The Crystal Gazer

 HlTLER’S FANTASY OF IMPERIAL DOMINATION


 " The German Chancellor" said Mr Chamberlain in the House of Commons on
01st September. " has not hesitated to plunge the world into misery in order to serve
his own senseless ambition." What form that ambition takes is described below.

  Just as 1914 Kaiser Wilhelm and his fellow Pan-Germans planned and worked for a
German Empire which should stretch from the North Sea to Bagdad and possibly far
beyond, so Hitler dreams of a great nazi dominion. Under Hitler however, the Drang
nach Sued-Osten (The Drive to the south east) of the Berlin Bagdad railway, of Mittel- 
Europa, has been reinforced by a religious urge.

   Like the Kaiser, Hitler believes that he is inspired by God -- the "good old german god" 
of whom we heard so much in the last war -- but he displays a mystical fanaticism which
would have been altogether alien to the character of the Kaiser, brought up as he was on
the lines of Victorian evangelism. Hitler see himself as the captain of a crusade aiming
at the domination of Europe's lesser breeds by men of the pure Nordic or Ayran race. With 
fanatical fervour he has preached his gospel from a thousand platforms and in all the
seven hundred pages of  "Mein Kampf" -- than book which is put into the hands of every
newly-married couple in the Nazi Reich.

  There is imperialism enough in all conscience in "Mein Kampf," but it is still more clearly in
evidence  in that book which has been called the New Testament of Nazism - "The Myth of
the Twentieth Century," published in 1930 by Alfred Rosenberg, the Russian refugee of 
German extraction who greatly influenced Hitler in his most impressionable early years,
and who has become the priest and prophet of Pan-German Aryanism.

  In this remarkable effusion, which is now in its 110th edition and of which more than half 
million copies have been sold, Rosenberg visual

ises a German empire which shall i
include not only Germany but all the adjacent lands in which there is a German or an Aryan
population. First Austria, he prophesied, would come into the fold, and next the Sudeten
Germans; somewhat later the Teutons of Alsace-Lorraine, Switzerland,  Luxenberg, Belguim,
Holland, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and Hungary will follow suit. Sometimes the union will
be effected voluntarily; sometimes force of arms will be neccessary. But no obstacle, however
great, can stop this growth of Germany as the imperial power of ceneral and south-eastern Europe,

  Not only the German-speaking parts of the continent are to be come under the Reich. The 
Germans will play their part as the supermen of Nietsche's creed, and they will have their 
willing and devoted slaves many other races on their border lands. Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
and Finland are to form a "Northern Germanic Federation"; Jugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria 
are to  constitute the "Balkan Protectorate"; Lithuania, Latvia, and Etsonia are to be a "Baltic
Dominion"; and finally, the Russian Ukraine, together with Ruthenia and the Polish Ukraine, will 
form the vast "Ukrainian Dominion.'

More Room for Germans!

  "We demand land and soil (Colonies) for the nourishment of our people and the settlement of
our surplus population," declares the third article of the original programme of the Nazi party,
issue in 1920, four years before the birth of "Mein Kampf"; and in "Mein Kampf" Hitler urges again
and again the German right to unhammpered expansion. Before the end of the twentieth century,
he says, the world shall see 250 million Germans flourishing in the heart of the European continent.
Nazi Germany's appetite for colonial expansion will not be sated until her bounds extend from
the Atlantic and the English Channel to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

   "Then the plough will be the sword," runs a passage in "Mein Kampf," "and out of the tears
of  war will grow the harvest of future days." 

The Plan in Operation.

     Step by step the great dream, fantastic though it may appear, has been carried into realisation.
Austria has returned to the Reich as Hitler and Rosenberg declared it should and would; the Sude-
ten Germans have returned, too, and Czechslovakia was wiped out inthe  process; the Germans in 
Memel and Danzig and the Tyrol have all returned or returning by one way or another to their
 "Homeland."

   Then somewhere, somehow, the plan has gone wrong. Instead of executing the Drang nach 
Sued-Osten to the oilfields of Rumania and the rich corn lands of the Ukraine, Hitler has flung his
 legions against Poland, which up to now has played very little part in the dreams of Pan-Germanism; 
in the map illustrating Rosenberg's scheme of German expansion, for instance, practically the whole
of Poland -- including even the Corridor -- is left outside the imperial limits.

