Livens Projector

Livens Projector
British soldiers loading and fitting electrical leads to a battery of Livens projectors
Type	Mortar
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1916-1918
Used by	United Kingdom British Empire  United States
Wars	World War I
Production history
Designer	Captain William H. Livens, Royal Engineers
Designed	1916
Number built	UK : 140,000 projectors, 400,000 bombs[1][2][3]
Specifications
Shell	Gas drum
Calibre	8 inch
Elevation	fixed
Traverse	fixed
Maximum range	1,500 m (1.5 km)
Filling	Phosgene[4], Flammable oil
Filling weight	30 lb[5]
Detonation mechanism	Impact

The Livens Projector was a simple mortar-like weapon that could throw large drums filled with inflammable or toxic chemicals.^[6] In World War One, the Livens Projector became the standard means of delivering gas attacks and it remained in the arsenal of the British army until the early years of the Second World War.^[7]

Contents 1 History 2 Description 3 Combat use 4 Surviving examples 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 7.1 General references 7.2 Official documents 8 Further reading 9 External links

History

It was created by the British army officer Captain William H. Livens of the Royal Engineers.^[8] Later, in World War II he worked on petroleum warfare weapons such as the flame fougasse and various other flame throwing weapons.^[9][10]

Prior to the invention of the Livens Projector, chemical weapons had been delivered either by "cloud attacks" or chemical-filled shells fired from howitzers. Cloud attacks were made by burying gas-filled cylinder tanks just beyond the parapet of the attacker's trenches, and then opening valves on the tanks when the wind was right. This allowed a useful amount of gas to be released, but there was a significant danger that the wind would change and the gas would drift back over the attacker's own troops. Chemical shells were much easier to direct at the enemy, but could not deliver nearly as much gas as could be contained in a cylinder tank.

Livens was in command of Z company - the unit charged with developing and using flame and chemical weapons. Flame throwers and various means of dispensing chemicals had proven frustratingly limited in effectiveness. One day, during an attack on the Somme, Z company encountered a party of Germans who were well dug in. Grenades did not succeed in shifting them, so Livens improvised a sort of giant Molotov cocktail using two 5 gallon oil drums. When these were thrown into the German positions they were so effective that Livens's comrade Harry Strange wondered whether it would be better to use containers to carry the flame to the enemy rather than relying on a complex flame thrower.^[11][12]

Reflecting on the incident, Livens and Strange considered how a really large shell filled with fuel might be thrown by a mortar.^[13] Livens went on to develop a large, but simple, type of mortar that could throw an entire 3 gallon drum of oil which would burst when it landed, spreading burning oil over the target.^[14] Livens came to the attention of General Gough who was impressed by his ideas and "wangled" everything that Livens needed for his large projector.^[15]

On 25 July 1916 at Ovillers-la-Boisselle during the Battle of the Somme, Z Company used 80 projectors when the Australians were due to attack Posieres. The early versions had a short range and it was necessary to place the projectors 200 yards out in no-man's-land. The resulting barrage was highly successful in neutralising the German machine-gun posts.^[14]

Z Company rapidly developed the Livens Projector, increasing its range, first to 350 yards and eventually an electrically triggered version with a range of 1,300 yards. This version was successfully used at Messines Ridge in June 1917.^[14]

The Livens Projector was then modified to fire canisters of poison gas rather than oil. This system was trialled in secret, at Thiepval in September 1916 and Beaumont-Hamel in November.^[14] The Livens Projector was able to deliver a high concentration of gas a considerable distance. Each canister delivered as much gas as several chemical warfare artillery shells and without the need to reload a barrage could be launched quickly, catching the enemy by surprise. Although each projector could be fired just once during an attack, the weapon was sufficiently inexpensive to be deployed in hundreds or even thousands.

The Livens Projector was also used to fire other substances. At one time or another the drums contained high explosive, oil and cotton-waste pellets, thermite, white phosphorous and "stinks". The "stinks" were malodorous but actually harmless substances such as bone oil and amyl acetate used to simulate a gas attack that compelled the enemy to put on their cumbersome masks on occasions when gas itself could not be safely employed.^[16] There was even a design for ammunition containing a dozen mills bombs in the manner of cluster bomb.^[17]

The Livens Projector remained in the arsenal of the British army until the early years of the Second World War.^[7]

Description

The Livens Projector was designed to combine the advantages of both gas cylinders and shells by firing an actual cylinder tank at the enemy.^[18] It consisted of a simple metal pipe that was set in a ground at a 45 degree angle.

Precise specifications varied during the war: the early field improvisations in July 1916 near La Boselle based the barrel on 12-inch diameter oil drums, the projectile was an oil can; the production model decided on in December 1916 after further successful field trials on the Somme was based on spare 8-inch diameter oxy-acetylene welded tubing.^[19]

The 8-inch barrel became standard and was first deployed in action in numbers when 2,000 were used in a salvo in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917. Barrels were supplied in 3 lengths depending on required range : 2 feet 9 inches (840 mm) for short range, 3 feet (910 mm) for medium range, 4 feet 3 inches (1,300 mm) for maximum range.^[20]

A drum 7.6 inches (190 mm) in diameter and 20 inches (510 mm) long containing 30 pounds (14 kg) of gas^[5] was shot out with an electrically initiated charge, with a range of about 1,500 metres. On impact with the target, a burster charge would disperse the chemical filling over the area.^[21]

