Mortar "Dictator"
Mortyra (Dutch. Mortier) - an artillery gun with a short barrel (usually less than 15 calibers in length) for mounted shooting. The mortar is intended primarily for the destruction of particularly strong defensive structures and for engaging targets hidden behind walls or in trenches. It has been used since the 15th century. In many modern languages, mortar and mortar are called by the same word. In modern Russian, the term "mortar" is applied only to short-barreled guns that do not have a plate that transmits recoil into the ground (that is, they are not mortars).
For the first time mortars were put on railway platforms during the American Civil War in 1861 in the army of the Northern states. The artillery was quickly delivered to the Southern States troops camped along the railroad line and made a sudden devastation in their camp. This successful experience was later used several times. In 1864, 13-inch mortars were already installed on the platforms, which fired shells weighing about 100 kg with a firing range of up to 4.5 km during the siege of Pittsburgh. In Europe, a similar use of railway platforms took place in 1871 during the siege of Paris by the Prussian army during the Franco-Prussian war: it was possible to shell the fortifications of the city from different sides.
In Germany, at the end of the 19th century, it was decided to organize mobile squads of siege parks, later transformed into corps artillery. Four 21-cm mortars and six 15-cm howitzers were assigned to these mobile compartments, converted from bronze 12-pounder cannons by inserting a steel pipe into them. These guns did little to meet the requirements of maneuverability, but, in any case, they could be delivered relatively soon to the sector of the front, where they were needed. Austria followed Germany along the same path as in other respects. With a large projectile weight, it is usually used in relation to a mortar projectile) and a low barrel weight, the rollback speed of the latter turned out to be very high, as a result of which the system rollback was large. Any obstacles to the rollback of the system caused strong jumps, sideways deviations,why the restoration of the original position of the gun took a long time.