   Moreover, in one of his most cynical moments, Hitler has shaken hand with Moscow, with the 
Bolshevik monster whom he has so often and so violently denounced, and so closed the door, for
the time, at least, on his expansion towards the south-east.

   The Kaiser in his day made a similar move. Just as Hitler has attacked Poland, so the last of the 
Hohenzollerns in 1914 swept through Belguim. And Hitler should have remembered that then Britain
stood by Belguim.   ... He should have thought of that -- and thought again.

German Maschinenpistole 40 (Machine Pistol 40 / MP 40)

The MP 40 descended from its predecessor the MP 38, which was in turn based on the MP 36,
a prototype made of machined steel. The MP 36 was developed independently by Erma
Werke's Berthold Geipel with funding from the German Army. It took design elements
from Heinrich Vollmer's VPM 1930 and EMP. Vollmer then worked on Berthold Geipel's MP 36
and in 1938 submitted a prototype to answer a request from the Heereswaffenamt (Army
Weapons Office) for a new submachine gun, which was adopted as MP 38. The MP 38 was a
simplification of the MP 36, and the MP 40 was a further simplification of the MP 38, with
certain cost-saving alterations, most notably in the more extensive use of stamped steel rather
than machined parts. 

The MP 40 was often called the "Schmeisser" by the Allies, after the weapon designer Hugo
Schmeisser. Schmeisser had designed the MP 18, which was the first mass-produced
submachine gun. He did not, however, have anything to do with the design or development of
the MP 40, although he held a patent on the magazine
The MP 40 submachine guns are open-bolt, blowback-operated automatic arms. The only
mode of fire was fully automatic, but the relatively low rate of fire enabled single shots with
controlled trigger pulls. The bolt features a telescoping return spring guide which serves as a
pneumatic recoil buffer. The cocking handle was permanently attached to the bolt on early MP
38s, but on late production MP 38s and MP 40s, the bolt handle was made as a separate
part. It also served as a safety by pushing the head of the handle into one of two separate
notches above the main opening; this action locked the bolt either in the cocked (rear) or
uncocked (forward) position. The absence of this feature on early MP 38s resulted in field
expedients such as leather harnesses with a small loop that were used to hold the bolt in the
forward position.
The MP 38 receiver was made of machined steel, but this was a time-consuming and
expensive process. To save time and materials, and thus increase production, construction of
the MP 40 receiver was simplified by using stamped steel and electro-spot welding as much as
possible. The MP 38 also features longitudinal grooving on the receiver and bolt, as well as a
circular opening on the magazine housing. These features were eliminated on the MP 40.
One unique feature found on most MP 38 and MP 40 submachine guns was an aluminum,
steel, or Bakelite resting bar or support under the barrel. This was used to steady the weapon
when firing over the side of open-top armored personnel carriers such as the Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack.
A hand guard, made of a synthetic material derived from Bakelite, was located between
the magazine housing and the pistol grip. The barrel lacked any form of insulation, which often
resulted in burns on the supporting hand if it was incorrectly positioned. The MP 40 also had a
forward-folding metal stock, the first for a submachine gun, resulting in a shorter overall
weapon when folded. However, this stock design was at times insufficiently durable for hard
combat use.


Cartridge 9×19mm Parabellum
Effective firing range: 100–200 m
Maximum firing range: 250 m
Rate of fire: 500–550 rounds/min
Place of origin: Nazi Germany
Barrel length: 251 mm (9.9 in)
Overall length 833 mm (32.8 in) stock extended, 630 mm (24.8 inches) stock folded
Weight 3.97 kg (8.75 lb
Unit cost: 57 RM (1940); 230 EUR current equivalent
Designer: Heinrich Vollmer; Berthold Geipel
Produced 1940–1945
No. built 1,100,000 (estimated
Manufacturer Steyr-Mannlicher
Erma Werke
Haenel
Variants MP 36
MP 38
MP 40
MP 40/1
MP 41



A modern round consists of the following:
1. bullet, as the projectile;
2. cartridge case, which holds all parts together;
3. propellant, for example gunpowder or cordite;
4. rim, which provides the extractor on the
firearm a place to grip the casing to remove
it from the chamber once fired;
5. primer, which ignites the propellant.

