The previous thread reminded me of a topic I've been meaning to raise....
The Landships site has some articles on the licence built versions of the 75mm Krupp export guns but there isn't an article which brings the information on licence built and exported guns together.
The Krupp 75mm gun was, arguably, one of the most important guns in terms of numbers before and during WW1.
It would nice to resolve the issue of models among these guns - perhaps there wasn't a formal model no. designation system and Krupp just constructed a single model of gun with small variations to suit different clients.
I'll try to make a start on this project on Landships II in the next few days with the Ottoman and Japanese 75mm guns but it's only going to work well with input from lots of people who know about particular users of the 75mm gun.
The basic Belgian Field Artillery - think designated M1905 is virtually identical to the M1903 used by the Turks. The Turks had multiple orders from Krupp for their 75mm - think it was 1907, 1909, 1911, orders after the initial supply of m03's. I have seen a list of Krupp exports to turky on the Bugarian international forum (?) & may have a copy of it. Will look it up - just got some other issues in the real world to sort 1st.
I didn't know anything about the US M1902 - but a tiny amount of research shows it certainly looks like a derivative of the Krupp gun. Did the US purchase a licence for the Krupp gun? The change in breech design from sliding wedge to interrupted screw breech is simlar to the change made by the Japanese to the Krupp M1908 mountain gun as the Type 41 gun.
Wikipedia says that a small no. of M1902/4/5 guns served on the Western Front in WW1.
Woud you like to contribute an article on the M1902 gun, Bernard?
There is a Landships article on the Italian Cannone 75 06
Regards,
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Wednesday 26th of May 2010 06:45:25 AM
Further note the ammunition for the Krupp produced 75mm series is interchangeable with that for the Schneider-canet series of commercial 75's - certainly for the models 1903,1904,1905,1906 & 1907 used in the Balkans. The Bulgarians only bought Schneider -Canet guns when this was demonstrated to them. The great bulk of Bulgarian armmaments are German or Austro-Hungarian but there was a bottle neck that made this a problem at the time the Bulgarians did their big purchases of Field & Mountain artillery QF's in the 1st decade of the C20th.
Thus the standard field guns (QF) of almost all players in the Balkan Wars of 1912 & 1913 have largely interchangeable ammo!
These guns ammo is NOT compatible with the M1897 75mm though.
I don't know what the story with the 1912 & 1913 models from schneider canet is - though they could well be like the earlier ones as the French very quickly shifted these weapons into forgein service after their crisis was over. In addition the Serbs in particular had models 1904, 1906, 1907 & 1912 serving at the same time in the Balkans after 1915 (& may have had M1913's too?).
The basic Belgian Field Artillery - think designated M1905 is virtually identical to the M1903 used by the Turks. The Turks had multiple orders from Krupp for their 75mm - think it was 1907, 1909, 1911, orders after the initial supply of m03's. I have seen a list of Krupp exports to turky on the Bugarian international forum (?) & may have a copy of it. Will look it up - just got some other issues in the real world to sort 1st.
Regards,
Brennan
Not quite - the Belgian guns had a hinge in the trail. I don't know the exact purpose of this but it looks like a way of increasing the elevation of the gun by lying the back part of the trail flat on the ground. It isn't for inserting a pole in the front part of the trail for transport because this is blocked off at the hinge.
I added the list of Krupp export to Bulgaria, taken from Krupp Archives (If you write to Krupp they answer in a week or two, sendin what you want. They were very, very kind). I have made also a list of Turkish purchases up to 1914 : http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=109530&start=15#p1395372 The Krupp guns came from Krupp Archives. The guns bought elsewhere came from different sources, that you can see at the bottom of the post. You may add also 40 Krupp 75mmL/30 ex Brasilian guns seized by Germany and delivered to Turkey after the beginning of WW1.
The hinged trail example displayed in Brussels is a post-war modification. You will not find a war time pic of this modification. It is believed the "hinge" was to either facilitate truck-borne batteries. or more likely, to provide added elevation.
here is an extract from my website database passioncompassion1418 :
At the beginning ot the 20th century, the USA were not having an powerful enough artillery manufacturing. Entering into war, the US Army had to face the insufficience of their own Artillery material in both quantity and quality, and had to order foreign material, French and British.
This '3 inches Fieldgun M02' is a perfect example of that weakness : built by US arsenals (Ordnance Department) on the base of a German Rheinmetal design (Germany previously delivered 40 guns), the performances of that gun were really too deceiving to equip the US Expeditionnary Forces in Europe battlefields.
These guns were therefore used for the homeland borders defence, and particularly during the 1916 fights at the Mexican border, but never in Europe.
