One of the puzzling artillery pieces captured by the Light Horse in Palestine in 1917 were a battery of rather odd looking 95mm smooth bore guns. It was thought that these were fortress guns but it now appears as if they were one of two types of mortars constructed by the Ottomans from recycled guns. In the case of the light (95mm) mortar the original gun appears to be a 91mm Broadwell gun acquired sometime in the 1870s (one of the surviving mortars is marked "Carlsruhe 1872" on the breech ring). The original carriages have had the end cut off and replaced with a large pin which looks similar to that used on wooden floors in gun positions to locate the guns in the 19th century. The front of carriage is lifted by a swinging "foot". The mortars seemingly were transported by adding an axle and wheels and pulling up the foot. The mortars were clearly designed to be fired at high elevation angles - there are scales above the trunnions on two of the survivors which are marked 45 to 75 deg.
There are 3 survivors in Australia, at Quorn, SA, Mt Morgan, Qld and one at the AWM store in Mitchell, ACT.
I've added images of the Light horse with their prizes, the Quorn mortar and a couple of images of the Mt Morgan mortar.
So the puzzle is how on earth were these things loaded and fired? The breech is completely inside the carriage above 45 degrees and inaccessible. Any, and all, contributions will be welcomed.
Interesting piece, is it 95 or 91 mm now? Also looks more like a gun or howitzer and could be loaded just like that in the position as they are in Australia with the barrels more or less horizontally. Also Austrian mortars like the 9 cm m17 and 14 cm were loaded in this position and were then swung down to their prefixed target position.
To be honest, I am not convinced your first picture of the four captured mortars are the weapons on show down under. Always thought these are some type of Austrian mortars on carriage (14 cm eg). But the quality of the picture on my screen is quite low.
It's 95mm according to the captured guns documentation and someone who has been up close to the Mt Morgan gun with calipers. The mortars are smooth bore.
The original guns seem to have been Broadwell guns from the 1870s. The Mt Morgan mortar has the markings "Carlsruhe", "1872" - The partial marking at the top "Patent von ..." is on all of the Broadwell guns I have images of the breech ring (all 2 of them). The attached image has been worked over to bring out the engraving.
I've also attached an image of an 1872 Broadwell mountain gun to show the style of marking used on the Broadwell guns
Not convinced the mortars in Australia are documented by contemporary images? There is an IWM image of a display in Egypt in 1917 with 3 of these mortars including one configured as the 3 are in Australia. The image of the 4 mortars in the desert has been enlarged from a tiny image using one of those image enlargement services - the problem is that the original image seems to be slightly out of focus and this is enhanced by the enlargement algorithm.
I finally found the images of the mortar at the AWM - it still has wheels and there's a reasonable chance the paint on the mortar is the original Ottoman paint. (Image is courtesy of the Military Heraldry and Technology Section AWM)
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Sunday 3rd of September 2023 11:47:14 PM
