I have seen reference to a British 4" stokes mortar that the US copied and eventually made the 4.2" Chemical mortar from. Was this 4" mortar used in WWI and if so by whom? Does anyone have any references to such a weapon?
I have seen reference to a British 4" stokes mortar that the US copied and eventually made the 4.2" Chemical mortar from. Was this 4" mortar used in WWI and if so by whom? Does anyone have any references to such a weapon? Thanks, Chris
The 3inch Stokes replaced older 3.7 and 4 inch designs in 1916. In 1917 a 6 inch mortar based on the Stokes was introduced . There was a 4 inch Stokes but as far as I can tell this was a post war introduction. To add confusion there was also an experimental 3.2 inch Stokes - designed by a completely different Captain Stokes - this was a magazine loading mortar using clips of six mortar shells. It was both complex and heavy, although capable of rapid fire, and the operater was in danger of loosing his fingers (as Captain Stokes discovered). It was not adopted.
For a good source use Weapons of the Trench War 1914 1918 by Anthony Saunders.
Gentlemen! J.C. Matheson of the 1915 introduced Ministry for Ammunition(Loyd George) ordered the first 1000 Stokes mortars direktly from Ransomes&Rapier in June 1915. Money was given by an indian Maharadja. 22nd of August, 1915 the 3" mortar was tested under the supervision of General HAIG who ordered "as many as possible" for the western front. Delivery began in Oct., 1915. Until 1918 11241 in 3" and 1123 in 4" have been built, but seldom more than 2000 have been deployed at the front. On Feb, 1918 the new 81.4mm new Stokes mortar was introduced and parallely used with the 3" ones. Together with the new introduced Stokes-Bomb the shooting range was increased by 500% and the hitting probability by 2000%(!) Sorry I can't attach files, but the allowed sizes are too small for my copies. Sending pic's to the forum seems to be a problem I cannot solve.
Best regards,
Pody
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