Cannons vs Martians

[artillerymanfan]

I've been cruising the web, and spotted something of interest. In the story, the Royal Artillery kills a fighting at Weybridge with cannons. Plausible enough right? Well it suddenly occurred to me that cannons can't aim that high, or would have to be totally far away and not be able to even hit the fighting machines which are 100 feet high. How could you 'decapitate' a machine when you could only hit the legs? Or correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no master of early 20th century weapons.

[Luperis]

Maybe all the legs were destroyed, so the fighting machine fell over?

[Gnorn]

Nonono... the story clearly states the hood of the FM is hit and explodes...

From memory, I recall the cannons where a way back from where the FM stood, but not how far they where. Couldn't the cannons be tilted in different angels maybe?

-Gnorn

[artillerymanfan]

Even if you could tilt it, i think cannons of the day or a bit before could not fire that high, it says in the fort henry weapons section that cannons of the day could only fire 4 degrees high to attain maximum range and hitting power. Also it says in the abridged version of the book i got from the library that at St Georges hill, another one of the fighting machines was downed but shot at from 1000 yards and only hit the legs. Perhaps the Weybridge or Shepperton battery was composed of mortars?

[artillerymanfan]

The Shepperton Battery and Weybridge battery are same thing btw. And what were mortars like in 1904? Old ones like in my picture? Or newer ones like the ones in Medal of Honor Allied Assault Spearhead?

[Stewymartian]

There were no mortars as we know them at the time of TWOTW. Modern mortars were a product of the trenches of WW1. I'm not sure what range of elevation was available to the 12 pounders that were the mainstay of the anti-Martian defences, but 4 degrees sounds a bit limited to me. Besides which, the ground could have been prepared in such a way as to increase the effective elevation (the weybridge gunners knew that they were expecting tripods and may have organised their defences accordingly).

[artillerymanfan]

Mortars were around in 1904, I got a book from library with a section on mortars. It reads:"Although mortars were first used in the 16th century, the necessary technology developed very slowly before World War 1. Before the war, however, the Germans had developed various types of mortar as infantry support weapons."

Emphasize the 'Before the war' part. Theres even a picture with a mortar very similar to modern mortars. Nevertheless there were mortars, perhaps still evolving but probably near the end and resembling the British Stokes World War 1 mortar.

[Gerkinman]

if you read the book i think youll find the cannons where on a raised area of ground, like the top off a cliff face or something, and when the tripod walked past infront the cannon easily "cannoned" into the cockpit. or atleast i think its something like that. i think the odds are that they where on a raised area of land.

[Gnorn]

Gerkinman, I think you are refering to the chapter 'What happened in Surrey' where a group of trained artillerymen disabled a tripod for some time, probably because they damaged one of the legs. That tripod was repaired and later that night continued on it's way.

-Gnorn

[artillerymanfan]

Look, if you prepared the ground to aim upwards, it would take even longer to reload and such. The gun would slope even further back on recoil, and on a hill against a Martian with a deep-fryer ray, it would be pretty stupid to have to run down a hill chasing a 12 pounder. Now if you were up on a hill with no ground prepping, you'd be obliterated, thats why they 'hide' the batteries in the woods (at least in the abridged version of book I read, but im reading the real one at Gutenberg project thingy)

[artillerymanfan]

Also, could you conceivably kill a fighting machine by spraying bullets from rifles or Machine guns into the hood?