The kleine Granatenwerfer 16 or Gr.W.16 ''(Small Grenade Launcher Model 1916)'' in English, was an
infantry mortar
A mortar is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, Muzzleloader, muzzle-loaded weapon, consisting of a Smoothbore, smooth-bore (although some models use a Rifling, rifled barrel) metal tube fixed to a base plate (to spread out the recoil) w ...
used by the
Central Powers
The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in ...
during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. It was designed by a Hungarian priest named Father Vécer and was first used by the
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint arm ...
in 1915. In Austro-Hungarian service, they received the nickname "Priesterwerfers". In 1916 Germany began producing a modified version under license for the
Imperial German Army.
Background
The majority of military planners before the First World War were wedded to the concept of fighting an offensive war of rapid maneuver which before mechanization meant a focus on
cavalry and light
horse artillery firing
shrapnel
Shrapnel may refer to:
Military
* Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use
* Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material
Popular culture
* ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics)
* ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam C ...
shells at formations of troops in the open. The problem facing the combatants was that their light field guns were designed for
direct fire
Direct fire or line-of-sight fire refers to firing of a ranged weapon whose projectile is launched directly at a target within the line-of-sight of the user. The firing weapon must have a sighting device and an unobstructed view to the target, ...
and only had limited angles of elevation and were not capable of providing the high-angle
indirect fire
Indirect fire is aiming and firing a projectile without relying on a direct line of sight between the gun and its target, as in the case of direct fire. Aiming is performed by calculating azimuth and inclination, and may include correcting aim ...
needed to deal with enemy troops in dug-in positions.
The simple expedient was to elevate the guns by having them fire from pits but the size and weight of the guns were excessive and pack animals could not move the guns in the trenches or across the shell-pocked quagmire of
no man's land. What the theorists had not foreseen was that
land mine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
s, trenches,
barbed wire, and
machine guns would rob them of mobility and as the
Western Front stagnated into
trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. Trench warfare became ar ...
the light field guns that the combatants went to war with began to show their limitations.
Often defenders would wait out a preparatory artillery bombardment in reinforced dugouts and once the bombardment had lifted they would man their trenches and machine-gun nests in anticipation of an enemy attack across no man's land. Barbed wire was often used to channel attackers away from vulnerable areas of the defender's trenches and funnel attackers into predefined kill zones where overlapping fields of machine-gun fire could be brought to bear or to hold attackers at a safe distance to call in defensive artillery fire. The machine-gun nests could be constructed of sandbags, timber,
corrugated metal, and concrete with overhead protection. For infantry advancing across no man's land, all they may see is a small horizontal opening at waist level, with just the top of the
gun shield showing. Attacking infantry would have to close on these positions while under fire and destroy them with rifle fire,
grenades
A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade gene ...
, and
flamethrowers
A flamethrower is a ranged incendiary device designed to project a controllable jet of fire. First deployed by the Byzantine Empire in the 7th century AD, flamethrowers saw use in modern times during World War I, and more widely in World W ...
.
The problem for the attacker was they lacked light, portable, simple, and inexpensive firepower that could be brought with them to overcome enemy machine gun nests by low-angle direct fire and partially exposed troops in trenches by high-angle indirect fire. Early on the combatants experimented with
crossbows
A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an elastic launching device consisting of a bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar fashion to the stock of a long fire ...
,
catapults
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of store ...
, and
slingshots
A slingshot is a small hand-powered projectile weapon. The classic form consists of a Y-shaped frame, with two natural rubber strips or tubes attached to the upper two ends. The other ends of the strips lead back to a pocket that holds the proj ...
to propel hand grenades with limited success. Eventually, most combatants settled on hand grenades,
rifle grenades
A rifle grenade is a grenade that uses a rifle-based launcher to permit a longer effective range than would be possible if the grenade were thrown by hand.
The practice of projecting grenades with rifle-mounted launchers was first widely used d ...
, and trench mortars. However, there was still a niche between grenades and trench mortars which the Granatenwerfer 16 filled.
Design
The Granatenwerfer 16 was a type of spigot mortar. Rather than being a
muzzle-loaded
A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern (higher tech and harder to make) desig ...
weapon like a
Stokes or
Brandt mortar where the projectiles slide down a tube until it hits a firing pin to launch the projectile, the Granatenwerfer had a short metal spigot that was attached to a base that was adjustable for traverse and elevation. The Granatenwerfer 16 had a two-man crew consisting of a gunner and a loader. The projectile was similar in size and construction to a hand grenade with a hollow center tube with tail fins that slid over the spigot. The Granatenwerfer 16 was light enough to be carried across no man's land while other weapons like the
7.58 cm Minenwerfer or the
17 cm mittlerer Minenwerfer
The 17 cm mittlerer ''Minenwerfer'' (17 cm mMW) was a mortar used by Germany in World War I.
Development and use
The weapon was developed for use by engineer troops after the Siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. ...
were sometimes too heavy to be transported easily across rough ground. The Granatenwerfer 16 could be broken down into two parts with the launcher weighing and the baseplate weighing .
