Landships II

I think the "tughra" (seal/signature) in the coat of arms is that of Mehmed V (1909-1918) -
Abdulhamid II was Sultan from 1876-1909 but was deposed and confined to a palace where he died in 1918. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Sultans.

I like the idea that the Red Cliffs gun is a "colour" gun - makes sense out of the observation that most of the Turkish guns lack a cipher. A similar observation applies to Rumanian 75mm guns as well - only some have the cipher of King Carol I.

Regards,

Charlie

Oh, by the way, in British tradition, all guns of an artillery regiment represent the colours, whether marked or not. Not sure of the extent to which that might apply outside of the Brit Commonwealth but it supposedly arose due to the incidence of catastrophic failure in the early guns and the need to encourage those early gunners to manfully accept the risk of being festooned in pliable strands across the battlefield should such occur, rather than having it away on their toes with the wind in their hair as any sensible person might do otherwise. Which would be pretty universal I suppose. No doubt marked guns, in a situation where most were not, might have some special significance as you suggest, I just don't have any reference to that.

Not necessarily knocking the Wikipedia authenticity of Sultan Mehmed V's Tughra, above, by the way. Just cautious when the primary sources are not in evidence - or as Philip Guedalla would have it "History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other." And so do we who repeat what the historians say.

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Tuesday 15th of March 2011 08:42:45 AM

In Imperial German service Foot and Field Artillery guns and howitzers were marked with two scrolls.  The one nearest the breech is the cipher for the monarch and the one nearest the muzzle is the land (state) cipher.  In Germany there were specific ciphers for Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg.  However, it is very common to see German guns from this era without two ciphers.  This is often because of depot level repairs made on the barrel.  Often while undergoing a rebuild the replacement mantel (innermost part of the barrel lining) would not have a cipher.  So this is why you might see an example that only has the monarch's cipher but not the state cipher.  Guns like this should have the depot rebuild date stamped on the breech-ring.  Also, wartime produced German guns generally do not have ciphers at all.  Just to confuse things a bit more there are some pre-war German service guns that just don't have ciphers.  I do not have a good explanation for why this is so.  It would make since to say that they must have been for a regimental organization not within Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony or Württemberg but I have an 1894 dated example in my collection that went to the Prussian Ist Corps but has no cipher. 

Naval guns in German service do not seem to have ciphers.

 

Example of a Kaiser William 1 cipher and Prussian cipher (about 9 photos from the top of the page):

 http://www.lovettartillery.com/9cm._C_1873_Kanone.html

Example of a Kaiser William II cipher which has been laved to accommodate the  new recoil mechanism during a 1906 Rhinmetall rebuild (five photos from the top of the page):

http://www.lovettartillery.com/7.7cm_leichte_Feld_Kanone_(l.F.K.)_1896_n_A.html

I hope this is of interest

R/

Ralph Lovett

Thanks Ralph - certainly explains the two ciphers on some 19th century German guns as well as why some guns only have one cipher.

One of my colleagues in Oz said that there's another Model 1911 75mm gun at Colac in Victoria with the same cipher so it may be that all the guns of the 1911 order (88 of them)
had the Ottoman cipher inscribed.

Regards,

Charlie