Service
The wheels were removed and the sMW was then placed in a pit or trench at least 1.5 meters deep, protecting the mortar and its crew. Despite the extremely short range, the sMW proved to be very effective as its massive shells that were almost as effective penetrating fortifications as the largest siege guns in the German inventory, including the 42 cm Dicke Bertha (Big Bertha), a howitzer that was more than 50 times heavier than the sMW. The effectiveness of the sMW is indicated by the number in service which increased from 44 when the war broke out, to 1,234 at its end. In 1916 a new version with a longer barrel was put into production. The new mortar was designated 25 cm schwerer Minenwerfer neuer Art (German for "new pattern"), which was abbreviated as 25 cm Smw n/A. The older, short-barrel model was then designated as 25 cm Smw a/A (alter Art)(German for " old pattern." It is unclear what benefit this change had over the older version.
Note: The data for this weapon differs between sources and cannot be considered definitive.
Data provided has generally been for an a/A mortar as given at the U.S. Army Field Artillery Museum, Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.
Read more about this topic: 25 Cm Schwerer Minenwerfer
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)