Quote:
Originally Posted by copeab
Some mortars have refurbishable training rounds.
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Oh yes, we did a week with those on a miniature town in AIT. They are sabot rounds, with a cast iron body and a 20mm sabot round in the core which causes a flash when it goes off so you can see where you hit. We made a game of trying to run downrange and catch the body (which didn't go nearly as far), until somebody got hurt (cut his hand on the fin). If you didn't get a satisfactory score on the mock range, you became an 11B. (I didn't become an 11B until my second AIT a few years later.)
The sabot comes completely out of the body a second or so after firing; it's mostly there to allow us to get used the weight and handling of the round. The instructor sergeant just popped in a sabot, gave it to us, and when the body was returned, popped in a new sabot.
The 20mm sabots are simple, so I would guess a reasonable-sized community could make then.