Panzerkampfwagen VI iger Tiger heavy Tank

 

  As far back as 1938 it has been realized that the PzKpfw IV tank would have to
be replaced by a more modem design some time in the future. Various prototypes
were built by a number of German companies, but none was placed in production.
 
   In 1941 an order was placed with Henschel for a 36-ton tank called the VK3,601
which was required to have a maximum speed of 40 km/h (25 mph), good armour protection
and a powerful gun. A prototype of this tank was built but further work was stopped as
an order was placed in May 1941 for a 45-ton tank called the VK4501. This was to be
armed with a tank version of the dreaded 88-mm (3.46-in) AA anti-tank gun, which had
then become the scourge of European armies. It was required that the prototype be ready for
testing on Hitler's next birthday, 20th April 1942. As time was short Henschel incorporated
ideas from the VK3601 and another tank called the VK 3001 (H).

   The end product was the VK4501 (H), the letter suffix standing for Heschel Porsche also
went ahead with its own design and built the VKVK4501 (Porsche) to meet the same
requirement. Both prototypes were completed in time to be demonstrated on on Hitler's
birthday, and the Henschel design was selected for production in August 1942 under
the designation PzKpfw VI Tiger Ausf E (SdkFZ 181).

   The Tiger was in production from August 1942 to August 1944, a total of 1,350 vechicles
being built. It was then succeeded in production by the Tiger II or King Tiger for which there
is a separate entry. In case trials proved the VIK4501 (H) a failure, a batch of 90 VK 4501 (P)
tanks was ordered, and these were subsequently completed as 88-mm (3.46-in) tank destroyers
under the designation Panzerjager Tiger (P) Ferdinand (SdKfz 184). The vehicle was named after
 its designer, Dr. Ferninand Porsche.

   There were three variants of the Tiger, these being the Tiger command tank (Befehlspanzer Tiger)
which was the basic gun tank with its main armament removed, but fitted with a winch but no crane,
and the Sturmtiger which had a new superstructure fitted with a 38-cm [14.96-in] 1"), Type 61 rocket-
launcher with limited traverse; only 10 of the last were built.

   For its time the_ Tiger was an out-standing design with a powerful gun and good armour,
but it was also too compicated arid therefore difficult to produce. One of its major drawbacks
was its overlapping wheel suspension which became clogged with mud and stones. On the Eastern Front  this could he disastrous as during winter nights the mud froze and by the morning the tank had been immobilized, often at the exact time the Soviets would attack, When the vehicle traveled on roads
a 51.5-cm [20.3-in] wide track was fitted, while a 71,5-cm [28,1-in) wide track was used for travel
across country or in comhat as this gave a  lower ground pressure and so improved traction.

   Main armament comprised an 88-mm (3.46-in) KwK 36 gun, with a 7.92- mm (0.31-in) MG34 machine-gun co-axial with e main armament and a similar weapon hall-mounted in the hull front on the right, Totals of 84rounds of 88-mm (3.-16-in) and 5:850 rounds of_machine-gun ammunition were carried.

The Tiger was first encountered in Tunisia by the British army and from
then on appeared on all of the German fronts.

Specification
PzKpfw V1 Tiger AusfE Y1 Tiger AusfE
Crew:5
Weight: 55000 kg (121,250 lb)
Dimensions: length (including armament: 8,24m (270ft )in): length
(Hull): 6.20m (20ft 4 in)
(Width 3.73m (12ft 3in)
(Height): 2.86m (9ft.25in)
[h1.1l26;2[JmL2(J ft-1 in); widLh3.T;3[m
[12 31n];he1ght2.S6m[9ft3.2>1n]

Powerplant: one Maybach HL 230P45
12 Cylinder petrol engine developing 700hp (522kW)
Performance: maximum road speed38 KM (24 mph)
maximum range road 100Km (62 miles)
fording 1.2m (3ft 11in)
Gradient 60 per cent
Vertical obstacle 0.79m (2ft 7in) Trench 1.8m (5ft ll-in).

Flakpanzer IV/2cm Vierling

 

Other designation: Wirbelwind, Pz Fgst IV/3

Type: Anti-aircraft tank on obsolete tank chassis.

Manufacturer: Ostbau

Chassis Nos:   82001 - 90000

86 converted from Pz Kpfw IV from July to November 1944.

1 prototype converted in May 1944.

