You may remember an earlier thread about the 15cm Belgian howitzer. Latest news on the Pozieres gun at Enoggera is that it will be moved early in 2011 complete with the concrete slab it's partly embedded in. Meanwhile the 9th Btn Assoc. is examining options to release the gun from the slab and conserve/restore the gun.
I was asked recently how many of these guns were in Belgian service at the start of WW1 - I had no idea - does anyone on the forum know?
Regards,
Charlie
ps. I think I've found an 1916 image of the Enoggera gun in the AWM image archive - if it is the same gun it's the only gun I have a battlefield image of and the current images.
If you have a copy of the stupendous recent magnum opus on Austro-Hungarian artillery, there is a photo in it of what is claimed to be a captured "9.5cm" Belgian howitzer in use by Austro-Hungarian troops on the Italian front. I suspect that it is in fact a 149mm weapon, due to the caliber of the breech ring and overall size of the weapon. Did Belgium in fact have any ordnance in 95mm, which is generally seen to be a French caliber? I know they had some 120mm guns and howitzers (or were the Belgian Krupp models actually 125mm like their Dutch counterparts)?
There certainly was a 12cm gun - it used much the same carriage as the 15cm howitzer. There's one preserved at the Army Museum, Brussels. No idea whether it was actually 125mm.
The Pozieres gun was moved without drama last week. It had been hoped to remove the barrel and put it on the gun the right way up but the trunnions are firmly rusted onto the carriage. It'll take a concerted effort with penetrating oil and a hydraulic jack to free it, I think.
Regards,
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Thursday 3rd of February 2011 07:48:04 AM
-- Edited by CharlieC on Thursday 3rd of February 2011 07:48:21 AM
