Talk:Chemical mortar battalion

Manoeuvrability versus manoeuverability
Yes, I agree with anon's edit, this is an U. S. Army subject, so it should be spelled "manoeuverability". Dieter Simon 00:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Changes in Chemical Mortar Battalions May 9 2006
I added a number of points to this article, mostly expanding on existing content. The only point I contradicted was referring to the shell in flight as silent rather than "fluttering." My reference for this is an officer of the U.S. 45th Infantry Division who interviewed a number of German POWs about the chemical mortar; he was also the source of the "grass-cutter" nickname.

I made a "dog's breakfast" of my edits, as Field Marshall Montgomery would say, because this is my first Wikipedia edit and I was unfamiliar with the tools. My apologies and a promise to do better next time.
 * Fluttering might not be the exact description of the sound a missile in transit makes, but there certainly was a sound before it reached its target. The trouble with mortar shells is, as in any other ordnance as they come toward you (and you survive) you don't hear the sound, but anyone not far off will most certainly hear if not a fluttering but a buffeting kind of sound. We were within earshot of shells bursting very close but were not directly beneath them, and I can assure you they definitely made this buffeting sound. How could they not, anything that travels through air is subjected to buffeting by air currents, which manifests itself in shells of higher velocity as a kind of whistling, screaming or even howling. Only in recent stealth-type missiles and craft is this being avoided. Dieter Simon 22:25, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I have wondered myself about how a shell could be silent; the only thing that has occurred to me is that the 4.2 was about the only shell with the combination of spin and low velocity. I'm not sure why that combination would make it quieter, but that and silence are the only unique characteristics so perhaps they are related. The officer's comment in the post-campaign "lessons Learned" documents were definite about POWs stating this as a reason they especially disliked the 4.2s. At the same time I have to defer to you as having been there personally. I have no objection to you removing my comment on this topic from the article. I'll see a number of chemical mortar WW II vets at a reunion next month; I'll raise the question with them.
 * We would probably have to ascertain where these POWs were positioned in relation to the shell in transit and its subsequent impact. As for the members of the mortar platoons, etc. themselves, they should have been able to hear adjacent or slightly more distant shells being fired. Dieter Simon 23:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The development and capabilities of the chemical mortar
'... had evolved to prevail against the random effect of the gas clouds that in adverse weather would affect friend and foe alike with sometimes disastrous results in the trench-warfare conditions at the time.'

Surely the only sensible conclusion one can make from this sentence is that the Stokes mortar was designed to combat gas attacks; which is utter nonsense, the 4" Stokes (which was the basis for the 4.2") was used to fire gas shells (at which it was very successfull, although it lso ired other types of shells).Glevum (talk) 01:43, 10 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Not the only sensible conclusion. I read it as stating the advent of the chemical mortar made it less likely that gas fired by one side would affect the side that fired it, which was a huge problem when chemicals were dispersed out of simple canisters. Reword it to make it clearer, if you'd like, but purporting that your reading is the only sensible conclusion one could make is a stretch. IvoShandor (talk) 02:48, 10 September 2012 (UTC)