Stokes mortar

“ With strong, sure strokes the three naked men shot out into the stream and past its center—seemingly unobserved. It began to look as though they would gain the other side unseen by the enemy. But suddenly, from the loop-holed section, came spiteful little squirts of fire. Against that fire only the mortar could cope—and the mortar had turned its attention elsewhere. Tiny geysers kicked themselves up where the Mauser bullets struck and skipped on the water. The roar from the Shirt-tailers rose in louder indignation, and the crew serving the mortar was feverishly refinding the range. ”

“ If, on the other hand, he cries, “Mortar!” you will be struck by a regular, not disagreeable hissing, which has no connection in your mind with anything terrible. It comes nearer and with greater rapidity. You see the black ball fall to the ground, and the bomb-shell burst with a metallic cracking. The pieces fly in air, whistling and screeching; stones hit each other, and mud splashes over you. You feel a strange mixture of pleasure and fright at these different sounds. At the instant the projectile reaches you, you invariably think it will kill you. ”

“ If the trunnion of a gun breaks in the discharge, or a quoin flies out, the shot is materially affected; never ranging, under such circumstances, the accustomed distance, nor with its usual accuracy. Practice with mortars proves beyond dispute the necessity of a firm base for the gun, for with a much less charge they project a greater mass farther. [72] A mortar discharged on land, exceeds in range the same description of gun on board of ship, or on the best-constructed platform. ”

“ A cloud came into being from the explosion of a mortar shell, and two men dropped to the ground. In answer to the mortar, the flaring barrel of a tank gun spoke hoarsely, and half the crew of the mortar fell in turn. But there seemed no end to this deadly dialogue. The next moment there came the burst of a bomb from a low-flying plane, and the tank half turned over on its side, a heap of smoking steel. ”

“ The bombardments now became daily, and all our efforts at retaliation either with artillery or trench mortars proved entirely ineffectual. There was nothing we could do except clear as many men as possible away from the danger area, and come back at dusk to rebuild our parapet. Towards the end of the tour the Boche started firing rifle grenades before each mortar, so that we should stoop to avoid the former and so miss seeing the flight of the latter. ”

“ A great number of moorings, of this sort, are fixed in the royal ports, or the harbours adjacent to the king’s dock-yards, as Deptford, Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth, &c.
MORTAR, a piece of artillery, shorter and wider than the cannon, and having a chamber different from the size of its bore.
Mortars are used in the attack of a fortified place, by sea, to discharge bombs or carcases amongst the buildings. The bomb is a great hollow ball, filled with powder, which, falling into the works of a fortification, &c. destroys the most substantial buildings by its weight ”

“ Their guns are in hollows and used as mortars out of range of ours and we can do no better than let them shoot. A good many of our boys are burrowing into the hillside. We received the melancholy news last evening of the death of Dare. Poor fellow! he was a good soldier and a true patriot. One shell from the Rebs’ old mortar fell directly into the tent of Stolbrand (chief of artillery on Logan’s staff) bursting in the ground, tearing everything to pieces, and scattering dirt on the writing desks in other tents, but strange to tell, no one was hurt. ”

“ But his glassy eyes stare, and his face is bloodless and grey, while a large hole in his chest shows where the enemy shrapnel smote him.
Corpses of dead Germans are piled, in places, one over the other, some showing terrible gaping wounds, some headless, some stripped of all or part of their clothing, by the terrific explosion of a great shell which rent their garments from them. In more than one place old graves have been blown sky-high, and huddled skeletons, still clad in the rags of a uniform, lie stark under the open sky. ”

“ Whenever a severe mortar fire was opened upon his line of pits, he would station himself in a peculiarly exposed position on top of the [227] earth mound that protected his magazine. From that point he could direct the work of every gun under his command and at the same time do much for the protection of his men. A mortar shell can be seen in the air—particularly at night, when its flaming fuse is a torch—and its point of contact and explosion can be calculated with a good deal of precision. ”

“ The terre-plein may be placed at any convenient depth below the surface of the ground, and the revetment of the interior slope, if any be used, will not ordinarily be carried higher than the muzzle of the mortar. As the traverses are not subject to gun-fire, the splinter-proofs afforded by the central passage may be added to by building others along both sides of the traverse; and by deepening the mortar emplacement sufficiently, they may be given enough cover to make them true bomb-proofs. ”

“ On the earth, torn up by a recent explosion, were lying, here and there, broken beams, crushed bodies of Russians and French, heavy cast-iron cannon overturned into the ditch by a terrible force, half buried in the ground and forever dumb, bomb-shells, balls, splinters of beams, ditches, bomb-proofs, and more corpses, in blue or in gray overcoats, which seemed to have been shaken by supreme convulsions, and which were lighted up now every instant by the red fire of the explosions which resounded in the air. ”

“ Direction of fire may be secured at night with mortars by nailing or screwing two boards to the platform outside of the cheeks, and the elevation by drawing a line across one of the trunnions, or by inserting a wedge-shaped block of the proper inclination below the mortar and the front transom or step. Night-firing with guns should be limited to a small number of rounds, as it consumes ammunition to little advantage. ”

“ As soon as regular siege operations began, the Federals set to work establishing mortar batteries at every available point. Mortars are very short guns fired at a high “elevation”; that is, pointing upward at an angle of forty-five degrees to the horizon, or more than that, so as to throw shells high in air and let them fall perpendicularly upon an enemy’s works, breaking down defences and reaching points in rear of works to which ordinary cannon fire cannot penetrate. ”

