Military historians have estimated that mortar fire losses during World War I accounted for at least 50% of all ground troop losses. It can be assumed that this percentage has only increased in the future.
German mortar of the XVI century, cast together with the pallet
Who invented the first mortar and when? Alas, no one knows this. The ancestor of the mortar was the mortar. In any case, the first guns that threw shells along steep trajectories (60 ° -80 °) appeared no later than the 15th century. These mounted fire weapons were very short (1, 5–3 caliber long), since it is difficult to insert a projectile and charge into a long channel at a high position of the muzzle. Such a weapon resembled a mortar in appearance, and therefore received the name mortar (müser in German and mortiere in French means "mortar").
Mortars were used to shoot cannonballs, buckshot, small stones placed in wicker baskets, various types of incendiary shells, etc. It is curious that in the XVI-XVII centuries, mortars were used as a means of delivery of toxic substances and bacteriological weapons. So, among the ammunition that were in Kiev in 1674, "fragrant fiery nuclei" are mentioned, and among the listed substances there is ammonia, arsenic and Assa fatuda. Mortar shells could be braids with the remains of animals or people infected with infectious diseases, which were thrown through the wall into the enemy fortress. The main ammunition of the mortar was bombs - spherical shells, inside which an explosive was placed - black powder.
The mortar turned out to be a very conservative tool, and for 500 years its design has remained practically unchanged. At the same time, mortars with trunnions were made, requiring a primitive lifting mechanism (usually a wooden wedge), and cast in one piece with the pallet. In the latter, the change in the firing range was made only by changing the weight of the charge. All smooth mortars of the 15th – 19th centuries, according to the modern mortar classification, were arranged according to a "blind scheme", that is, the entire system was placed on one massive slab.
In mortars, scientists and designers experimented mainly on the chamber in order to improve ballistic qualities. It was made cylindrical, then conical. And in 1730, the French engineer de Vallière creates a 12-inch mortar with a chamber tapering to the channel, that is, it looks like a nozzle.
In 1751, a German engineer in the Russian service, a certain Vener, drilled a 5-pound (13.5-inch) mortar from the breech and inserted an iron pin into it, through which the fuse passed. At the end of the pin there was an iron truncated cone, with which it was possible to change the volume of the chamber and thus change the firing range and provide the desired accuracy.
9-cm light mortar type G. R.
Created by General M. F. Rosenberg on the model of a captured German mortar.
Front view
With the advent of rifled guns in Russia in 1867-1884, a whole system of rifled mortars of 6 "(152 mm), 8" (203 mm), 9 "(229 mm) and 11" (280 mm) calibers was created. All of them were very complex structurally: with recoil devices, guidance mechanisms, etc. The lightest of them, 6-inch fortress mortar mod. 1867 weighed 3120 kg in combat position without a wooden platform.
As for light melee weapons, they were simply forgotten. By 1914, their functions were performed by smooth-bore 5-, 2- and half-pound mortars arr. 1838, as well as Kehorn's 6- and 8-pound mortars. Ironically, for lack of anything better, the War Department in April 1915 ordered fifty 6-pound Kegorn copper mortars on wooden machines and 500 pieces of spherical cast iron grenades each. The order was completed by Shkilin's Petrograd plant.
The invention of pyroxylin, and then other explosives, the high-explosive effect of which was several times more powerful than gunpowder, made mortars a mortar. The explosion of a shell filled with a large amount of pyroxylin was similar in visual effect and high-explosive effect to the explosion of a land mine. Naturally, the gun that threw the mines was called the mortar.
In 1882, the captain of the fortress artillery Romanov designed a mine that could be fired from ordinary 2-pound smooth-bore mortars.
The mine was a thin-walled steel cylindrical projectile with a caliber of 243.8 mm, a length of 731 mm, and weighing about 82 kg (including 24.6 kg of pyroxylin). An armored 533-meter wire was attached to the head part, which was placed in a wooden box. The mine was fired from an ordinary smooth-bore 2-pound mortar arr. 1838, in flight she pulled a wire behind her, detonation was carried out by supplying an electrical impulse, and the fuse and the wire were equipped with insulation from moisture.
In 1884-1888, Romanov's mines were tested in the Ust-Izhora sapper camp. Accuracy when shooting at fortifications at a distance of 426 m was quite satisfactory. In the summer and autumn of 1890, experiments continued in Kronstadt. On October 5, in the presence of the Minister of War, 4 mines were fired, one into a ditch filled with water, and simultaneously detonated. No refusals were observed. On December 11, the Fortress Armament Commission ordered 400 mines, and in the summer of the following year they were used in exercises near the Novogeorgievsk fortress. By the way, then for the first time observers deployed on balloons were used to adjust the artillery fire.