It was also used to project flammable oil, as with 1,500 drums before the Battle of Messines in June 1917.^[22] Oil was also tried on 20 September 1917 during the Battle of Menin Road with 290 projectors in an attempt to capture Eagle Trench east of Langemarck, which included concrete bunkers and machine gun nests, but the drums did not land in the trenches and hence failed to suppress the German defenders there.^[23]

Combat use

As a rule, the projectors were sited out in the open some little way behind the front line, so that digging, aiming—either by direct line of sight or by compass—and wiring up the electrical leads were easier. When camouflaged skilfully the positions were not known to the enemy beforehand, so that although the enemy was able to recognise the direction from which the flash of discharge came he was uncertain of the range. Of course, these installations could only be carried out at night. The digging of the narrow trenches did not involve much labour, and later in the war the projectors were only buried to a depth of about a foot, instead of up to their muzzles.^[24]

The projector was somewhat unreliable. In order to safeguard friendly forces from 'shorts' an area immediately ahead of the projector battery was cleared of troops before firing. This area allowed for the possibility of drums reaching only 60% of the estimated range, and of being diverted laterally 20 degrees from the central line of fire by the wind or from some other cause.^[25]

The projectors was also inaccurate:

"It was distinctly laid down as a principle that, owing to the inaccuracy of the weapon, the most suitable targets were areas which were either strongly held or which contained underground shelters in which the occupants were safe against artillery fire."^[26]

A British training manual of 1940 summarised thus:

"The projector is a simple weapon which does not aspire to great accuracy. Its range is limited to about 1,800 yards; the noise of firing is very loud, and at night is accompanied by a vivid flash.

Projectors are the principal armament of C.W. companies, RE."^[7]

The drawbacks of unreliability and inaccuracy were more than made up for by the weapon's principal advantages: it was a cheap, simple and ab extremely effective method of delivering chemical weapons. Typically, hundreds (or even thousands) of Livens projectors would be fired in unison during an attack in order to saturate the enemy lines with poison gas.

“

This weapon was one which, if the installation had been carried out carefully and camouflaged successfully, was capable not only of flooding the enemy's trenches unexpectedly with a deadly gas a few seconds after notice of its approach had been given by the flash of the discharge, but of establishing such a high concentration of poisonous vapour-especially in the neighbourhood where each drum fell—that no respirator, however efficient and however quickly adjusted, could be expected to give adequate protection to its wearer. [...] This 'mass effect' had, of course, not been achieved to any marked extent during the Somme battle, when only a dozen or two makeshift drums were discharged at a time; but now that we were proposing to fire several thousand of them simultaneously in a single operation, the effect might well be expected to be—and in fact was—profound. In a captured German document, dated 27/12/17, an English gas projector bombardment was described as follows: "The discharge in sight and sound resembles a violent explosion; volcanic sheets of flame or the simultaneous occurrence of many gun flashes, thick noise of impact up to 25 seconds after the flash of discharge. The mines, contrary to the manner of discharge, do not all burst exactly simultaneously: the noise resembles that of an exploding dump of hand-grenades. Fragmentation is very slight."[27]

”

Surviving examples

• Several barrels with bases are displayed at Sanctuary Wood Museum Hill 62 Zillebeke, Belgium^[28]
• Memorial Museum Passchendaele in Zonnebeke
• Several barrels i ground at the Yorkshire Trench & Dug-out in Ypres
• In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres

And there are very much surviving examples in private collection or other museums.

Related

• Poison gas in World War I
• List of artillery by type#Heavy mortars

Notes

References

General references

• Banks, Sir Donald (1946). Flame Over Britain. Sampson Low, Marston and Co. 
• Croddy, Eric (2001). Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen. Springer-Verlag New York. ISBN 978-0387950761. 
• Foulkes, Charles Howard (2001) [First published Blackwood & Sons, 1934]. "Gas!" The Story of the Special Brigade. Published by Naval & Military P.. ISBN 1-84342-088-0. 
• Rawson, Andrew (2006). British Army Handbook 1914-1918. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-3745-9. 
• Jones, Simon (2007). World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781846031519. http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=T1516. 

• LeFebure, Victor. The Riddle of the Rhine; chemical strategy in peace and war. The Chemical Foundation, Inc, 1923
• General Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Western Front 1914-18. London: Royal Artillery Institution, 1986
• Palazzo, Albert. Seeking Victory on the Western Front: The British Army and Chemical Warfare in World War I. University of Nebraska Press, 2002 ISBN 0-8032-8774-7.
• United States Department of War. (1942) Livens Projector M1 TM 3-325

Official documents

• The Use Of Gas In The Field. Operations: Military Training Pamphlet No. 23. Part V. War Office. January 1940. 
• Minutes of Proceedings before the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors. National Archives T 173/702. Treasury. 29 May 1922. 

• "History of the Ministry of Munitions", 1922. Volume XI, Part I Trench Warfare Supplies. Facsimile reprint by Imperial War Museum and Naval & Military Press, 2008 ISBN 1 847348 85 8

Further reading

• Richter, Donald (1992). Chemical Soldiers - British Gas Warfare in World War I. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1113-4. 

External links

• Worldscapes : Chemical & Biological Warfare
• Royal Engineers Museum, First World War - Livens Projector