Thursday 1 September 2011

Fort Pictures

Here are my pictures taken at Tilbury Fort on Monday. They include an interesting series of pictures of a British Spigot Mortar. The mounts were large reinforced concrete blocks with a metal pin in the top. These were so massive and robust that many remain in position to this day, although I expect most people don't realise what they are. The example at Tilbury Fort actually has a rare mounted example of the mortar, also known as a Blacker Bombard.



The first Bombards appeared in late 1941 and were positioned around airfields, important road junctions and in coastal positions and were predominantly manned by the Home Guard although they were issued to regular units as well. By mid 1942 over 22,000 had been produced and issued to forces throughout the country. However they were never a popular weapon, possibly because they were only effective at close range leaving crews vulnerable both to counter-attack and shrapnel from their own projectiles!

7 comments:

  1. Great pics Lee, apart from the scary one of some dodgy dude in a hat?

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  2. Good pictures, Lee. Man you really had great holidays this year!. A good sign that you're now close or even fully recovered from your ills; I'm glad for that

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  3. Thanks for sharing this wonderfull pictures with us Lee!

    Greetings
    Peter
    http://peterscave.blogspot.com/

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  4. Very nice photos Lee. Thanks for that.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. edit:

    I thought your readers might like to see an example of a Spigot Mortar with a round loaded

    http://www.sallyanderson.co.uk/spigot2.jpg

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  7. Very nice report. Thanks for the pictures. I haven't run into many of the spigot mortars here in southern Indiana.

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