2 inch mortar shells of 5
calibers contain 110 pounds.
The projectile velocity used with the mortars is about 800 f.s. The
effect of these shells against ordinary masonry and earth
fortifications is very great. The charge of forty-two pounds has
broken through a masonry vault of three feet four inches thick,
covered with two feet eight inches of cement and with three to five
feet of earth over all. The shell containing fifty-seven pounds, at a
range of two and one-half miles, broke through a similar vault covered
with ten feet of earth; but with seventeen feet of earth the vault
resisted. In 1883, experiments at Kummersdorf showed that a shell
containing the fifty-seven pound charge would excavate in sand a
crater sixteen feet in diameter and eight feet deep, with a capacity
of twenty-two cubic yards. The Italians have had similar experiences;
but it is notable that in both Germany and Italy several guns and
mortars have burst. The velocity in the guns is not believed to exceed
1,200 to 1,300 f.s., and it is not thought that the quantity of
gun-cotton is as great in the gun shells as in the mortars. I have
lately been informed on good authority that the use of gun-cotton
shells has been abandoned in the German navy as too dangerous.
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