One of the ways to easily recognize this gun from its German cousin 77 FK 96 n/A is the tubular shape of the front seats. The breech is also completely different (screw type for the the US version, block type for the German). There is a lot of surviving examples of this gun nowadays in USA.
Main characteristics :
Weight in firing position : 970 kg
Calibre : 75 mm
Tube length : 29.2 calibres
Projectile weight : 6.8 kg
Initial velocity : 518 m/s
Maximum range : 6860 / 8650 (buried trail) m
Elevation range : -5 / +15 degrees
Direction range : 8 degrees
So, this gun is much more a Rheinmetall than a Krupp (but the FK96 n/A was mainly revamped by Rheinmetall, right ?). The breech is not a conventional German breechblock type.
Looks to me as if the US M1902 was a derivative of the Ehrhardt (Rheinmetall) gun that the British used as the "15-Pounder" before WW1. This is another branch of artillery that needs to be explored for the Landships site because various Ehrhardt guns were used in Germany's colonies in WW1.
I`ve got three restored Krupp 75mm guns L30 with the rotating breech block ala Welin style. They are Argentine 1909 models with fixed main shield & hinged lower. Jon
That's interesting, I haven't seen a 75mm Krupp gun with anything other than a sliding wedge breech. Was the gun produced with this breech or was it a later modification?
Hi Charlie, I understand that Krupp made both the wedge & the three stage interrupted screw breech, but settled on the wedge for ease of manufacture. I have seen examples in Norway, Japan, Chile, Germany & Bulgaria and all were slightly different insofar as forward shield seats and brakes. I personally believe the design was influenced by Erhardt`s work.
Can you tell me the difference betwin the M1903 and the late M 1905 L/30 as i belive you have got? Can you send me some photos that I will be able to publish in the Wikipedia, an artical I am writing about this gun ?
I don't think anyone has sorted out the differences between all the variations of the Krupp export 75mm gun. The guns seemed to have been built in two main versions - foot artillery which lacked axle tree seats and horse artillery which had these. There are differences in the gun shield between the earlier built guns and the later ones - the top of the shield extends out over the wheels in the later versions.
In Australia there are examples of Turkish 75mm guns from the first order in 1905 (delivered 1907) and the later orders in 1911 and 1913. Aside from the differences noted above these guns are pretty much identical. All of them have sliding wedge breeches with the usual screw jack elevation gear.
I think the Argentine guns are a quite separate design from the standard 75mm gun - they look much more like the Erhardt guns or similar (like the US 1902 gun).
Hi, I`d be happy to supply "snaps" of my Cannons for your incl. into the Wiki. If you give me an idea on what you require, then I`ll have dig about my H/drive. I think Charlie & Brennan are on the right track. I`ve included a little "eye candy"..a baby krupp 4cm. The Argentine National Museum has my gun carriage No.2.....I have theirs! Their tube is No.1..mine No.2. Cheers Jon.
There are a great many Fried. Krupp produced 7,5cm pieces for export.I will start off with just a few of the mountain guns (Gebirgsgeschuetze).The references I am showing images from are Das Geraet der Gebirgsartillerie vor, in und nach dem Weltkrieg by Hammer and Entwicklung des Artilleriematerials im Weltkrieg by Fried. Krupp.
This is a list of a few of the mountain guns for export and German Colonial service produced by Krupp:
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/13 1885 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/14 1902 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/14 1905 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/14 1910 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/14 1912 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/14 1914 Kp.
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/16 (alteres Modell)
7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/16 (Modell Rumaenien)
There are also a number of other Krupp produced mountain guns that are of other bore diameters like 3,7cm, 5,7cm,6,5cm,7cm, 7,7cm, 8cm, 8,7cm as well as mountain howitzers firing 10,5cm shells.Many of these pieces were exported to nations like Chile, Argentina, China, Ottoman Empire, Romania and the German Colonies.Other Krupp 7,5cm Field Guns were also exported.I will look over my references and see what I can put together on these for a later post.
Note that I have a Chilean export model 7,5cm. Geb. Kanone L/13 1885 Kp. in the collection and it can be seen at this link:
I can see a major article for Landships II in the Krupp mountain guns. The Landships artillery section is light on articles about the mountain guns - I guess because they weren't used much in the main fronts (like the Western) in WW1.
I guess you'd have to add to the list the 75mm Krupp M08 mountain gun built for the Japanese, built under licence as the Type 41 gun and used extensively in WW2. The Japanese gun is different from the other Krupp guns in Ralph's post since the trail is a simple tubular construction and the breech is a screw type rather than the Krupp sliding wedge.