INCH MORTAR IN THE MTO

On lo July 1943 American, British, and Canadian forces landed on the southern and eastern coasts of Sicily, and in the ensuing 3 8-day campaign the 4.2-inch chemical mortar met its first test in combat. This CWS weapon, still untried in battle nineteen months after the entry of the United States into the war, by 1945 was to become an important part of the Army s arsenal. 

2-inch mortar was the culmination of attempts to improve the 4-inch British Stokes Brandt (SB) mortar. With American-made SB mortars and with shell and propellants purchased from the British after World War I, the CWS sought to obtain increased range, accuracy, and mobility. By 1924, experiments under the direction of Capt. Lewis M. McBride (later colonel) produced the rifled 4.2-inch chemical mortar with a range of over 2,000 yards, and by the end of World War II this distance had been doubled.  

The Chemical Warfare Service saw the 4.2-inch mortar as a weapon which possessed mobility and flexibility, which could go in and out of 

Chemical Mortars, 4-inch and 4.2-inch, in Summary of Activities of the Mechanical Division, Edge wood Arsenal, 1920-1928 (hereafter cited as ATR 1S9) Proj 8a 29 May 33, p. 63. 

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