JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
The American soldier in this new service photo is having a good hard look at the business end of a captured German Minenwerfer ("mine launcher", which was a short-range mortar), .a three-inch field gun used to devastating effects throughout the war. We are told via the supplied typed caption that the display was installed on Coney Island (Brooklyn) as part of a Red Cross fund-raising exhibit. 
Notes:
"The light version of the weapon, the 7.58 cm leichter Minenwerfer (LMW; "light mine launcher"), was still at the prototype stage when the war started, but rapidly entered production. The weapon was far more efficient than its artillery counterpart: in comparison, the 7.7 cm FK 96 n/A needed to be towed by a team of six horses, compared with a single horse for the LMW; additionally, the LMW could be moved around the battlefield by four men. The minenwerfer was cheaper, costing only one seventh as much as the artillery gun, as was its ammunition."--Wikipedia
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