In mid-September 1904, Major General R. I. Kondratenko approved a proposal to use a 47-mm single-barreled Hotchkiss cannon for firing over-caliber pole-mounted mines equipped with pyroxylin. The technical implementation of the idea of creating such an improvised mortar was entrusted to Captain L. N. Gobyato.
The mine looked like a truncated cone and was made of sheet iron. A wooden pole was attached to its wide base. On the free end of the pole there were thickenings for wedging the guide wings. Before the shot, these wings could move freely along the pole. The mines were loaded with 6-7 kg of pyroxylin and had an impact fuse.
During the first shooting, the poles often broke. Therefore, to soften the shock, a wad was made to serve as a buffer.
The wad consisted of a lead cone, a copper tube with a wooden insert and a lead cylinder, which served as a leading belt and prevented the breakthrough of powder gases. All parts were connected with a copper tube. In this form, the wad was placed in the sleeve like a 47-mm projectile. The mortar had a firing range of 50 to 400 m at elevation angles of 45 to 65 °.
In addition, the shooting of pole-mounted mines at the Japanese fortifications yielded good results. In the "Artillery Journal" No. 8 for 1906 in the article "Artillery fire in the fortress at a distance of closer than 1000 steps (from the siege of Port Arthur)" Captain L. N. Gobyato wrote: "On November 10, 47- mm gun, and regular firing of mines began day and night. They shot at the left Japanese sapa; the results of the shooting were such that 3 of the 4 mines fired hit the trench. As soon as the Japanese began to work glanders, they let several mines go there, and after the first mine was blown up, the Japanese fled; thus they were forced to stop working altogether."
In addition to pole mines, during the defense of Port Arthur, Russian sailors adapted powder mine devices, which were in service with boats, for ground firing. Shooting with projectile sea mines of 254 mm caliber and weighing 74 kg was carried out at a distance of up to 200 m. Throwing mines were a smooth-walled metal tube that was closed from the breech and were intended for firing at short ranges with caliber mines, which had a spindle-shaped body about 2.25 m long and a stabilizer in the tail. They were powerful melee weapons. Suffice it to say that the weight of the explosive charge of the mine was about 31 kg. Mortars, firing caliber mines, were installed in the places of the expected enemy attack. Shooting with mines was conducted at assault columns or at the enemy, who was ensconced in cover. The use of new weapons was unexpected for the enemy, caused panic and caused great damage.
Between the wars, in 1906-1913, Russian engineers developed several mortar projects, and the Putilov plant produced two prototypes of 43 lines (122 mm) and 6 inches (152 mm) caliber.
Alas, the War Ministry, headed by General of the Cavalry V. A. And then an instruction appeared: "You should not order mortars." It was about mortars from the Putilov factory, which were then called trench mortars.
The situation is completely different in Germany.
By the beginning of the First World War, the German army had 64 heavy 24-cm mortars and 120 medium mortars of 17 cm caliber. In addition, several experimental light mortars were created. All German mortars had a dull scheme, that is, the mortar itself and all the mechanisms were located on a massive base plate lying on the ground. Moreover, 24-cm and 17-cm mortars were equipped with normal recoil devices, like field guns. Light mortars had a rigid (recoilless) scheme.
It was not the number of mortars the Germans had before the war that was fundamentally important, but the availability of proven systems that were already put into mass production during the war.
The First World War, a few weeks after the start, acquired a positional character, and the troops urgently needed mortars. And only then did we begin to create various types of mortars, from artisanal front-line homemade products to copying foreign models at large artillery factories.
Among homemade products, mortars were widely used, the bodies of which were made from cannon casings. The scheme, of course, was deaf, the base plate was wooden, and the loading was carried out from the muzzle.
The 3-inch (76-mm) mortar had a brass sleeve from the 76-mm gun mod. 1902 For strength, the barrel was fastened with iron rings. The breech of the barrel was connected to the base plate by means of a hinge. By rearranging the front support of the mortar along the toothed rack on the base plate, it was possible to obtain elevation angles from 30 to 60 °. The firing range is about 100 m.
The 107-mm mortar had the same design, the body of which was made from the 107-mm brass sleeve of the 42-line gun mod. 1910 Both mortars were carried by hand.
At the beginning of 1915, Russian Colonel Stender designed a mortar whose body was the body of a 152 mm projectile. Rejected 152-mm naval armor-piercing shells were reamed from the inside to a diameter of 127 mm. The shooting was carried out with 127-mm cylindrical mines made of sheet iron. The mine was loaded with 6, 1 kg of TNT or a poisonous substance. With a propellant charge of 102 grams of black powder, the firing range was about 360 m. The loading was carried out from the muzzle. First, bags with a charge were dropped, then a mine. In 1915, 330 Stender mortars were ordered to Polyakov's plant.
