Why do mortar shells have fins, but not artillery shells?

Question

Why do mortar shells have fins, but not artillery shells?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

You got the answers about the presence of rifling or not and spin stabilization.

Spin stabilization is standard for 155 mm artillery like NATO countries uses. That being said, there are some fin stabilized artillery shells.

For some example of artillery finners:

There’s the PGK fuze: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1156_Precision_Guidance_Kit which basically adds some guidance to shells using fins on the fuze. The projectile is still spinning, and the fins are kind of stubby/not where you’d expect them, but they are there.

Then, there is the M982 Excalibur which has proper fins and trajectory control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M982_Excalibur

The M107 and M759 which are ye ol’ typical artillery projectiles you were likely thinking of do not have fins.