History
In 1935, the 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion was established at Edgewood Arsenal Maryland with the chemical mortar as its primary weapon. At the onset of World War II, there were a few other mortar battalions and companies, including one that was lost on Bataan in the Philippines. In 1942, General George Marshall ordered the formation of five additional chemical mortar battalions equipped with the mortar. (These were the 3rd, and the 81st through 84th.) Later, the mortar was developed to be capable of instantly firing shells from a mere 565 yards (517 m) at minimum propellant charge, to a range of 4,400 yards (4,023 m) by having propellant-charge disks of powder added that by then were being manufactured as square disks with a hole in the middle, strung together, fitted into cartridges and sewn together into bundles of various thickness. Its rate of fire was 40 rounds in the first two minutes, 100 rounds in the first 20 minutes and thereafter a sustained rate of 80 rounds per hour. These variations were caused by the stresses and strains on the barrels and the rest of firing mechanisms that were being imposed by different firing conditions.
The mortars were transported in 3/4 ton trucks or on hand carts, in island engagements in the Pacific by boat, and in difficult terrain by mule.
During the Allied invasion of Sicily in the summer of 1943 - the first time the mortar had been used in war-time - 35,000 rounds were fired in 38 days, of which more than 90% were HE.
Read more about this topic: Chemical Mortar Battalion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)