Crew 5

Weight:  22 tons

Length:  5.92 metres

Width:    2.9 metres

Height:   2.76 metres

Engine:    Maybach HL120TRM

Gearbox: 6 Forward  1 Reverse

Speed:     38  (km/hr)

Range:    200 (km)

Radio:      FuG5+FuG2

Armament: One 2cm Flakvierling

                   One 7.92mm MG34 38

Tranverse:              360⁰ (hand)

Elevation:             -10⁰ +90⁰

Sight:  Flakvisler   38/40.   KgZF2

Ammunition           3.200   1,350

Armour (mm/ angle)

                                Front.      Side.        Rear.       Top/Bottom

Turret.                   16/25⁰       16/36⁰      16/22⁰      -22⁰  open

Superstructure.      80/10⁰       30/0⁰        20/11⁰       12/85⁰ -90⁰

Hull.                      80/12⁰       30/0⁰        20/9⁰         10/90⁰

Gun Shield.           10/round

History: The Wirbelwind was developed as a mount for anti-aircraft guns on Pz Kpfw IV chassis which had been returned from the front for major overhaul. They were intended to supplement production of the Mobelwagen. In the autumn of 1944 production of the Wirbelwind ceased since the 2cm Flakvierling was not proving so effective as the 3.7cm Flak.

Specific features: The turret was removed  from normal Pz  Kpfw IV and replaced by an open-topped turret, in which the Flakvierling 38 was mounted. Some vehicles had only 50mm frontal armour since early Ausf F to G were converted for use as the chassis.

Combat service:  Issued to the Flugabwehzug (AA platoons) of Panzer regiments in Panzer divisions

Pannzerkampfwagen I Ausf A ohne Aufbau.:

Pannzerkampfwagen I Ausf A ohne Aufbau.:

Other designation: Krupp Traktor LaS
Type: Light armoured tracked vehicle for training use.
Manufacturer: Henschel, MAN Daimler - Benz Rheinmetall-Borsig
Chassie Nos: 8011-9000
15 produced from February to April 1934
Crew 2
Engine Krupp M305
Gearbox 5 Forward/ 1 Reverse
Speed. 37 (km/hr)
Range. 145 (km)
Weight: 3.5 (tons)
Length: 4.02 (Metre)
Width: 2.06 (Metre)
Height: 1.15 (Metre)

Armor (mm/angel) Front. Side
Hull. 13/27⁰ 13/0⁰
Rear. Top/Bottom
13/15⁰ 6/90⁰

History: Prevented by the Treaty of Versailles from possessing of manufacturing tanks or similarly designed armoured fighting vehicles, Germany skirted the treaty restrictions by producing fifteen tank hulls without superstructure, turrets or armaments. To speed production experience as far as possible, five companies had been selected in 1933 to produce three vehicles each. The official designation, 'Land-wirtschaftlicher Schlepper' (agricultural tractor) helped disguise the fact that any type of tracked armoured vehicle was being manufactured.
Specific features: This vehicle had fully-tracked armoured hull. The suspension consisted of a sprocket, 4 road wheels, a fifth larger road wheel (also acting as an idler) and 3 return rollers. The forward road wheel was cushioned by a coil spring and hydraulic shock absorber. The other 4 road wheels were mounted in pairs, cushioned by leaf springs supported by a girder. This girder was all that remained of a suspension design which back to development from a Carden-Lloyd design.
Combat service: Designed as a training vehicle, the turretless Krupp Traktor was not intended for combat. In the Spring of 1934, it was issued to the first Panzer regiments. Kraftfahrlehrkommando (Motorization Instructional Command) Zossen und Ohrdruf to give the troops their first experience of driving a fully tracked armoured vehicle.

 

Aircraft, Gliders

A glider is an aircraft without an engine that is most often
released into flight by an aerial tow aircraft. During World
War II, both the Axis and Allied Militaries developed gliders
to transport troops, supplies, and equipment into battle. This
technique had been discussed prior to the war but never
implemented. These motorless aircraft would crash-land
behind enemy lines, often at night, and the men aboard them
would then become infantrymen on the ground.

The Germans were first to recognize the potential of gliders
 in the war, in large part because of extensive pre World
War II scientific research and sport use of them. The Germans
embraced gliding because it did not violate military prohibi-
tions in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. Soaring clubs, which
developed in other countries as well, increased interest in glid-
ing worldwide. Sport gliders used air currents to climb and
soar for extended periods, while military gliders descended on
release from aerial tows.

