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:
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)