The Spigot Mortar

Thought I'd add this to a relevant thread instead of starting a new one. This is a training high explosive round from the Blacker Bombard. The head is filled with concrete to simulate combat weight. Not quite as big as the anti-tank round but still a significant size.

 

There is colour footage of a Blacker Bombard being fired in the Yorkshire Film Archive. The film is of the West Yorkshire Home Guard in training probably relatively late judging by the BD and Webbing. Sten Mk1 in use too. Its a fair few years since I have viewed it.

 

YFA1214 Formation of the Thornton Home Guard
1940-41
Spigot Mortar starts at 9'.50 on the footage available. My mistake in memory - leather belts and anklets.
Search | Yorkshire Film Archive

 

Cracking shots!

And the film.

 

My next book is on all the lovely spigot weapons the UK and other nations used. So to answer some questions:

It was bloody effective, and range was a lot longer than you state. about 1,000 yards for the HE, and about 300 for the Atk, although against a moving target due to the low velocity you'd restrict that to 150 yards.

He's at No3 GHQ school, so it maybe the first time he's fired the weapon. There were a number of exceptionally horrific stories doing the rounds about the Bombard. Generally the course at the schools dispelled all of these. I mean, not that the Bombard couldn't kill the gunner, but you had to do something stupid, like placing your head upon the padded bit over the gun sight. Then you'd break your neck, as it'd transmit the 6-tonss of force from the recoil directly into your neck.

If it's the collection I think it is, they're all at RMARG now.

Yes it is. One is a Dynamic spigot, the other fixed. However, if you scaled up the PIAT you'd get a Petard.

I have never, ever, in my seven years of looking at it seen mention of it being offered to the RAF. The Weapon was always heading to the Home Guard, indeed one Senior HG officer described it as "the answer to the maidens prayer".
Then shortly after issue there was a malfunction at a demonstration. Someone had armed a 20lbr Atk round with a fuse. The fuse was missing a felt disk, and so was inserted the wrong way. This caused the round to detonate while still on the spigot. This one (and only) incident is the source for all the terrible stories. Very shortly afterwards a Mk.II fuse was issued, with a pair of flanges on the fuse so it was physically impossible to insert the wrong way round.
It was found that a course at the weapons school was the perfect cure to the wariness of the Home Guard. In one case an officer was 100% set against the Bombard, and his commander supported his views. He left at close of the course at 0930. By 1130 he'd gotten home, telephoned his CO, and was now phoning up the school asking when he can get everyone in his HG platoon on the course.

If someone is maligning the PIAT, they they are spouting effluent and don't know what they're talking about. The PIAT was the best platoon level infantry Atk weapon of the Second World War. Observe:


The bombard was also a bloody excellent weapon. To the extent they were looking at landing them on D-day to give the infantry units some serious Atk firepower should the Panzer Divisions charge them before we could get our own tanks and Anti-tank guns ashore.

Use in North Africa: Plenty of evidence.
It isn't the ancestor of the Petard, but its on the same family tree, although in a different branch.

None ever made it to Russia, however, this and the Pacific seem to have been the only theatres of the war that the Bombard did not fight in. She was used in combat in Burma and North Africa.

Fun thing, that newsreel shows the crew being utter clown shoes. Note how suddenly the centre of the trench suddenly raises in height between one jump cut and the other? And the difficulty they have when inserting the legs on the Mobile Field mount?

Blacker did try for an AA spigot mortar, but he'd started work on them as a bit of a loose cannon, and the idea was not well received by the Government, and justifiably so.

Perceived Disadvantages were because the PIAT and the Bombard were two totally different weapons, with different roles. You might as well compare a Boys rifle to a 2-pounder.

I brought one literally two weeks ago:

That, is damn nice film, and the crew are following the drills precisely. Note how the bomb carrying tube lids are left in place to plug the tail of the bomb? Good drills! Vastly better than the mess the earlier video showed.

 

Most of the static Bombard mounts that formed part of the Teme Stop Line defences were installed to cooperate with AT defences designed to halt or at least slow down a tank - the intention obviously being to avoid a moving target

According to Stewart Blacker's own words the Petard was a direct development from the Bombard. The spring spigot (as he refers to it) replaced the fixed one because the force of the explosion kept bending the fixed spigot (Barnaby Blacker, The Adventures and Inventions of Stewart Blacker Chap 28)

It was originally suggested as an airfield defence weapon but Brooke was doubtful but accepted it on the grounds of simplicity but only on the understanding that RAF personnel would never be allowed to operate it. It was installed on a number of airfields but operated by the Home Guard (Pillbox Study Group)

Including at least one photo of the Indian Army with one

See above reference to Blacker

 

Excellent! A Man of culture!



OUR BATTLE SHALL BE EPIC!

Pretty much. What is interesting is Holdfasts usually consisted of three mounts, which the gun could be moved between at will. You just need two people to pick it up, and leg it to the next position, then drop it on. In the end we ended up over producing Holdfasts, with about 500 more than the required amount.

Blacker is a difficult bloke to trust his writings of. He's very much the type of person who will bend facts to prove himself right so he can peel another sullen grape of Wrath. It makes researching him very very difficult, as pretty much everything he's published has an agenda. I found one claim that he had a working PIAT in the late 1930's and if the War Office had listened to him and issued it we'd have won in Norway and France.

In counter to that, I have multiple records from Denovan, and a few others, under oath in court swearing blind that he asked for PIAT dialled up to 11. He also said the two blokes working for Blacker Developments Ltd who had been working on the PIAT worked closely with Denovan to scale everything up.

There's pictures of New Zealand and DLI troops manning one, multiple references in the NZ War Memorial, and there's two accounts of its use that I've been able to find.

 

Yes - but unfortunately Denovan was also no stranger to producing romanticised accounts. However Blacker's account squares with Richard C. Anderson Jr.'s Cracking Hitler's Atlantic Wall: The 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers on D-Day which also makes the point that Denovan's original intent was to use the Bombard on the Churchill and this was then developed into the Petard by Blacker

 

Well Denovan had a couple of stabs at it. First one was a bank of Bombard Spigots, which carried on snapping under the recoil. He then went to see Blacker and asked him for an embiggened PIAT. Blacker leapt into action. However there was trouble with the firing gear which delayed matters. So Denovan went to work on the Denny gun, his own design. At this point Blacker sped up solved the issues and The Petard was created.

Wait, are you confusing the Petard with the Buffalo? That was an attempt to produce a poundland demolition mortar, from Bombard parts?

 

From Better to Die: The Story of the Gurkhas by Edward Bishop: 2/7 GR at Tobruk and a thread to tug at:

 

Another use for on in the 21st century
Blacker Bombard (Spigot Mortar) site, Ludlow, Shropshire