Russian civil war light mortar

[David]

Hi  
had a look through the internet, but could not find a picture of a Russian civil war light mortar?
Does anybody make one?
The Lanchester Armored Car was a British armored car produced during the First World War.The Russian Army received 22 vehicles in December 1915. 19 of them were later rearmed with 37-mm naval Hotchkiss gun instead of MG.
is this the same gun as the french light tank had?
found a picture but is it correct?

can anybody help please
Thanks
David

[cuprum]

Hi David.
I do not know whether to someone in Russian mortars during the First World War, but the Russian army was armed with a little modernized German 9 cm mortar. They were manufactured 12,519 units. and a sample of weapons was widespread in the Russian army. Try to find a model of the German mortars.


 
For information on other weapons of all armies in this war can search here, but the language is Russian - crawl machine translator Google:
http://ww1.milua.org/Artilltrya.htm

With regard to the armored car, here's the photo - the gun armored car:



 And here's an article about its history, a few photos. It is interesting that the article mentions the battle of red armored cars and armored train Makhno.
http://www.aviarmor.net/TWW2/armored_cars/greatbritain/ac_lanchester.htm

[Mark Plant]

Mortars were little used during the RCW. They were essentially still a trench weapon at that time, and it took till WWII before they became light artillery. There was the odd one, but more the exception than the rule.

Beware false translations. Most mortiras (мортира) were, in fact, howitzers. (The modern Gaubitsa (гаубица) was used interchangably at the time.)

I would guess, from my experience, that most references to mortars in the RCW are incorrect translations. It is a trap I have fallen into myself.

[cuprum]

Mark, this is not true.
Mortars were used extensively in the Civil War.
I know for sure even in those battles that took place here in Western Siberia, and even in my city of Barnaul. I have also seen mention of the use of occasional mortar shells at Basmachi (apparently captured, rescued from the Red Army).
Often the documents are called "bombomet".
It would be strange to assume that released in rather large quantities of weapons, would have remained unclaimed by the warring parties.

[David]

Thanks for the pictures, just what i needed.
David

[Mark Plant]

That they had been made in large quantities doesn't mean anything if they were not suitable for the type of fighting. Who is going to lug a mortar around when they could carry something useful, like a machine gun?

There were plenty of pieces of large calibre artillery left over from WWI too, but they were not suitable for the fast moving battles, so were used in very small numbers. (Except when they were putting them on trains.)

I check Orders of Battle and I never see mortars (except German Freikorps). Volkov's encyclopedia lists all those White units, and no mortars. I've never seen a period photo. I don't remember any written accounts of them in use. (Edit: found some references at Kakhovka, which was a positional defence. They even had flamethrowers there.)

I know they were used. But I struggle with "extensively". I would go for "rarely".

I would reckon bicycle troops would be more common. You at least see those in orders of battle and in pictures.

[ts]

For the Poles is mentioned, that before attacks were set in, the goals were/should be softened up with machine-gun fire and mortars.
I guess it is for the early fightings, when they did not have much artillery at hand.

[cuprum]

I looked once more carefully the information I have.
Mark was right, mortars rarely found in service on both sides of the opponents of the Civil War.
I got the wrong impression about the number of these weapons in the armed forces as a result of reading several memoirs in a row, where the weapons mentioned.
Indeed, as written, T.S., and mortars were taken into service when another artillery was not.

 Here, for example, writes A. Ganin, in his article "Why Kolchak has not reached the Volga":
   "In the Western army by April 15 there were 229 machine guns Maxim, 137 - Lewis, 249 - Colt, 52 - other systems, only 667. In 44 batteries - there were 85 trehdyuymovka (76 mm), two 42-line guns, eight - 48-line, seven - of other systems and one of mortars. "