Question about Great War in East Africa - heavy weapons

[Dr. Moebius]

Dear LAFers,

Great War Miniatures have some fantastic German Great War sets with speacial or heavy weapon support.

Is there any information that Lettow Vorbeck's troops had 'minenwerfer' or 'granaterfer 16' ??
I plan to convert these for the East African theatre.

Many thanks!

[monk2002uk]

There is no evidence that I am aware of. You could play a scenario where such equipment arrived on the Zeppelin that attempted to resupply him. In reality the trip was aborted. But what if...

Robert

[Plynkes]

The Brits and Belgians had mortars eventually, but I'm fairly sure the Germans didn't, due to the lack of a supply chain back to Germany (such things weren't in the armouries of the colonial forces at the beginning of the war). The Granatenwerfer 16, as you might guess by the name, came out in 1916. The abortive attempt at resupply by the L 59 Zeppelin would have been pretty much the only way to get those to East Africa by that stage. It did carry machine guns, but I've never seen any mention of mortars. In any case they weren't able to meet the production demands of the Western Front for them, so it is pretty unlikely any would have been diverted to Africa.


The Germans' heaviest weapons came off the Königsberg.

[Dr. Moebius]

Thanks for your answers!

[Michi]

They had quality carbines!


Mine even have quality auxilia WITH HMGs! 

[juergen c. olk]

What ever the British,South Africans ,Belgians and Portuguese had the Germans eventually captured some of it,they practically lived off  captured allied supplies after 1916,they also used a rudimentary rocket w/  an explosive head ,in limited use and a homemade mills bomb werfer,when they had mills bombs. There biggest thing was the eight 4.1 inch guns from the "S.M.S.Koeningsberg",one was on on the "Graf von Goetzen", on Lake Tanganyka, 4 as gun emplacements along the coast and 3xmobile w/ hundreds of native porters and animals dragging them thru the jungle. Oddly enough the "Graf Von Goetzen" is still afloat as the "Liemba" as a passenger ship.It ia a great theater to game.

[Atheling]

They had quality carbines!


Mine even have quality auxilia WITH HMGs! 

Some very nice brushwork on display here Michi 

Darrell.

[skeptichaggis]

There was actually a supply zeppelin sent to the German army in east Africa,I love Zeppelin warfare and in true nerd mode I have five books of them out in front of me. OK,its called the"afrikaschiff"or the lz 104(L59) it was one of the biggest in ww1.
It left on 21 November 1917 reached the Sudan where it heard(wrongly)that lettow vorbeck had been beaten and so turned back. It was used conventionally until it was destroyed accidentally in western Europe in April 1918 .
It carried medical support, weapons,ammo,specialists etc. Thing is it was to be a one way trip-it would never have returned to Germany. The crew had infantry training and would have joined vorbeck as infantry. The whole ship was itself a flying resource package,for instance the hull outer was of cotton to make uniforms and the engines were to be field generators. The metal struts were to be used for building purposes.
 I know that machine guns,radios,a small hospital was on board but not if morters or light artillery was.
Hope that helps,if nothing it was a interesting,but futile,what if

[Michi]

Thing is it was to be a one way trip-it would never have returned to Germany. The crew had infantry training and would have joined vorbeck as infantry. The whole ship was itself a flying resource package,for instance the hull outer was of cotton to make uniforms and the engines were to be field generators. The metal struts were to be used for building purposes.

Wow, this is great to learn, I never knew! I knew of the attempt to send the Zeppelin for (re-)supplies, but not that it was to be salvaged for purpose. That is rather clever!

[skeptichaggis]

No problem,I will take a closer look in some of my books to see if I can find out about heavy weapons.Give me a day or so and iI'll post what I have found out. Even if it did not get to vorbeck-it almost did. So while it would not be a 100% accurate thing to base any of your army around it would not be silly either.

[Michi]

Even if it did not get to vorbeck-it almost did. So while it would not be a 100% accurate thing to base any of your army around it would not be silly either.

It will be good enough for a what-if scenario or a pulp adventure background. I will thoroughly watch out for it to pepper my coming East Africa campaign... 

[Atheling]

Whilst I'm going to be no help at all in answering your question, which is a good one and the answer/s will be stored for future reference as I've been eyeing the BG WWI in East Africa for a long time- I wish that I'd indulges myself when Nick at NS had a batch in..... 

Your mini's are beautifully painted and and that alone deserves a mention 

Darrell.

[skeptichaggis]

It does not look like minenwerfer were on the Zeppelin. I think the problem may have been the specialized ammunition they took.

[monk2002uk]

It is more likely that Minenwerfer were designed to support offensive actions against entrenched or similar static defensive positions. These types of defences were not a feature of the Vorbeck's mobile war.

Robert

[skeptichaggis]

It should also be remembered that in Africa in ww1 even a small support weapon and its ammo required a large amount of porters.