French soldiers handling a gun. As I am no expert on the matter, can anyone tell some more? I was wondering if this guns has extra wheels for transport, it looks like regarding the axle stubs. But there are small rollers too.
It looks like a 220mm mortar M1880 or 91, possibly a 270. IIRC the wheels were for transport and the gun was bedded in for firing.
-- Edited by James H on Friday 19th of November 2010 12:59:00 PM
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"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
Yes, it is a "mortier de 220 mm modèle 1880" on wood platform, the small wheels are used only for short movement. This mortar is usually mounted on steel platform ("plateforme modèle 1891) with hydraulic brake or the near similar "plateforme modèle 1901". The long shell ("obus allongé modèle 1909") was very powerful (weight 98 kg, high explosive Filling: 28,5 kg, near twice the Filling of the german 21-cm Mörser) but the maximum range was only 7100 meters. For transport, the mortar had two carriages with big wheels but usually in trench warfare, it was transported on 3 waggons on small gauge railway "voie de 0,60 mètre" (one waggon for the mortar tube, one for the carriage, one for the platform). Yours sincerely, Guy François.
-- Edited by ALVF on Friday 19th of November 2010 05:31:34 PM