Production
There was an earlier unsuccessful Granatenwerfer 15 that was a copy of the Austro-Hungarian design that went into production in 1915. The grenades were slightly larger in diameter, more round in shape, and had different tail fins than the cylindrical Granatenwerfer 16 grenades. The Granatenwerfer 16 was an inexpensive and easy to produce weapon with few moving parts. Nothing required expensive materials or precise machining which meant it could be produced by companies with simple casting and forging facilities that were accustomed to loose tolerances. Each manufacturer built slightly different weapons with only minor differences but they were still able to fire the same ammunition.
Ammunition
The Granatenwerfer 16 could fire a variety of different types of grenades like smoke, high-explosive, illumination, and even a propaganda grenade that could deliver leaflets. But the most common type was high-explosive fragmentation that weighed with of explosives to a minimum range of and maximum range of . Compared to to a maximum range of for a rifle grenade. When used as a direct fire weapon the grenade could fill a and long area with metal fragments and when used for high-angle indirect fire the grenade could fill a area with fragments. However, the grenades were more accurate when used for indirect fire. The Granatenwerfer 16 tended to be used for anti-personnel work while the heavier trench mortars firing high-explosive shells were tasked with destroying enemy dugouts and barbed wire.
Firing procedure
To fire, the gunner would adjust the angle of the spigot for the desired range and direction, cock the firing mechanism, then rotate the safety lever to the “safe” position. The loader would then insert a
contact fuse into the nose of the grenade, slide the grenade onto the spigot, remove the fuse safety pin, and the gunner would fire it by pulling on a lanyard that detonated a 7.92 mm blank cartridge in the base of the grenade. Because of the recoil, it was recommended that the Granatenwerfer 16 be operated from the left so that the gunner could see the notches on the traverse and elevating mechanisms. A well-drilled crew could fire 4-5 rounds per minute or up to 250-300 rounds per hour.
An advantage of the Granatenwerfer 16 was that it was quiet compared to other weapons. The French nicknamed the grenades "Pigeons" or "Turtledoves" because they made a whirring sound while flying through the air. Often not being heard until they were directly overhead leaving little time to take cover. The lightweight grenades, low velocity, and sensitive crush fuses also meant that the grenades did not sink too deeply on soft ground, enhancing the effectiveness of their fragments. In 1917 a new bouncing grenade was developed that had a small powder charge in the head, and when the grenade hit, the charge would ignite, propelling the grenade into the air and then explode, increasing its blast radius.
The Granatenwerfer 16 was normally placed in either the first or second line of trenches. The most efficient number of Granatenwerfers was four per
company section of the front. They were normally dispersed at intervals so no more than two could be destroyed by a single round of enemy
counter-battery fire
Counter-battery fire (sometimes called counter-fire) is a battlefield tactic employed to defeat the enemy's indirect fire elements (multiple rocket launchers, artillery and mortars), including their target acquisition, as well as their command ...
and because battery commanders had a hard time controlling more than four using voice commands, and hand signals without tipping off the enemy. Granatenwerfers could be used to engage troops that had emerged from their dugouts after preparatory bombardments by heavier weapons. Since the Granatenwerfer 16 had a high rate of fire and good accuracy, enemy trenches could be saturated with fire, forcing the enemy to take cover in their dugouts which allowed attacking infantry to cross no man's land unmolested and arrive at their trenches before the defenders had time to react.
Allied equivalents
The allies lacked a direct equivalent to the Granatenwerfer 16 for most of the war. However, in 1917 the French introduced the ''Bombarde Garnier'' which was a barrage mortar with eight spigots. The grenades that the Bombarde Garnier fired were very similar to the Granatenwerfer 16 and they were propelled by a blank cartridge with a firing mechanism taken from the
Fusil Gras mle 1874
The Fusil Modèle 1874 or Gras was the French Army's primary service rifle from 1874 to 1886. Designed by Colonel Basile Gras, the Gras was a metallic cartridge adaptation of the single-shot, breech-loading, black powder Chassepot rifle. It was ...
.
Gallery
File:Granatenwerfer shell, Germany, World War I - Old Colony History Museum - Taunton, Massachusetts - DSC03961.jpg, A high-explosive fragmentation grenade.
File:With the Marine corps in Flanders. Grenade projector at work in the sand dunes. July 1917 - NARA - 17390790 (cropped).jpg, A Granatenwerfer 16 in action with German Seebataillon
''Seebataillon'' (plural ''Seebataillone''), literally "sea battalion", is a German term for certain troops of naval infantry or marines. It was used by the Prussian Navy, the North German Federal Navy, the Imperial German Navy, the Austro-Hungari ...
troops in Flanders during 1917
File:Minenwerferkurs. Horizontale Lage feuerbereit April 1917. (BildID 15655847).jpg, An Austrian Granatenwerfer set up for direct fire
File:Ww us trophies 01.jpg, US soldiers with captured German weapons including Granatenwerfer 16s
File:Halberstadt CL.II bomb rack.jpg, Grenades used as aerial bombs
File:111-SC-19301 - NARA - 55198526 (cropped).jpg, The French Bombarde Garnier barage mortar
References
External links
Granatenwerfer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Granatenwerfer 16
World War I artillery of Germany
World War I infantry mortars of Germany
60mm mortars