By the late 1930s, Germany had developed a military
glider, the DFS-230. Built of plywood, steel, and fabric, it had
a wingspan of 68 ft 5.5 inches, length 0f 36 ft 10.5 inches, and
height of8 ft 11.75 inches. It weighed 1,896 lb empty and had
a maximum weight loaded with troops and cargo of 4,630 lb.
A total of 1,022 were produced. This glider was designed to
mount a machine gun, which the crew could use for defense.
DPS-230 gliders were employed in the invasion of Belgium
and the Netherlands in May 1940, especially in securing Fort
Eben Emael, which was the key to securing Belgium. The Ger-
mans also used gliders in the invasion of Crete and during
fighting in the Soviet Union at Stalingrad.



The Gotha 242 glider was larger than the DPS-230 and
could carry more troops. It had a wingspan of80 ft 4.5 inches,
length of 51 ft 10 inches, and height of 14 ft 4.5 inches. It
weighed 7,056 lb empty and 13,665 lb fully loaded. A total of
1,528 were built. Some were launched by rockets, but most
were simply towed by aircraft. Approximately 1,500 Go-242s
were produced, of which 133 which adapted into Go-244s,
which had twin engines. The huge Messerschmitt Me-321
glider had a wingspan of 180 ft 5.5 inches, length of 92 ft 4.25
inches, and height of 33 ft 3.4 inches. It weighed 27,432 lb
empty and 75,852 lb fully loaded. lt could perform level flight
after rocket-assisted takeoff. A total of 200 were built. The Me-
321 could transport 200 troops but was difficult to launch, and
most were transformed into the six»engine Me»323.

Great Britain was the first Allied nation to deploy gliders.
The Air Ministry’s Glider Committee encouraged the use of
the Hotspur to transport soldiers in late 1940. The Hotspur
had a wingspan of 61 ft 11 inches, length of 39 ft 4 inches, and
height of 10 ft 10 inches.It weighed 1,661 lb empty and 3,598
lb fully loaded. The Hotspur was designed to transport 2
crewmen and 6 soldiers. A total of 1,015 were built.

In 1941, the British developed the Horsa. It had a wing-
span of 88 ft, length of68 ft, and height of 20 ft 3 inches. It
weighed 8,370 lb empty and 15,750 lb fully loaded. It was
capable of carrying 2 crewmen and 25-28 passengers or 2
trucks. In all, Britain manufactured some 5,000 Horsas. They
were employed in Operations Overlord and Market-Garden.

The largest Allied glider was the British Hamilcar. With a
wingspan of 110 ft, length of 68 ft 6 inches, and height of 20
ft 3 inches, it weighed 18,000 lb empty and 36,000 lb fully
loaded. It could transport 40 troops, a light tank, or artillery
pieces. A total of 412 were built. It was employed during
Operation Overlord.

The Soviet Union introduced the A-7 glider in 1939. It had
a wingspan of 62 ft 2 inches and length of 37 ft 7 inches. It
weighed 2,000 lb empty and carried a pilot and eight passengers
A total of 400 were manufactured. The Soviets, however,
had few aircraft available for glider tows, and following the
German invasion of the Soviet Union, their priority was with
other weaponry. They used the A-7 chiefly to transport sup-
plies to partisans working behind German lines.

The U.S. Navy explored the possibility of military applications
 for gliders as early as the 1930s. In February 1941, Chief
of the Army Air Corps Major General Henry H. Arnold
ordered that specifications be drawn up for military gliders.
The Waco Aircraft Company in Troy, Ohio, received the first
U.S. government contract to build training gliders, and the
army began organizing a glider training program. Constructed
 of plywood and canvas with a skeleton of steel tubing
 the Waco CG-4A had a wingspan of83 ft 6 inches, length
of 48 ft 4 inches, and height of I2 ft 7 inches. Its empty weight
was 3,300 lb, and its loaded weight was 7,500 lb. It could carry
15 troops or 3,800 lb of cargo, including artillery pieces, a
bulldozer, or a jeep. The Ford Motor Company plant at Kings-
ford, Michigan, manufactured most of the U.S. gliders,
although 15 other companies also produced the Waco. In all
13,908 Wacos were built, making it the most heavily produced
 glider of the entire war by any power.

