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SURVIVING GUN FILE (# 1062)
Version française

Germany

9cm leichte LadungsWerfer Ehrardt

Trench artillery

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Location :
France
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Private collection
Coordinates : Lat : 48.85294 / Long : 2.35014
General comments on this surviving gun :
This mortar is exposed in a private collection in an unknown location in France (?). This file coordinates are corresponding to Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, and are obviously fake !


Identical items in the same location : 1
Items covered by this file : 1

This Leichte LadungsWerfer does not have its upper tube, it is therefore exposed in the Minenwerfer. version, with a Lanz projectile near

Little illustration of the two configurations of this weapon : minenwerfer / ladungswerfer.


Historic and technical information
Denomination :     9cm lLW Ehrardt Origin :       ( RheinMetall)          

Historic context :

Just before the war, the German pionneers units expressed their need of a weapon able to throw any explosive charge of maximum dimension 15 x 15 x 15 cm at 50 meters as a minimum. RheinMetall first proposed a springs based launcher, but this system proved not practical and is replace by a remarkably polyvalent weapon.

In its usual configuration, The 9cm Leichte LadungsWerfer Ehrardt was made of two 91.3 mm inner diameter steel tubes, butt threaded one to each other. The lower tube, orientable, was fixed to the platform via a pivot and was drilled with a threaded hole able to receive a classic minenwerfer primer. The upper tube, longer, was drilled with 4 gaz vents just over the junction thread. A long rod, equipped with a piston at its lower extremity and a kind of platform (projectile bearer) at is upper extremity, was inserted the two tubes assembly, the upper platform staying outside the upper tube. It could slide inside the tube, somehow like a piston in a bicycle pump.

The piston was pushed up by the combustion gasses of the primer (that could be improved by a 5 gr propulsive charge) placed at the tube bottom, then the gasses escaped by the vents at the middle of the tube length, interrupting the rod movement. The cylindric explosive charge placed on the platform was then propulsed in the sky.

This explosive projectile was anything, but was often a simple steel plate cylinder filled with high explosive. It was equipped with a wick that had to be fired before the shot, probably leaving the servants with weird situations if the propulsive load was failing...

In this configuration, this weapon was litterally a 'LadungsWerfer' (charge launcher), but the same weapon could be transformed into a classic minenwerfer launching Lanz or Mauser mortars ammunitions, just by removing the upper tube and the piston rod.

Technical data :

  • Complete description : 9cm Ehrardt light trench mortar
  • Design year : 1915
  • Calibre : 91.30 mm
  • Weight in firing position : 49.5 kg (39.5 kg without upper tube)
  • Weight for transportation :
  • Tube length in calibres : 0.00
  • Grooves : 0 smooth bore
  • Projectile weight : 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4 ou 4.5 kg (ladungswerfer) - 4 kg (minenwerfer)
  • Initial speed :
  • Fire rate :
  • Range : around 50 to 150 m (ladungswerfer) - 190 to 210 m (Minenwerfer)
  • Elevation range :
  • Direction range :


Sources
  • German Artillery of World War One           Herbert Jager                   Crowood   2001  
  • Die deutschen Minen- und Granatwerfer im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914-1918       Dr Tillmann Reibert                   epubli GmbH   2014