A German 250 mm Heavy Mortar. (Minenwerfer)

Image: © Adrian S Pye Taken: 30 Jun 2019

Dated from 1917, somebody must have smuggled this trophy of war in their kitbag. According to the information plaque it stood outside Honing Post Office until it was found a home in the Strumpshaw Steam Museum in 1970. It was returned to Honing at the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War. Honing lost a total of 13 men in World War One. Extract from Wikipedia:It was developed for use by engineer troops after the Siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 illustrated the usefulness of this class of weapon in destroying bunkers and fortifications otherwise immune to normal artillery. The 25 cm schwerer Minenwerfer was a muzzle-loading, rifled mortar that had a hydro-spring type recoil system. It fired either a 97 kg (210 lb) shell or a 50 kg (110 lb) shell. Both contained far more explosive filler than ordinary artillery shells of the same caliber. The low muzzle velocity allowed for thinner shell walls, hence more space for filler for the same weight shell. The low velocity also allowed the use of explosives like ammonium nitrate–carbon that were less shock-resistant than TNT, which was in short supply at the time. Shells filled with these substitutes nonetheless were the cause of many premature detonation accidents, making the Minenwerfer riskier for the gun crew than normal artillery pieces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_cm_schwerer_Minenwerfer

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0