Because the gliders were so fragile, soldiers dubbed them
“canvas coffins.” Men and cargo were loaded through the
wide, hinged nose section, which could be quickly opened.

Moving at an airspeed of 110-150 mph at an altitude of several
thousand feet, C-47s towed the gliders with a 300 ft rope
toward a designated landing zone and then descended to
release the glider several hundred feet above ground. En route
to the release point, the glidermen and plane crew commu-
nicated with each other either by a telephone wire secured
around the towline or via two-way radios. This glider duty
was hazardous indeed; sometimes gliders were released pre-
maturely and did not reach the landing zones, and on occasions
 gliders collided as they approached their destination.
The U.S. 11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st Airborne Divisions
were equipped with two glider infantry regiments, a
glider artillery battalion, and glider support units. U.S. gliders
ers were sent to North Africa in 1942 and participated in the

July 1943 Sicily invasion, accompanied by British gliders.
High casualties sustained in that operation led General
Dwight D. Eisenhower to question the organization of air-
borne divisions and to threaten to disband glider units. A
review board of officers convinced the military authorities to
retain them, however. Improvements were made in structural
reinforcement of the glider and personnel training.

By mid-1944, gliders had become essential elements of
Allied invasion forces. Occasionally they were used to trans-
port wounded to hospitals. During Operation NEPTUNE, U.S.
glider men with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions flew
across the English Channel in 2,100 gliders to participate in
the D day attack. Many gliders and crews were lost during that
mission. New gliders were manufactured for Operation
MARKET GARDEN, the assault on the Germans in the Netherlands,
three months later.

Initially, the military did not distribute hazardous-duty
pay to glider men. These soldiers also did not qualify for wing
insignia worn by parachutists. Some of the men created
posters; one read: “loin the Glider Troops! No Jump Pay. No
Flight Pay. But Never A Dull Moment.” By July 1944, glider
wings were authorized for glider soldiers, and they received
hazardous-duty pay. Also in 1944, the modified Waco CG-
15A appeared, offering improved crash absorption. The
Waco CG-18A could carry 30 soldiers and was deployed during
the 1945 Rhine campaign.

Gliders were also used in the Pacific and China-Burma-
India Theaters. The final U.S. glider mission of the war
occurred on Luzon Island, the Philippines, in June 1945. 

In July, IX Troop Carrier Command Commander Brigadier General
Paul L. Williams issued an order to grant an Air Medal to
Normandy glider pilot veterans. Gliders were gradually
phased out of military inventories after the war, although the
Soviets retained them through the 1950s.

 

A short history of the Mortar

 

Diagram of Stokes 3in mortar showing its method of operation.

Gunpowder weapons termed as mortars had been in use with artillery as early as the fifteenth century, and a huge example was deployed at the siege of Constantinople in 1453 where it was used to batter the walls and buildings of the great city by the Turkish Army. By the sixteenth century, gun founders working in England such as Peter Baud (sometimes written as Bawd) along with Peter van Collen were casting mortars with calibre of 11in and 19in, which more than delighted King Henry VIII, who rejoiced in having a powerful artillery force. Such huge calibre meant these weapons were best used in siege operations against walled cities or castles to fire projectiles at extremely steep angles of elevation to reach over the walls at very short ranges. These types of mortars retained enormous calibre for many years and remained part of the artillery train when on campaign. Gradually the size and weight of these weapon designs was reduced to make them more mobile, which also allowed them to be more versatile in the range of targets they could be used to engage. Around 1674, the Dutch military engineer Baron Menno van Coehorn (variations in the spelling of his name include Coehoorn or Cohorn) developed a mortar which fired a projectile weighing 24lbs and was used in the siege against the Dutch city of Grave during the closing stages of the Eighty Years War. This design was much more compact than anything seen previously and light enough to be moved on a horse-drawn wagon, thereby giving the infantry its first portable mortar to use against field works.