“ But enough of them struck the ground on the cemetery and exploded there, to scatter death and destruction among the men immediately around, and to shatter gravestones and blow up ammunition caissons. But as most of them flew over us, rushing, screaming, whirring, and as they burst above, and sent down their deadly fragments, they added to the hellish din a peculiarly malicious noise of their own. How would the men endure this frightful experience? One of the hardest trials of the courage and steadfastness of the soldier is to stand still and be shot at without being able to reply. ”

“ A mortar is a short, stout cannon designed to throw shells into fortifications. This is accomplished by elevating the muzzle a great deal. But the higher the elevation the greater the strain upon the gun. For this reason it is that they are made so short and thick. They can be elevated so as to drop a shell just inside a fort, whereas a cannon-ball would either strike it on the outside, or pass over it far to the rear.
A 13-INCH MORTAR.
Mortars were used very little as compared with cannon. ”

“ If a small quantity of powdered charcoal and hyper-oxymuriate of potash be rubbed together in a mortar, an explosion will be produced, and the charcoal inflamed. Three parts of this salt, and one of sulphur, rubbed together in a mortar, produce a violent detonation. If struck with a hammer on an anvil, there is an explosion like the report of a pistol. ”

“ Because of the difficulty of supply only two mortars were taken forward with each heavy-weapons company, the balance of the personnel being used as ammunition carriers. Troops frequently remarked that if given the choice of rations or 81mm mortar ammunition, they would gladly take the latter.
“While the 37mm AT gun is admittedly a weapon of opportunity in jungle warfare, there were two occasions on which it served us handsomely. The Nips had a field piece located where it could interdict our beachhead at Laiana. Scouts located the gun, but our mortar fire couldn’t silence it. ”

“ It was intended that one 13-inch mortar, of enormous weight, should be put upon each, that these mortars should be fired with twenty-three pounds of powder, and that the shell thrown should, at a distance of three miles, fall with absolute precision into any devoted town which the rebels might hold on the river banks. The grandeur of the idea is almost sublime. ”

“ The fact that the shooting powers of a gun are increased by its being fixed in an immoveable frame, is proved with the practice of mortars. Mortars on iron beds, and these firmly embedded in the earth, will throw a shell farther when on the ground than when placed on a platform, or on board a ship. It is for the purpose of destroying the recoil, that mortars for sea service, though of the same calibre as those intended for land-service, are made three times the weight. ”

“ Papers, kits, water-bottles, rifles, helmets, bayonets, smoke goggles, rations, and ammunition are scattered everywhere in confusion. Some of the débris is battered to bits, some in perfect condition. Shell-cases, shell-noses, and shrapnel pellets lie everywhere, and there arises from the ground that peculiar, terrible odour of blood, bandages, and death, an odour always dreaded and never to be forgotten. In one German dug-out three men [105] were killed as they lay, and sat, sleeping. Some one has put a sock over their faces ”

“ Hundreds of machine-guns were used on both sides, and yet the slaughter was not at all in proportion to the amount of ammunition expended. As in all battles, according to my experience, the principal part of the destruction was due to infantry fire. Of course the loss of life was very great. I can only say the ground was heaped with dead and dying. At each successive assault the Germans mounted the heaps of corpses to get at our men and, falling on their comrades, caused the slain to lie in heaps and ridges in an extraordinary and dreadful way. ”

“ There is also a kind of land-mortars, mounted on travelling carriages, invented by count Buckeburg, which may be elevated to any degree; whereas the British as we have already stated, are fixed to an angle of 45 degrees, and are firmly lashed with ropes.
Partridge Mortar, is a common mortar, surrounded by 13 other little mortars, bored round its circumference in the body of its metal. The centre one is loaded with a shell, and the others with grenades. The vent of the large mortar being fired, communicates its fire to the small ones; so that both shell and grenades go off at once. ”

“ He was, I knew, an excellent shot.
“Let two others go to the left and try to find a way down the cliff before us. When they have descended to the level of the valley—path or no path—let them advance cautiously and secretly, keeping their guns in readiness. But they must not fire till need. Remember, my brothers,” said, turning to those who stepped out a pace or two to the left, “that the first shot gives the warning which will be the signal for the Voivodin’s death. These men will not hesitate. You must judge yourselves of the time to shoot. ”

“ I am told they were obliged to have the mortar [106] slung in chains at the time of firing it, the concussion being so great as to destroy the bed in which it was fixed. As may be supposed, there was constant war between our fort Puntalis, before mentioned, and the enemy's batteries on this point; in fact our people had orders to throw a thirteen-inch shell every quarter of an hour, besides the occasional firing from the guns and other mortars when any thing appeared on the opposite side; and you may be certain the French were not behind us in the expenditure of ammunition ”

“ The nocturnal rustling of the field surrounded me, the dead men lay everywhere and anyhow, some head-downwards in shell-holes, others sitting upright as they were caught by a fatal bullet when dressing their wounds. Many were spread out at full length, their legs close together, their arms extended, crucifixes fashioned from decaying flesh wrapped in khaki. Nature, vast and terrible, stretched out on all sides; a red star-shell in the misty heavens looked like a lurid wound dripping with blood. ”

“ It means practically that No Man’s Land in the future will be just as wide as the extreme range of these crude mortars—and here a word of caution. While efforts have been made to increase the range of these mortars, whether of the Livens’ projector or Stokes’ variety, no further increase will be attempted when that increase reduces the speed of firing or the efficiency of the projectile. ”

“ The whizz of arrows, the crash of descending tomahawks, and the sharp rifle-shot, mingled horribly with the groans, the cries, and oaths of the murderers and the murdered. The floor of that log-house was heaped with the dying and the dead, yet the fight raged on with a fiercer and more blood-thirsty violence, till the savages prowled among the slain like a host of incarnate fiends, slaking their vengeance on the wounded and the dead, for want of other victims. ”