The 9 cm Minenwerfer M 17 (Trench mortar) was a medium mortar used by

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

in World War I. It was developed by the Hungarian Gun Factory to meet a competition held on 3 October 1917 to replace both of the earlier light mortars, the M 14/16 and the Lanz. Production was slow to ramp up and only ten weapons could be delivered in January 1918. The first large deliveries were made in March 1918, but the raw materials crisis and strained production facilities hindered the TMK's plan to produce 2730 mortars by October 1918. It was a breech-loading rifled weapon that used a shotgun-like

break-action Break action is a type of firearm action in which the barrel(s) are hinged much like a door and rotate perpendicularly to the bore axis to expose the breech and allow loading and unloading of cartridges. A separate operation may be required for ...

to open the breech. This was arranged so that the barrel returned to the proper elevation to speed up the rate of fire. The carriage was mounted on a small metal rectangular firing platform with four carrying handles that permitted some amount of traverse. In Czech service the mortar was known as the ''9 cm Lehky minomet vz. 17'' and the German designation for captured Yugoslav mortars was ''9cm Granatwerfer 309(j)''. Although still active in the Czech armory at the time of the German takeover there are no records of the Germans using it.

References

* Ortner, M. Christian. ''The Austro-Hungarian Artillery From 1867 to 1918: Technology, Organization, and Tactics''. Vienna, Verlag Militaria, 2007 Mortars of Austria-Hungary Infantry mortars 90 mm artillery {{Artillery-stub