23083
W. Britain
The 17 cm Mittlerer Minenwerfer (17 cm mMW) was developed by Theinmetall and entered German service in 1913. It was a mussle-loading, rifled mortar weighing 1,065 pounds that had a standard hydro-spring recoil system designed for destroying bunkers and field fortifications otherwise immune to normal artillery.
In action, the 17 cm Mittlerer Minenwerfer was placed in a pit, after its wheels were removed, not less that 1.5 meters deep to protect it and its crew. Despite its extremely short effective range of 300 meters, this mortar proved to be very effective at destoying enemy bunkers.
With the nature of static warfare on the Wester Front, the number of mortars grew from 116 in 1914 to some 2,361 by the end of the war in 1918.