired at least 10 mortar rounds at a US base on the outskirts of Baghdad International Airport on Wednesday, wounding 11 soldiers, two of them seriously, and starting a fire that burned for well over an hour.

That attack, along with a car bomb that exploded outside a police headquarters in Samawah, 150 miles south of the capital, Baghdad, were yet more evidence that insurgents have no plans of letting up their attacks even after the US coalition authorities handed over sovereignty to an interim Iraq government on Monday.

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. completely ignorant question, but

what exactly is a mortar round? Is it just like a really really big bullet, or like a grenade, or a bomb?

What's the deal?

[MaryH]

2. I Think It's Bigger than a Breadbox

I don't know for sure. I think they are shot out from bigger guns and are larger than rifle fire. I don't know if they can be shot from shoulder held rocket launchers.

[opihimoimoi]

3. Short distance round launched from a Tube like device aimed in right

direction. very accurate. It lobs the round in a high arc into the targwet area/vector. Various sizes.

[happyExpat]

4. sorta ignorant answer

but it's kinda like a bomb.. Ever watch Gomer Pyle, or Stripes? when they drop this thing into a tube, then it shoots out, goes somewhere downrange, and explodes.. (in the case of those two examples, usually in the wrong place) So, a mortar is the tube launcher thing, and a mortar round is the projectile (warhead) that gets launched....like a little portable cannon or something....Thats my non-technical description :)

[tlcandie]

5. Dupe ..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x655734