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The sMW was not a troop weapon per se, being used simply for local fire support, at the beck and call of the local commanders. The use of the gun was often strictly centralized, the batteries being tightly controlled by the artillery commanders, giving them the role of supplementing the ordinary artillery. In the attack, batteries of sMW were almost invariably used for making an enemy position "ripe for assault" - sturmreif. (All large calibre weapons were used for this. Field Guns and lighter Minenewerfers, were primarily used for suppression or interdiction.) For instance, during the breaking of the Russian front at Riga, in early september 1917, around 100 had been gathered, and were used with telling effect.
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Technical Data
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The Minenwerfers originally started as a
specialist weapon for the Engineer branch of the Army, thought to be used
primarily against obstacles hard to get at by traditional engineer means and by
artillery. What the designers at Rheinmetall came up with, was essentially a
scaled down howitzer, with a rifled barrel, a hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism
and a standard dial sight. It was, however, muzzle-loaded. At the outset of the
war, some 44 of these heavy Minenwerfers had been issued to the troops,
and being a well-kept secret, they came as a nasty surprise to the enemies of
the German Army, first the Belgians - who were first subjected to them during
the German attack at Liège and Namur, then to the French and British.
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