Craig Swain over at To The Sound of the Guns has an interesting post on mounting and moving Coehorn mortars and how they differed in look between the Union and Confederate armies. As many of you reading know, Coehorn mortars were used quite often in the trenches at Petersburg. I’ll be looking forward to Craig’s further posts on the subject, including how the mortars were used, as well as a more detailed look at the iron Confederate version. I’ll give you a hint about their use: the anlge of the tube was fixed at 45 degrees. The distance was found by altering the amount of powder used. The Confederate mortar batteries had various “target” ranges down during the Siege of Petersburg, knowing exactly how much powder was needed to hit a given spot from their standard firing locations.
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