Manufacturer catalog

Brandt

Brandt is the French metalworking and arms name created by Edgar Brandt, whose workshop evolved into a mortar specialist and whose legacy continues through successor companies now inside Thales.

2 weapons

Brandt began as Edgar Brandt's Paris metalworking business and became best known in the military field for its mortar designs. That lineage matters here because the catalog's Brandt facet points to a real weapons builder, not just a decorative-arts name.

The catalog page is centered on the Brandt mortar family and the later corporate line that carried the Brandt name into Hotchkiss-Brandt, Thomson-Brandt, and the modern TDA Armements / Thales mortar business.

MortarsIndirect-fire weaponsMortar ammunitionWeapon system lineage

Notable Systems

Brandt 81 mm mortar family

The interwar Brandt 81 mm mortar established the company's reputation for compact infantry mortars and became one of the most copied mortar patterns of its era.

Sources: Norfolk Tank Museum Brandt 81mm mortar, Cooper Hewitt Edgar Brandt
MO-120 RT, 120 mm rifled towed heavy mortar, Artillery

MO-120 RT

120 mm rifled towed heavy mortar

Thales still presents the 120mm RT mortar as part of its mortar-system line, preserving the Brandt rifled-towed mortar lineage in modern service.

Sources: Thales mortar system solutions, Forecast International mortar report

Manufacturer History

  1. Edgar Brandt founds the business in Paris

    Cooper Hewitt describes Brandt as founding a metalworking business in Paris in 1902 before his wartime work pushed the company toward armaments.

    Sources: Cooper Hewitt Edgar Brandt

  2. Brandt merges with Hotchkiss

    A historical Hotchkiss company history notes the 1956 merger with Brandt that created Hotchkiss-Brandt, a key step in the Brandt name's postwar corporate evolution.

    Sources: Hotchkiss company history

  3. TDA Armements is formed in a defense-industry restructuring

    Forecast International says Thomson-CSF's armaments component, including Thomson-Brandt, merged with Deutsche Aerospace's weapons business to form TDA Armements, which still used the Brandt name.

    Sources: Forecast International mortar report

  4. Thales takes full ownership of TDA Armements

    Defense Industry Daily reported that Thales bought EADS' 50 percent stake in TDA Armements, leaving Thales with full ownership of the successor mortar business.

    Sources: Thales buys EADS stake in TDA Armements

Successors
Hotchkiss-BrandtTDA Armements
Website links
Thales mortar system solutionsGuns and RosesMortar Ammunition (Europe)

Brandt's defense lineage is split across later mergers and successor names, so this profile anchors the company to Edgar Brandt's 1902 founding, the Brandt mortar family, and successor-company records that preserve the Brandt name in modern mortar production.

Manufacturer Sources

  • Cooper Hewitt Edgar BrandtPublisher: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum | Note: Supports Edgar Brandt founding a metalworking business in Paris in 1902 and the shift from decorative ironwork into wartime armaments work. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Norfolk Tank Museum Brandt 81mm mortarPublisher: Norfolk Tank Museum | Note: Supports the Brandt 81 mm mortar family as a French mortar developed by the Brandt company and its importance as an influential mortar design. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Thales mortar system solutionsPublisher: Thales Group | Note: Supports the continued Thales mortar-system role and the modern 120mm RT mortar lineage associated with the Brandt name. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Forecast International mortar reportPublisher: Forecast International | Note: Supports the 1995 restructuring that created TDA Armements from Thomson-CSF/Thomson-Brandt and Deutsche Aerospace, and the continued use of the Brandt name. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • TDA GroupPublisher: Defence IQ | Note: Supports TDA Armements as a wholly owned Thales subsidiary with more than a century of weaponry experience, showing the modern successor context for the Brandt mortar line. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Hotchkiss company historyPublisher: M201 | Note: Supports the 1956 Hotchkiss and Brandt merger that created Hotchkiss-Brandt in the firm's postwar history. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Thales buys EADS stake in TDA ArmamentsPublisher: Defense Industry Daily | Note: Supports the 2005 transaction in which Thales bought EADS' remaining stake in TDA Armements, leaving Thales with full ownership of the successor mortar business. | Accessed: 2026-06-21
  • Edgar Brandt fire screen on Wikimedia CommonsPublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports the reusable CC BY-SA 2.0 image and its provenance as a photographed Edgar Brandt fire screen, which is directly tied to the builder's metalworking roots. | Accessed: 2026-06-21

Produced weapons

Category

Artillery

Tube artillery, rocket artillery, and long-range ground fires.

2/2
MO-120 RT, 120 mm rifled towed heavy mortar, Artillery2014 Russia-Ukraine War, 2012 Mali War +3 moreMO-120 RT120 mm rifled towed heavy mortarBuilt in: France / United States / TurkeyThe MO-120 RT is a French 120 mm rifled towed heavy mortar developed by Brandt and later associated with TDA/Thales production. Its rifled barrel, two-wheel carriage, and rocket-assisted ammunition option give it longer range than many smoothbore infantry mortars, while keeping the system towable by light or medium vehicles. The family also appears through derivatives such as the U.S. Marine Corps M327 EFSS and Turkey's HY-12, giving the page conflict evidence from Ukraine, Mali, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Colombia.
120mm MO-120-AM50, 120 mm smoothbore heavy mortar, Artillery2014 Russia-Ukraine War, 1982 Falklands War120mm MO-120-AM50120 mm smoothbore heavy mortarBuilt in: FranceThe 120mm MO-120-AM50 is a French Brandt smoothbore heavy mortar developed after World War II and fielded from the 1950s as a towed, baseplate-fired, or carriage-fired infantry support weapon. It predates the later MO-120 RT rifled mortar family and appears in the catalog through two direct evidence lanes: an Imperial War Museums object record for an Argentine Army Brandt 120 mm mortar captured during the Falklands War, and SIPRI transfer data recording Denmark's 2024 delivery of MW-50 120mm mortars to Ukraine.