Sometimes in the units they created "homemade products on the knee", rigidly fixing the iron pipe on a wooden block. As the deputy chief of GAU EZ Barsukov wrote, "the range of such bombers did not exceed hundreds of steps, they fired with" buckshot "from the material at hand, and the shooting was not safe for the shooters themselves and required caution."
"Mortar of the impostor" has pins in the middle
Note that in 1914-1917 one and the same system was called both a bomber and a mortar. A number of generals believed that the bomb launcher was a weapon firing a fragmentation shell, and a mortar was a high-explosive one. In the early 1920s, the term "bomber" fell out of use.
On November 5, 1914, the troops of the III Siberian corps between the lakes Bulepo and Tirkalo, the Germans captured a 170-mm mortar from the Erhardt plant arr. 1912 and one shell for it.
The 170-mm mortar was delivered to the Main Artillery Range (GAP). On February 7, 1915, this mortar was ordered to be delivered to the Putilov factory.
The plant asked to reduce the caliber from 170 mm to 152 mm and introduce a rotary mechanism based on the prototype mortar designed by the plant, as well as simplify the platform.
The prototype of the 6-inch mortar was completed by the Putilov plant in mid-September 1915. During the tests, the cradle was found to be fragile, which, deforming, jammed the barrel of the mortar. The mirror periscope to the sight turned out to be inconvenient, and the plant suggested replacing it with a simple sighting tube. It was finally decided to stop at three grooves with a steepness of 5 °, as in the 6-inch mortar of the Metal Plant. Tests on the HAP were resumed on October 22, 1915.
The barrel of a 6-inch mortar from the Putilov plant is a monoblock pipe, closed from the breech. In the bottom part, the channel ends with a chamber for placing a charge. The channel had three grooves with a depth of 3.05 mm for shells with ready-made protrusions. Loading was done from the muzzle.
The compressor is hydraulic, it consisted of two cylinders located above and below the barrel. The knurler consisted of two columns of coil springs embedded in the compressor cylinders. Recoil length is normal - 200 mm, maximum - 220 mm.
The lifting mechanism is a sector attached to the left trunnion of the cradle. The elevation angle was possible up to + 75 °.
The machine rotated around a pin on the platform. The sector-type rotary mechanism allowed a horizontal guidance angle of 20 °. The machine was a box-shaped structure riveted from two stamped steel beds, interconnected by cross ties.
The machine was installed on a wooden platform. When firing, the platform was set on the ground. For transportation, wooden wheels were put on the trunnions of the platform.
The mortar could be moved manually like a wheelbarrow, with the muzzle forward. One number of the crew was holding on to the drawbar, and two or three numbers in the front were harnessed to the straps thrown over the shoulder.
For movement in narrow places, the mortar was easily disassembled into parts: a) barrel with gun carriage; b) platform; c) wheels, drawbar, rule, etc.
The weight of the system in the firing position was 372.6 kg, and in the stowed position - 441.4 kg.
The 6-inch mortars of the Putilov factory were fired with a high-explosive cast iron caliber bomb weighing 20.7 kg and a length of 2.3 clb. Explosive - 3, 9 kg of ammonal.
Three leading protrusions made of bronze, copper or brass were screwed into the lateral surface of the bomb near the bottom.
The same shells were fired by 6-inch mortars of the Petrograd Metal Plant. With an initial speed of 99 m / s, the firing range was about 853 m.
The mortar of the Metal Plant was significantly more technologically advanced and cheaper due to the abolition of recoil devices and a horizontal guidance mechanism. Its weight in combat position was only 210 kg.
Mortars that fired over-caliber mines were much more widespread. As an example, consider the 47-mm mortar of the Likhonin system.
47-mm mortar Likhonin
The mortar was designed by Captain E. A. Likhonin with the assistance of engineers from the Izhora Steel Works. The first 47-mm mortar Likhonin was tested on May 22, 1915. A total of 767 47-mm Likhonin mortars were manufactured at the plant.
The mortar consisted of a mortar body, a castle, a carriage with a sector, a plumb line and a protractor.
The barrel had a smooth channel for placing the tail of the projectile, a chamber for placing a cartridge case with a charge, and a threaded part for placing a lock. Steel barrel. Pins are forged along with the barrel.
The loading of the mortar was carried out as follows: the loader opened the lock, put the cartridge case with the charge into the chamber, lowered the lock by the handle into the rifled part of the gun barrel and turned it clockwise to failure. Further, the tail (ramrod) of the mines was lowered into the muzzle of the barrel. Before the shot, the loader delayed the trigger, then threw back the safety catch and pulled the cord attached to the tail of the trigger.
The carriage with a sector consisted of two iron frames connected by brackets for carrying the mortar and a sheet forming the base. Attached to this sheet is a bracket for driving an iron stake into the ground and a square for attaching the rule.
