hand mortar

[kopfjaeger]

Cool, one of them would be neat to make.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
The stocks on many India-made guns are teak. It looks a little like walnut (if you squint)but is heavier. One good thing about teak is that it is highly weather resistant.

dave

 

[Robby]

I have always had a wondering about those shoulder mortars, or grenade launchers. If I understand their use, an explosive grenade type devise had an exposed fuse that was ignited by the main charge which also launched it. When I was a lot younger I made fireworks for our family Fourth of July celebration. Typically I would use heavy cardboard tubes that machine tools are packed in and stuffed them with black powder and titanium chips with a fuse exposed to the main launch charge. Loaded in one of my cannons and jacked up to shoot high into the air, I would light a fuse in the cannon and move way back. Pretty crude by professional standards but pretty spectacular by back yard standards, they would 'most' times do as expected and go off at or near the apex of their travel and light up the night. But sometimes, despite my best efforts and quality control, go off in the tube or at the muzzle, also quite spectacular. My wondering is, are there any writings describing this sort of mishap with the launchers used back in the day. It seems to me that once in a while, one of those grenades had to have had a preignition and taken out the poor grenadier and a few of his cohorts. :idunno:
Robby

 

[KABAR2]

At Ft. Ticonderoga there is a 9 inch? Iron mortar that suffered such a calamity the shell blew it into two equal halves there is actual documentation on this mortar one of two that were being put on armed boats used to face the British it blew up during practice session with no injuries to the crew the pieces were then used as ballast on the boats one piece was recovered sometime in the last century and placed on display at Ft Ticonderoga an earlier method was used where the mortar crew lit the fuse on the shell and then fired the mortar it was a dance with the devil...if the mortar misfired.... I suspect this was the way the forementioned mortar had been fired... or the fuse was placed directly above the lifting charge and driven into the shell setting it off before it could leave the barrel bursting it...

 

[Alden]

I know the mortar u refer to at Ti. It's outside on the upper bastion. I was there for the annual national Revolutionary War Conference and for the life of me don't recall the story -- but it was a nightime guided tour in a heavy rain without lights and we were just trying not to slip and fall to our OWN deaths.

I don't know that the shell burst in it -- there'd be little left and no-one alive around to tell the tale.

The shells used to be lit and then the lifting charge set off. If it failed to launch they would douse the fuse. Then they started to put the shell in with the fuse down on the lifting charge. Much safer. And the shell almost always ignited. Then they found that the fuse OUTSIDE was even more reliably lit by the lifting charge as its flames enveloped the shell and this became the standard practice. Huzzah!

 

[pargent]

What happened to the pic?

 

[KABAR2]

I wrote the curator of fort Ti a few years ago about this mortar, we were discussing the topic of accidental premature detonations of mortar shells in 18th and 19th century mortars on another forum, he sent me a write up that gave the historical facts about the mortar in question aparently there are period documents that talk about the two identical iron mortars that were located at Ft Ti. both of which failed in a simular manner.

 

[pargent]

I feel the ones that attach to a musket barrel with a bayonet socket are for throwing signal flares , they seem too light for anything heavy and their distance from the breech would be iffy when fired, possible use would be on ships where the use of period rockets would be a bit dicey at times .

 

[hawkeye2]

1601phill I have always heard these called grenade launchers. If you can point me to any references to their being used as flare launchers I would be both grateful and very interested.

 

[Alden]

Same here. Now, how often they were used I cannot say. But if you've ever tried to throw a grenade you know there is a way to do it because they are actually heavy and you'd hurt yourself if you tried to throw it like a baseball. Either way it won't go very far. Maybe 35 yards. And with a 15-yard kill radius, and some shrapnel going alot farther, in a defensive ("pineapple") grenade you can see that throwing one was (is) always a tenuous situation. Anything you can do to get the damn things farther away from you is preferred.

I forget the exact range offhand of the little Coehorn's but I think it was like 1,300 yards at 50-degrees with a max lifting charge. I used to take Google Earth pictures and draw a line on them to show the range from an encampment to a known destination to give the public an idea of the range.

A hand mortar would be a shorter range weapon than the crew-served (but still inventoried, or not inventoried as the case may be, as a "personal weapon") Coehorn, but even if it is measured as just a few hundred yards it is a significant improvement and an interesting and useful, albeit limited, arm.

My Coehorn afield:

 

[pargent]

I was talking about the light launchers that attach with a socket onto the end of a musket barrel , yes the handmorter with the short stubby barrel was used to throw bombs a short distance , they were most commonly issued to units called the FORLORN HOPE as they were deemd needed .

 

[pargent]

Can you give these guys a link to (some flintlock toys ) if you know what I mean

 

[hawkeye2]

"I was talking about the light launchers that attach with a socket onto the end of a musket barrel"

1601phill. those are the ones I was asking about regarding their use as flare launchers.

 

[pargent]

Ok if Snider can post a link it will help a lot, the one I was looking at has a ship board origin and it is made from a bayonet socket brazed onto a steel cup .The socket is of the profile that fits a 42"barrel ,the cup is made of steel .08 thick,4.25" long and a bore of 2.8" . It's the actual weight of the bomb (grenade) that brings this use into question

 

[pargent]

imagine 130-150 grns lifting a projectile weighing 1.5 -2 lbs , I doubt that a hand rail stock or shoulder could take much of that.

 

[KABAR2]

imagine 130-150 grns lifting a projectile weighing 1.5 -2 lbs , I doubt that a hand rail stock or shoulder could take much of that.

Flares did not come into wide use until the mid 19th Centruy during our Civil war they had hand held flare launchers... I really doubt that the cups are for flares .... I guess the best way to prove or disprove weather or not cup launcehers were use with grenades would be to build one and try it..... also remember cup launchers made an aperiance during WWII with the MKIII enfield for use with the mills bomb...Yeah I know it a much more modern weapons system.. but it does show the same use... So who's up for building a cup launcher?

 

[snidervolley]

guys those are original "grenade" launchers and no differant than ww1 ww2 muzzle cup grenade launchers on standard rifles

 

[pargent]

:shake: Oh I say can you see
A flare was just a low power fire work , rather then a rocket (with it's red glare ) they go way back , even used by English and French in the F&I War in North America .NB they were not as bright as say some thing more modern but they did allow the user to get a grasp on what was happening at night .

 

[pargent]

Yes and as stated else where with the same issues , lists of stock of grenades very low , damage to firearms all the time , injuries to shoulders from fireing them like a std. musket .

 

[pargent]

Ok grenades recovered from HMS Invinceable are 90mm OD wall thickness avg 10mm powder charge 3ozs .