Artillery

160mm M160

Also known as
  • 160 mm M-160
  • 160mm M-160
  • M-160 mortar
  • M160 mortar
  • 160 mm mortar M-160
  • 160-mm divisional mortar M-160
  • 52-M-853
  • SKB-21

The 160mm M160 is a Soviet postwar breech-loading heavy mortar developed as a longer-ranged successor to the wartime 160mm PM-43. Its hinged rear-loading barrel, large baseplate, and two-wheel carriage made it closer to a towed artillery piece than a man-portable mortar, trading mobility for a 40 kg-class bomb and an 8 km indirect-fire reach.

160mm M160, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery
Image source: Commons 160 mm M-160 4055 Image

Role in Conflicts

Profile / Specs

Profile

Origin
Soviet Union
Type
160 mm towed heavy mortar
Service note
Introduced in 1949 after 1945-1947 development; produced through 1957 and retained by some former Soviet clients
Designer
SKB-21 at the Kolomna Special Design Bureau of Smoothbore Artillery under B. I. Shavyrin
Designed
1945-1947
Produced
1949-1957
Number built
2,353
Developed from
160mm PM-43

Specifications

Caliber
160 mm
Weapon type
Smoothbore breech-loading heavy mortar
Crew
6-8; Victory Museum lists 7
Weight
1,300 kg in firing position; 1,470 kg in travelling configuration
Barrel length
4.55 m
Bomb weight
About 40-41.2 kg depending on mine type
Explosive fill
About 7.7-9 kg in listed 160 mm high-explosive mines
Maximum range
8,040 m
Minimum range
750 m
Rate of fire
About 3 rounds per minute
Muzzle velocity
157-343 m/s depending on charge
Elevation
+50 degrees to +80 degrees
Traverse
24 degrees at +50 degrees elevation; wider high-elevation traverse reported in reference data
Mobility
Two-wheel towed carriage with a muzzle towing lug; towed by truck or tracked tractor up to about 50 km/h
Breech-Loading Heavy Mortar Layout

The M-160 kept the Soviet 160 mm mortar family's rear-loading approach because a 40 kg-class bomb was impractical to drop into a long tube from the muzzle. The barrel pivots for loading, the baseplate absorbs recoil into the ground, and the fixed wheel carriage doubles as part of the firing mount.

Predecessor change

WeaponSystems.net describes the M160 as a longer-barreled successor to the 160-PM-43, built to extend range beyond the wartime design.

Handling tradeoff

The mortar could be towed at road speed, but its mass made infantry manhandling impractical once away from prepared positions.

Ammunition effect

Victory Museum data lists 40 kg and 41.2 kg high-explosive mines with fuze settings for blast or fragmentation effect.

Variants

Open references treat the M-160 as the Soviet 1949 divisional mortar and distinguish it from the wartime PM-43/MT-13 predecessor; China produced a related Type 56 copy.

VariantConfigurationDesignation notes
160mm PM-43, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery160mm PM-43wartime predecessor

WeaponSystems.net describes the M160 as the longer-ranged successor to the World War II-era 160-PM-43.

Sources: WeaponSystems.net 160mm M160

Type 56 heavy mortarChinese copy

GlobalSecurity identifies China's Type 56 heavy mortar as a copy of the Soviet 160 mm M-160 heavy mortar.

Sources: GlobalSecurity Chinese Towed Artillery

Timeline

160mm M160 Key Events

  1. Postwar development begins

    Reference accounts place development of the SKB-21/M-160 design in 1945-1947 at the Kolomna artillery design bureau under B. I. Shavyrin.

    Sources: Victory Museum M-160 Mortar

  2. Adopted and production starts

    The M-160 won the postwar competition and entered serial production in 1949, initially at Plant No. 535.

    Sources: Victory Museum M-160 Mortar

  3. Production continues at Plant No. 172

    Open reference data says serial production continued at Plant No. 172 from 1952 until the production run ended in 1957.

    Sources: Victory Museum M-160 Mortar

  4. Syrian Army use documented

    Oryx published a photo report identifying 160 mm M-160 mortars with the Syrian Arab Army and describing their early-war urban shelling use.

    Sources: Oryx Syrian Arab Army Photo Report

  5. Captured in Idlib fighting

    Oryx listed two 160 mm M160 mortars as captured during Turkish and rebel operations against Syrian government equipment in Idlib.

    Sources: Oryx Idlib Turkey Shoot

  6. Ukraine identification disputed

    A 2025 Ukrainian media report described an M-160 in Ukrainian service, but Defence Express later assessed the visible weapon as a captured 2B23 Nona-M1 rather than an M-160; the catalog does not treat that episode as a direct M-160 conflict-use row.

