Mortars allow the maneuver commander to quickly place killing indirect fires on the enemy, independent of whether he has been allocated supporting artillery. ![]() They play a unique and vital role on the AirLand Battlefield. Although they are part of the total fire support system, mortar sections and platoons are not simply small artillery batteries. Their rapid, high-angle, plunging fires are invaluable against dug-in enemy troops and targets in defilade, which are not vulnerable to attack by direct fires. Military history has repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of mortars. Mortars provide unique indirect fires that are organizationally responsive to the ground maneuver commander. Other armies quickly copied the minenwerfer, and in March 1915, the English engineer Wilfred Stokes developed the grandfather of all current infantry mortars, the 3-inch muzzle-loading Stokes mortar.19 This weapon was much simpler to manufacture than artillery and therefore was employed extensively in all armies during the war.Īll maneuver units require indirect fire to win. ![]() Mortars had existed as a form of heavy artillery for centuries, but in 1914 the German Army introduced a limited number of small, cheap, portable minenwerfers, which were breech-loading, low-trajectory mortars.
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