Boom J, I know you don't have the time to double check everything on Wikipedia, neither do I, but, because of our monster project on Paihans' big mortar this year, I was just familiar enough to notice this error. The most telling evidence of bore size of the large Paixhans mortar comes from the annals of the Military Commission to Europe in 1855 and 1856; Report of Major Alfred Mordecai of the Ordnance Department, first published in 1858. See the excerpt below from page 117 of the Commission’s report.
“During the present century a few pieces of ordnance have been occasionally made of unusual weight and size, in order to obtain an extraordinary range or great power of destruction. Such were the long brass mortars of 9-inch and 11-inch bore made by General Villantroys for the siege of Cadiz, under Napoleon, and the iron “Monster Mortar”, of 24-inch bore made at Liege for the siege of Antwerp, in 1832”
Also there is the New York Times article of 1862:
"The largest mortar ever employed in active service was the iron 24-inch mortar tried by the French against the citadel of Antwerp in 1832, during the war of separation between the Dutch and the Belgians."
There is also the great disparity between the weight of the munitions for the big French mortar, 500 kilogr, or about 1,000 lbs. and the huge Mallet's mortar of 1857, which fired shells of 2,450 to 2,900 lbs according to trials officials , as reported by the London Times in 1857.
There are other references to the Monster Mortars bore size, but we don’t have time to search for all of them at this time. Frankly, the Commission’s Report by Alfred Mordecai is proof enough for us.
Regards,
Mike and Tracy