    Sources: Pryamiy Ukrainian M-160 Report, Defence Express Nona-M1 Identification

Media

160mm M160 Videos

160mm M160 Images

160mm M160, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery - view 1
Source: Commons 160 mm M-160 4052 Image
160mm M160, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery - view 2
Source: Commons Batey ha-Osef M-160 Image
160mm M160, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, Artillery - view 3
Source: Commons M-160 Museum of Technique Image
Related Weapon Systems
160mm PM-43, 160 mm towed heavy mortar, ArtilleryArtillery160mm PM-43160 mm towed heavy mortarThe 160mm PM-43, also known as the 160-PM-43 or MT-13, is a Soviet breech-loading heavy mortar developed from the idea of scaling up the 120 mm mortar family. Its hinged barrel let crews load a roughly 40 kg bomb from the rear, giving Soviet forces a short-range but very heavy indirect-fire weapon in the final stages of the Second World War before the longer-ranged M-160 replaced it in postwar Soviet service; open references also place Egyptian 160-PM-43 use in the 1967 and 1973 wars with Israel.
120-PM-38, 120 mm towed heavy mortar, ArtilleryArtillery120-PM-38120 mm towed heavy mortarThe 120-PM-38, also known as the M1938, is a Soviet 120 mm smoothbore heavy mortar designed under B. I. Shavyrin and built for infantry fire support. Its large bomb, two-wheel transport arrangement, and roughly 5.7 km range made it a durable regimental mortar design; OSCE monitoring documented PM-38 mortars in Donbas heavy-weapons holding and storage records during the 2014 Russia-Ukraine War, while Oryx listed M-1938 heavy mortars in Yemen's pre-war army inventory.
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120mm Type W86, 120 mm towed heavy mortar, ArtilleryArtillery120mm Type W86120 mm towed heavy mortarThe 120mm Type W86 is a Chinese smoothbore heavy mortar developed by Norinco as a longer-ranged replacement for older Type 55-pattern 120 mm mortars. It uses a conventional tube, bipod, baseplate, sight, and two-wheel carriage, with public sources documenting Chinese origin, export service, vehicle-mounted installations, W86-pattern ammunition, and a 2025 Sahel conflict event involving jihadist use of a Type W86 mortar with rocket-assisted ammunition.
60 mm mortar, Light infantry mortar, ArtilleryArtillery60 mm mortarLight infantry mortarThe 60 mm mortar is a portable light-infantry indirect-fire class used for close support where crews need high-angle fire from a weapon lighter than larger battalion mortars. The caliber family spans many national models: direct conflict sourcing documents PKK 60 mm mortar use and recovered ammunition in the Kurdish-Turkish conflict, disputed Thai 60 mm mortar fire claims in the 2025 Thailand-Cambodia border fighting, and Yemen-linked interdiction of 60 mm mortar tubes assessed by the United States as intended for Houthi forces rather than confirmed battlefield firing.
82 mm M69 mortar, 82 mm smoothbore infantry mortar, ArtilleryArtillery82 mm M69 mortar82 mm smoothbore infantry mortarThe 82 mm M69 is a Yugoslav-designed smoothbore infantry mortar family that remains in Serbian and former Yugoslav production and service channels, with the M69A variant using a four-person crew, NSB-3 sight, and high-angle fire out to roughly 4.9-6.25 km depending on ammunition. Direct open-source documentation links the family to Afghan government losses in 2021, Syrian opposition use near Aleppo, Armenian and Artsakh losses in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukrainian wartime receipt of BNT-marked M69A mortars.

Sources

Victory Museum M-160 MortarPublisher: Victory Museum / Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 | Note: Supports M-160 identity, 1949 model designation, SKB-21/Kolomna/Shavyrin development, Plant No. 535 and Plant No. 172 production sequence, production dates and total, Soviet service context, specifications, ammunition notes, and towing arrangement. | Accessed: 2026-07-06WeaponSystems.net 160mm M160Publisher: WeaponSystems.net | Note: Supports Soviet origin, heavy-mortar type, PM-43 successor relationship, crew range, weight, barrel length, muzzle velocity, elevation, traverse, rate of fire, range, carriage, towing vehicle, and export-user context. | Accessed: 2026-07-06GlobalSecurity Chinese Towed ArtilleryPublisher: GlobalSecurity.org | Note: Supports Type 56 as a Chinese heavy-mortar copy related to the Soviet 160 mm M-160 family. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Oryx Syrian Arab Army Photo ReportPublisher: Oryx | Note: Supports 2011 Syrian Civil War direct conflict-use by identifying Syrian Arab Army 160 mm M-160 mortars and describing heavy early-war shelling use in cities. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Oryx Idlib Turkey ShootPublisher: Oryx | Note: Supports 2011 Syrian Civil War direct conflict materiel evidence by listing two 160 mm M160 mortars captured during the 2020 Idlib fighting. | Accessed: 2026-07-06NARA Iraqi M-160 Desert Storm ImagePublisher: U.S. National Archives via NARA and DVIDS Public Domain Archives | Note: Supports 1990 Gulf War direct conflict materiel evidence by identifying an Iraqi M-160 160 mm mortar abandoned at a Kuwait City outpost after Iraqi forces withdrew during Operation Desert Storm. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Pryamiy Ukrainian M-160 ReportPublisher: Pryamiy | Note: Documents a June 2025 Ukrainian media report that identified a seen weapon as an M-160; used only with the Defence Express correction as a disputed-identification timeline note, not as direct conflict-use support. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Defence Express Nona-M1 IdentificationPublisher: Defense Express | Note: Supports the caveat that a 2025 Ukrainian video first described as M-160 was later assessed as a captured 2B23 Nona-M1 rather than an M-160. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Commons 160 mm M-160 4055 ImagePublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports image provenance and licensing for the primary M-160 photograph at Technical Museum Togliatti; the file page lists own work by ShinePhantom under CC BY-SA 3.0. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Commons 160 mm M-160 4052 ImagePublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports gallery-image provenance for a second M-160 photograph at Technical Museum Togliatti; the file page lists own work by ShinePhantom under CC BY-SA 3.0. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Commons Batey ha-Osef M-160 ImagePublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports gallery-image provenance for a 160 mm M1949/M-160 mortar at Batey ha-Osef Museum in Tel Aviv; the file page lists own work by Bukvoed under CC BY 3.0. | Accessed: 2026-07-06Commons M-160 Museum of Technique ImagePublisher: Wikimedia Commons | Note: Supports gallery-image provenance for an M-160 160 mm mortar museum photograph; the file page lists own work by Mike1979 Russia under CC BY-SA 4.0. | Accessed: 2026-07-06