Over the next 240 years, mortars were in continuous use by armies in various wars and some of these designs reached enormous calibre. For example, at the siege of Cadiz in Spain in 1810, the French deployed mortars with 13in calibre along with other artillery. At the siege of Antwerp in 1832, the French once again deployed gigantic mortars with calibre up to 24in. The British Army also considered adopting even larger calibre when the Irish-born civil engineer Robert Mallet proposed a built-up mortar with a calibre of 36in which he intended for use during the Crimean War. A series of events meant that the war had ended in February 1856 before his design was ready, but it continued to be developed. On being test-fired, it showed design flaws and the weapon was scrapped without firing a shot in anger. The British Army still had mortars of 13in calibre in service during the nineteenth century, and both the Confederate and Union armies used mortars of this size during the American Civil War. Some of these weighed over 7.5 tons, such as the ‘Dictator’ used by the Union Army at the siege of Petersburg in 1862, and were so large they had to be transported by train. Gradually the calibre of mortars was reduced again but they were still part of the artillery branch.

It was not be for another fifty years, during the early battles of the First World War in October 1914, that a real need for some form of weapon capable of firing explosive shells at short range into enemy positions was requested. By the end of that year, both sides had halted their initial sweeping movements which were aimed at trying to outflank one another and had kept the fighting mobile. The opposing armies now settled into their respective positions and started to ‘dig in’ and create trench systems reminiscent of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. In that war, the Russian defenders around Port Arthur had dug a series of trenches which had to be captured by attacking Japanese troops who emerged from their own trenches which surrounded the besieged location.

The trench system which developed to snake across France and Belgium eventually extended from the Swiss border to the Channel Coast, a distance of almost 500 miles, in a virtually unbroken line of defences and counter defences. At times these positions were only a few hundred yards apart and in other places they were so close that soldiers could throw hand grenades into one anothers positions. It was a stalemate and some form of weapon was needed which would allow the troops to fire projectiles further than they could throw grenades without unduly exposing themselves to enemy fire. It also had to be sufficiently compact and light enough to be moved around the trenches. Such a weapon would release the infantry from their dependency on the artillery for support, which would allow the guns to be used to fire on other targets such as enemy artillery positions, ammunition supply points and lines of communications.

General Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France, took up the call and asked for some ‘special form of artillery’ which his troops could fire from their trenches to ‘lob’ bombs or grenades into German positions. Designs soon began to emerge, many of which were dismissed as being impractical. For example, one design hastily produced in France was based on nothing more original than a piece of 3.7in cast iron drainpipe to fire equally crude projectiles filled with explosive. Mortars which had been made in the mid-nineteenth century, including some which may have been used during the Crimean War, were rushed to the Front, where the troops could not believe the antiquity of these weapons which they were now expected to use.

More surprising was the fact that stocks of ammunition for these weapons had been located and were of equal vintage, and units known as the ‘Trench Mortar Service’ were raised to use these weapons. The serviceability of these weapons was uncertain and methods to fire them from a safe distance had to be devised in the event that they should burst on being fired. At Pont de Hem near Estaires in November 1914, two artillery officers and nine gunners using these obsolete weapons were formed into a group and referred to themselves as the ‘Suicide Club’. Through trial and error they managed to operate these mortars and even achieve a modicum of success, firing projectiles out to ranges of 300 yards.

Whilst these heavily dated mortars and extemporised designs were sound in principle, what the troops in the front line trenches really needed urgently was a properly produced weapon. In an attempt to produce something quickly, frustrated British troops began making extemporised weapons, which included the Second Army producing mortars using brass shell cases from a factory at Armentières. The Germans, on the other hand, were far more organised and had minenwerfers (‘mine throwers’) which had been produced by the huge armaments industry of Krupp. When war broke out, the German Army had 116 medium and forty-four heavy versions of these weapons, which were categorized as trench howitzers and as such were part of the artillery. The levels of these weapons increased as the war progressed so that by the middle of 1916 there were some 1,684 of all types in service, and by the end of the war the number had increased to around 17,000 of all types.

Meanwhile in England a more promising design was being developed in the workshops at the Woolwich Arsenal in London. This was the so-called ‘Twining’ pattern, and weapons were hurriedly sent to France in January 1915. Unfortunately they proved just as unsatisfactory as the drainpipe mortars when eight out of the eleven weapons burst on being fired in the space of ten days. Such an unreliable track record only served to produce a not unnatural reluctance among the troops to fire the weapon. Captured examples of German weapons had been sent back to England to be copied and some had been sent to France, but what was needed was a weapon design which had been properly developed and field-tested before being sent to front line troops. In 1918, the Hungarian Army was using a basic mortar design of 90mm calibre known as the Magyar, which was a very simple tube affair elevated and mounted on a base plate, but worked nevertheless and around forty-eight of these weapons were issued to a division.

