French Guidetti Mortar

Captain of the French army André Guidetti in 1915 came up with the idea of how one-shot 11-mm Gras rifles lying around the storehouse could be used. In 1884, he proposed to remake them into mortars for throwing hand grenades.

The weapon turned out to be quite heavy, so a special gun carriage with an arrow seat was designed for it. The design of the carriage allowed fixing the mortar at a certain angle of inclination, ensuring the constant aiming. The drawback was also rather big. For its reduction, the barrel was made movable (at the bottom of 77 mm. Barrel for a grenade was an opening that slid along the trimming of the rifle barrel), and the recoil momentum was extinguished with the aid of a spiral spring. The total weight of the mortar with the carriage was about 35 kg.