Little David Siege Mortar
Japan was on the brink of defeat. Last ditch defenses were being prepared. The Emperor would not let his island nation fall easily. They, the Japanese people, would fight to the last man, woman and child. Facing astounding odds in combat and unprecedented fortification efforts, the United States faced an invasion of Japan with much trepidation.
To break these anticipated sieges and Herculean defense works of the Japanese, the United States military looked to siege warfare to create a weapon designed to decimate defenses with devastating and overwhelming power. The Little David 914mm mortar is history's largest diameter artillery piece.
The massive piece, with a tube 22 feet long, was supposed to be towed into battle via two large prime mover trucks. The tube was towed by one truck and the mortar base assembly was brought to the field by another. The base alone, weighing in at 46 tons, dwarfed a soldier standing beside it.
The Little David was never designed to sit on flat ground. To the contrary, combat engineers were needed to prepare the ground by digging a 12 foot deep trench floored by railroad timbers for the weapon placement. Once in the trench, earth was back-filled around the Little David base, with additional railroad ties and dirt tamped to further hold the mortar.
The tube was then backed over the now level base assembly, with hydraulic jacks rising from the base to engage the mortar trunnions, allowing the truck to pull away and the mortar to be seated on the base.
Once placed and secured, the Little David projectile, weighing 3,650 pounds was placed in the mortar tube by a crew. The projectile was seated atop a propellant bag at the weapon's base. Raised and traversed to target coordinates, the Little David tube was hydraulically pumped upwards into battery.
Upon firing, the tube recoiled two feet backwards, propelling the three ton shell to distances as far as six plus miles at a velocity of 1,200 feet per second.
When the projectile impacted its effects were beyond question. The average crater was nearly 40 feet around and 14 feet deep.
With the Little David essentially a super-size artillery piece its fielding seemed imminent as the invasion of Japan loomed. However, before the Little David was shipped out, Japan surrendered with the dropping of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Not So Little David Siege Mortar - Dieselpunks
Type Heavy mortar
Place of origin United States
Service history
In service Testing only
Used by USA
Wars World War II
Specifications
Weight 40 tons (without carriage)
Barrel length 22 feet (6.7 m)
Shell 3,650 pounds (1,656 kg)
Caliber 36 inches (914 mm)
Barrels 1
Muzzle velocity 1250 ft/s (381 m/s)
Maximum firing range 6 miles (9.7 km)
Feed system Muzzle loading
