Any ideas as to what the soldiers in this photo are using? It looks like maybe a mortar of some sort...

Anyone know what the heck this is ? I know I have seen the picture and explanation somewhere...

It looks very familar to me, too, but I can't recall where I've seen it.

A poster on another board suggested that it might be some sort of gas launcher. The fellow on the left looks to have some sort of projectile in his hand...

I so not know, but I want to find out. Perhaps Tony Williams will be along.

What does a 'spigot mortar' look like? I see the tube does not seem to go all the way down.

Isn't it a flare launcher?

I think it's either gas launcher or illumination launcher...considering the projectile soldier in left is holding.

I think those soldiers are trying out a new anti-mosquito weapon on the Salonika front.

A strange device - I can't recall having seen anything like it before.

There appears to be a trigger grip and maybe a bolt handle below the barrel, which suggests a cut-down rifle action firing blank rounds to project the bomb.

An illum/smoke projector?

It's simply one example of the wide collection of crapouillots (or minenwerfer for the Germans) used between late 1914 and 1917 by both sides. Basically bomb launchers which were used before mortars as we know them were introduced in 1917-18.

Since both sides found themselves without anything to provide indirect fire in the trenches once the frontline settled by the fall of 1914, all kinds of gap filling weapons were introduced; sometimes even emptied trunks or 1830's mortars, or giant crossbows.

http://canonspgmww1guns.canalblog.com/arch...ers_/index.html

Ah, Crapouillot !!

That is what I think it was called in pic explanation I saw. It sure looks like a piece of crap to me...

An interesting group of weapons. It seems that there are a lot of the 58mm versions scattered around as parts of monuments in France.

The Little Toad:




I found an online operator's manual that is a WW1 U.S.Army translation in English. The 58 no. 2 trench mortar:


http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/item_viewer.p...amp;CISOPTR=253

When fired the correct taunt to be yelled at the enemy was: "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!"

Later, when the US entered the war improvised shells using spiced ham cans were fired, replacing the Crapouillot with the Spamalot.

"You son of an electric donkey-bottom! I do more than fart in your general direction!" *BOOM!*

Votre mère était un hamster et votre père sentis des baies de sureau !

A little more info and a less cropped view of the photo in question:

have seemn similar - does IBRIXIS mean anything