One person who applied himself to the task of developing a new weapon to the requirements of the army was Frederick Wilfred Scott Stokes, later to become Sir Frederick when he was knighted in 1917. He applied his engineering expertise to the problem and contrived a design which was simple and really no more than an improved idea based on the initial drainpipe design. Indeed, he personally described his idea as being, ‘little more than a piece of coarse gas-piping, sitting dog-fashion on its hind quarters and propped up in front by a pair of legs corresponding to the canine front equivalent’. Stokes was born in Liverpool in 1860 and apprenticed to the Great Western Railway and took a keen interest in engineering, being involved with designing bridges for the Hull & Barnsley Railway. He later joined the Ipswich-based engineering firm of Ransomes & Rapier and became Managing Director of the company. In 1915, he was working in the Inventions Branch of the Ministry of Munitions when he devised his idea for a new mortar, which would bear his name as the Stokes mortar. Stokes later received a financial reward from the Ministry of Munitions in recognition of his work along with a royalty payment of £1 for each of his mortar bombs used during the remainder of the war.

Stokes approached the design as a means to deliver a HE bomb at short ranges fired at a steep angle to plunge into enemy trenches, where it would explode on impact. He used a smooth bore barrel, which is to say it did not have rifling grooves inside to impart a spinning action which would stabilize the bomb in flight. The base of the barrel rested on a metal base plate and the upper end was supported on a bi-pod rest which could be traversed left and right. By adjusting the height of the legs the angle of fire could be altered. The projectiles were called bombs and produced as very simple cast iron cylinders filled with a HE compound. The fuse was the same type as fitted to the Mills hand grenades and fitted with a safety pin in the nose of the bomb. In the base a 12-bore shotgun-type cartridge filled with ballistite compound, a fast-burning smokeless powder, provided the propellant. By 1917, Stokes had standardized his bombs to 76mm (3in) and a bomb 12.6lbs bomb could be fired out to a range of 820 yards. The later version, known as the 3in Mk 1, fired a bomb weighing 10lbs out to a range of 2,800 yards. By the end of the war, the British Army had 1,636 Stokes mortars in service on the Western Front.

After the war, many Stokes mortars were used in the local wars of South American countries – the Paraguayan Army used them during the Chaco War of 1932, for example. The newly-created state of Poland purchased about 700 Stokes mortars between 1923 and 1926, which led to an unlicensed copy known as the Avia wz /28 being produced. The weapon had to be abandoned in 1931 because the bombs it fired were based on the French Brandt design and a licence to manufacture the ammunition was denied.

 

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Cheap and cheerful...the Sten gun By KD

Guns are kind of important in a war and after losing so many during the flight from Dunkirk, the British army needed a quick and cheap replacement. The Thompson machine guns that were bought from the US were too expensive and in 1940 production was started on a gun that cost just under £3, or about £80 at today''s prices.

Named after its inventors; Shepherd, Turpin and Enfield of the Royal Small Arms Factory of Enfield, the Stengun became the mainstay of the British army and was shipped out to guerilla fighters and partisans fighting the Germans, helped along by using the same 9mm ammo used by the German MP40. By 1945, roughly 5 million weapons had been produced.

It was easy to produce, weighed only 3 kilograms, cheap, had a minimum of working parts, (only 50 in early variants) and needed little oiling. There were 5 main variants, not counting the silenced versions, from the Mark I to the Mark V, with a refinement towards simplicity with each iteration. The exception was the Mark V which added wooden grips and butt and could fit a bayonet and was issued to the Paratroopers at the Battle of Arnhem.

Although greeted with reservation by troops initially, the Stengun became a valued asset to the Allies and aside from issues with accuracy at range, misfires, jamming, and a tendency

to fire when dropped, it was a very successful weapon whose production was only surpassed by the Russian PPSh-41 and led to many copies, from the Germans to the Chinese and many other nations.

And finally...the Stengun was so prone to fire off an entire clip of 32 rounds, by being dropped, that troops used them almost like grenades. A handful would be tossed through a door and the guns would fire until empty, handily clearing a room of the enemy.