The vertical guidance mechanism constructively provided an elevation angle from 0 ° to 70 °, but at angles less than 35 °, it was not recommended to shoot, since the carriage could overturn.
For firing a mortar, three numbers of calculation are required, for laying mines - three more.
On the battlefield, the mortar was carried by one or two numbers of the calculation. For transportation served as a wheel drive, consisting of two wheels, put on a steel axle. For the convenience of transporting the mortar, an iron rule with a handle was inserted into the carriage. The mortar can also be carried manually with four numbers, for which sticks were inserted into the staples. The weight of the mortar in the firing position is 90, 1–99 kg.
The mortar was attached to the ground with an iron stake driven through a hole in the base of the gun carriage.
The rate of fire of the mortar is up to 4 rounds per minute.
The mortar ammunition consisted of three types of over-caliber mines. The most commonly used 180-mm high-explosive mines with an iron welded hull. At the bottom there was a hole for screwing in the tail, to which four iron wings of the stabilizer were riveted. Mine weight 21-23 kg (with a ramrod), length 914 mm. The mine is equipped with 9.4 kg of ammonal. Fuse - shock tube mod. 1884 or 13 GT. With an initial speed of 60 m / s, the maximum firing range of a 180-mm welded mine was 320 m.
In 1916-1917 Russia received fifty 9, 45-inch heavy English mortars and one hundred and ten - 58-mm French mortars.
9.45-inch (240-mm) short-barreled English mortar of the Batignolles system was created according to a blind scheme. There were no recoil devices. The mortar barrel is smooth. A breech with trunnions was screwed onto the barrel, which were inserted into the underpins of the machine. The lifting mechanism had two sectors.
The base is metal rectangular. The platform is wooden. To install the mortar, it was required to dig a hole with a length of 1.41 m, a width of 1.6 m and a depth of 0.28 m.
The weight of the system in the firing position is 1147 kg.
Loading was done from the muzzle. A steel caliber mine weighing 68.4 kg (with a stabilizer). The length of the mine without a fuse is 1049 mm. The weight of the explosive in a mine is 23 kg of ammonal or ammatol. With an initial speed of 116 m / s, the firing range was 1044 m. The rate of fire was one shot in 6 minutes.
British 9, 45-inch mortars turned out to be very dangerous for calculations, as they often gave premature bursts of mines, so after 1917 they were not used in our country.
76 mm and 42 lines (107-mm) artisanal mortars 1914-1915
On October 3, 1932, at NIAP, tests were carried out on a 240-mm Batignol mortar, converted for a gas-dynamic charge ignition scheme. For this, the mortar was equipped with a special chamber connected with a 40-mm nozzle to the barrel bore. The shooting was carried out with a 10/1 mark weighing 900 g and an igniter of 45 g of black powder. The initial velocity of the projectile in the first three shots was 120-140 m / s. On the fourth shot, the chamber was torn apart, and the tests were terminated.
For all their shortcomings, mortars were a very effective weapon of the First World War. Placed in forward trenches, mortars hit enemy defensive structures - dugouts, trenches, wire and other obstacles. One of the important tasks of mortars was the destruction of machine guns and trench artillery - 37-47-mm guns and mortars. In the Russian "Manual for the fight for fortified zones", published in 1917, it was required that groups of mortars must work under the cover of artillery. Under this condition, the impression was created that only heavy batteries were firing, and the active mortars did not attract the attention of the enemy.
Mortars have proven to be a very effective means of delivering chemical munitions. So, in July 1918, during an offensive near the city of Dormann on the Marne River, the Germans opened hurricane fire with chemical mines from thousands of medium and heavy mortars.
The role of mortars in the Civil War was much less than in the war of 1914-1917. This was due to the transience of hostilities and the lack of mobile mortars.
In the first 10 years of the existence of Soviet power, most of the mortars in the Red Army were of pre-revolutionary systems, both domestic and foreign. The 58-mm FR and Dumezil mortars lasted the longest. By November 1, 1936, there were 340 of them in the Red Army, of which 66 required major repairs.
Since the mid-1920s, the design of new types of mortars began. Several dozen projects of heavy and medium mortars were developed, carried out according to a blind scheme, and several hundred such mortars were manufactured.
Documentation for Soviet mortars, created in 1925-1930, is still kept in archives under the heading "secret". The fact is that they were created for both high-explosive and chemical shells. The mortar was immediately tested by firing chemical ammunition, and there was … let's say, a lot of exotic things, such as experimental animals, and they say that not only animals.
During the conflict with China on the Sino-Eastern Railway in 1929, units of the Special Far Eastern Army captured, among other trophies, several Chinese 81-mm mortars made according to the scheme of an imaginary triangle with a rectangular base plate and had a Stokes-Brandt ignition system.
With these mortars, a new history of domestic mortars began.
