Part 7 (2/2)
In this connection one often hears the word mortar used, and just a reference to that will be appropriate here. Many years ago short guns which threw their b.a.l.l.s very high were in use, and because of their resemblance to the mortar which is used for pounding up things with the aid of a pestle these were termed mortars. Later a man named Howitzer introduced a type of gun which was something of a compromise between the long thin gun and the short stubby mortar. As time has gone on, however, the mortars have grown in length while the howitzers have shortened, until to-day the two names are used almost indiscriminately to denote the same thing. Hence the giant howitzers of the Austrians are often spoken of as the ”Skoda” mortars, Skoda being the name of the factory where they were made.
At one time many people wondered why the Germans did not put some of these huge mortars on their battles.h.i.+ps: many thought that they would do so, and that by that means they would demolish our navy as they had already smashed the Belgian forts. The reason they did not is, no doubt, the very simple one, that our naval guns would have probably sunk their s.h.i.+ps before the howitzers could have reached ours, because if they had attempted to make up for the shortness of the weapons by using higher explosives, these mortars would, there is little doubt, have knocked to pieces the s.h.i.+ps on which they were mounted.
The old-fas.h.i.+oned fortress, suddenly made ”out-of-date” by the Skoda mortars, was usually armed with guns of the naval type. Sea-coast forts are always so armed. Nowadays, however, the inland fortress takes the form of a labyrinth of trenches and underground pa.s.sages, combined with deeply excavated chambers known as dug-outs, and these do not fitly accommodate large guns at all. The guns are placed well back behind the trenches sheltered behind hills or woods, over which they hurl their sh.e.l.ls. The chief defenders of the actual trench are the machine gun, which is little more than an automatic rifle on a stand, and the trench mortar.
We are now in a position to sum up broadly the features of modern artillery. There is first the naval gun, the ideal gun, long and of great range, able to send forth its sh.e.l.ls with great velocity. This gun appears again in the sea-coast forts, where the conditions are very much those which obtain on a s.h.i.+p and where the attacking party is of necessity a s.h.i.+p.
In the field we have the field and horse artillery, which we may regard as the naval gun modified somewhat in order to make it easy to move about, so that it can accompany troops and support the operations of both infantry and cavalry. These light guns are supported by the field howitzers, which are also light and easily handled, and the guns of the 47 type, originally naval guns but now mounted on wheels and possessing a certain amount of mobility, not equalling the field guns it is true, but still very serviceable in a campaign.
Then we have the howitzers of various sizes which have rendered the old-fas.h.i.+oned steel and concrete forts useless, and which are the chief weapons used in the modern trench warfare. It is these which blow in the walls of the trenches and dug-outs, shatter the barbed-wire entanglements and render it possible for the infantry to attack an entrenched position.
Finally, we have the machine guns, each of which is equivalent to a considerable number of riflemen and which, with the trench mortars, form the chief defences of the actual trench itself. Of course these are only useful against attacks by infantry: they cannot in any way cope with the heavy artillery. That has to be dealt with by the opposing artillery posted away back behind the trenches.
And now let us take a rather more close look at some of these weapons.
Essentially each one is a steel tube. It may be a single tube or it may be several one outside another. It may even have a layer of wire between two tubes as many naval guns have. It is invariably (one small exception will be mentioned later) loaded at the breech or rear end and not through the muzzle as used to be the custom. For this purpose it needs a breech-block or door, which can be opened to put in the sh.e.l.l and explosive, and which can then be closed tightly so that it will not be driven out or burst open when the explosion takes place and also shall be gas tight so as not to let any of the force of the explosion escape.
Then the gun must be mounted upon a carriage so that it can be quickly moved about. The lighter forms of artillery are fired when upon the same carriage upon which they travel. In years gone by the whole thing, carriage as well as gun, used to run back when the gun was fired, which was a great nuisance since it had to be got back into position again after each shot. To obviate this the gun is now mounted upon a slide, and it is the slide which is fitted to the carriage. Thus the gun can slide back without the carriage moving at all. The latter is made very strong, and shoes are provided at the end of chains which go under the wheels just like the ”drag” which coaches and heavy carts have for use going down hills. There is also a part like a spade which can be driven down into the ground so that, what with the shoes and the spade, the carriage is fixed very firmly.
The gun is kept at the front part of the slide by means of a powerful spring, which is compressed when the gun is fired but which, as the force of the recoil is spent, pushes the gun back to its original position once more. The spring is often reinforced by a cylinder and a piston with compressed air or water behind it, acting after the manner of those door checks with which we are all familiar, its function being to steady the motion of the gun and to let it go gently back to its place without slamming, just as the door check prevents a door from slamming.
By this means the gun is returned automatically after each shot to practically the same position which it occupied before, so that it does not need re-aiming each time, but only a slight readjustment if even that. The result of this is that such a gun can be fired very rapidly.
In fact, it can be fired just as fast as the gunners can keep on reloading it.
The big Skoda mortars owed their mobility to the clever way in which they were constructed. The gun tube itself, the support for it or mounting, and the steel foundation were each fitted to a special motor-driven trolley. The steel foundation was dumped down on the ground, which of course was prepared for it in advance, then the mounting was run right on to it so that it simply needed bolting down and finally the tube was hoisted by specially prepared appliances into its place. It is said that the whole operation occupied less than an hour.
For firing, these mortars of course are pointed at a very high angle, almost like an astronomical telescope. No doubt the gunners have many jokes about ”shooting the moon” and so on, for that is just what they seem to be attempting. For loading, however, they are lowered into a horizontal position: the sh.e.l.l comes up on a small hand-truck, is raised by a specially designed jack until it is level with the breech, and is then pushed into its place. The breech is then closed, the tube re-elevated, and all is ready for firing.
Between these two forms of gun, the field gun on its light carriage, which not only bears it from place to place but forms its support while in action, and the great mortar carried in parts on specially made trolleys, there are now an enormous variety of guns and mortars adapted for the various purposes which experience in the Great War revealed.
Artillery suffered many changes in the light of the South African campaign and of the Russo-j.a.panese war, but of far more importance have been the lessons learnt in Northern France and on the plains of Poland.
To some extent these lessons have been learnt and profited by during the actual war, but there is no doubt that as men have time to think over them in the years of peace which are ahead many more developments will take place. Unless, that is, we are on the threshold of that happy time when guns and fighting material of all sorts will be looked upon as the relics of a bad and ruinous time now happily past.
In conclusion, a pa.s.sing reference must be made to the trench mortars and similar contrivances which have arisen as the result of the prolonged spell of trench warfare which no one had ever contemplated.
These are in effect very short range mortars or howitzers, specially intended for throwing bombs from trench to trench. Some are simply the larger mortars on a small scale, but one has decidedly original features.
This consists of a short light mortar into which the bombs are slipped through the muzzle, thus reverting to the old method of loading. The propellant is combined with the bomb and there is a percussion cap which fires it as soon as it strikes the bottom of the tube. Thus the operation is just about as simple as it can be: the man merely places the bomb in the upturned muzzle and lets it slide down. An instant later, up it comes again, to go sailing through the air into the trench of the enemy a hundred yards away.
One must not conclude this chapter, however, without a reference to those useful weapons which are known among the soldiers as ”Archibalds”
and officially as anti-aircraft guns. These are perhaps the most familiar guns of all to the general public, since they were installed in many places in Britain for the purpose of dealing with the Zeppelins. No doubt not a few of my readers have had the experience of being awakened from their beauty sleep by the cracking of the anti-aircraft guns and have seen their sh.e.l.ls bursting like squibs in the air.
They are fairly long guns, not unlike field guns, but they are mounted upon special supports which enable them to be pointed at any angle so that they can fire right up into the sky. The sights, also, are somewhat different, being fitted with prisms, or reflectors, so that the gunners can look along the sights and align the gun upon an object overhead without lying on their backs.
Much more could be said on this subject, but national interests forbid, so with this general review of modern artillery we must pa.s.s to another subject.
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