Landships II

Serbia was officially equiped with French artillery (75s?) but in practice also had a melange of stuff captured in the Balkan Wars from Turkey and Bulgaria. I think the name Krupp probably featured heavily. They appear to have had significant supply problems as a result.

The weapons trade in the Balkans is an interesting story. I'll warn you know,.. this story is likely boring to some readers.

After the Franco-Prussian War, wherein the breach loading German field artillerie dominated the French muzzle loaders, Krupp enjoyed a period of adulation from around the world (foreign armament commissions).  One of their best sellers was their 9cm c/73 Field Kanone.  It had become the standard piece of the Imperial Army, and soon everyone wanted it. (It can be seen in the colored pic Centurion has provided.)    Krupp made a lot of money in the last decades of the century; a lot of money. 

Meanwhile, back in France, their armament industry was busily rearming. They had adapted a new QL for their army, and were reasonably sure it matched the Krupp gun that everyone was buying. 

Now, here is where the story takes a dark turn that no one, even Master Gunner Hogg, chooses to write about.

At the Krupp works a young engineer approached his boss with a new idea for revolutionizing the artillery world.  He called it the long-recoil principle that would allow a piece to be fired repeatedly without man-handling it back to battery.  By his calculations, little aiming adjustment would be needed at all between shots.  Krupp wasn't interested in his new idea; after all their QL guns were selling like hotcakes.  So, this young engineer quit Krupp and went looking for another job in the industry.  As fate would have it, he was soon hired by the relatively new gun maker Ehrhardt.   They liked his recoil idea and quickly sought patents. and made plans to build a future prototype.  As a new competitor in the industry, they were quite concerned about patent infringements, and took the additional step of filing their patent in France.

French armament officers gained access to the patent files, and as they say, the rest is history. 

 

On the subject of Bulgarian artillerie, they bought the Schneider, because it was much cheaper than the Krupp QF.   The French firm made a huge niche in the Krupp monopoly after the turn of the century, by underselling Krupp.  We now know Schneider were wholly supported financially by the French government, and in the case of Serbia; literally gave them away.

The Crowood book Allied Artillery of World War One (by Ian Hogg, iirc) had a little bit about Serbian guns, mainly field and possibly something on their mountain arty. Unfortunately I can't find it anywhere at the moment....grrr! I'm so disorganised.

Osprey's Armies in the Balkans, 1914-1918 has a photo with Serb officers around an m1907 Schneider-Cannet 7.6 cm field piece, whose dimension suggests that it designed with Russian customers in mind, to me.

They list the Montenegrins as having heavy, field, and mountain artillery, but no specifics as to make. I suspect the Montenegrins would have been equipped with some pretty ancient guns.

They also have a photo of Romanians with an m1896 Vikers (possible misspelling?) 127mm howitzer.

thank you this info is very helpfull I have one more question

what artillery did the Romanians and Bulgarians have?
m1896 Vikers 127mm howitzer for the romanians, what else?
also what about bulgaria did the yhave the 97mm feldkanone?
and soem krupp pieces?

28juni14,
"9 batteries of 75mm Scheider mountain howitzers"

Was that the 1906 Schneider-Danglis or something else? Is that also what the Montengrins had, or something older? And was the German mountain gun that the Montenegrins bought the 7.5cm Gebirgskanon Model 1911?

For some reason I find the little mountain guns quite fascinating!

-- Edited by J Fullerton at 02:58, 2005-12-22

I finally dug up Allied Artillery of World War One by Ian Hogg, and found a number of Serbian guns, all by Schneider:

M1906 75mm gun, hydro-pneumatic recoil, rectangular steel pole trail, shield, 14lb shell, range of 8,000 yards

M1912 75mm gun, same model that the French used for horse artillery

M1897 120mm howitzer, no recoil except for sprung spade, gun trunnioned directly to carriage, traverse by moving trail across axle, 45 degree elevation, 46lb shell, range 7,275 yards, 36 supplied in 1897

M1911 120mm howitzer, 47 lb shell, range 7,325 yards, same as supplied to Belgium

M1907 70mm mountain gun, 11lb shell, range 5,500 yards, similar to Italian and Spanish versions, dismantled into 5 mule-loads, hinged trail

Under the new plans Serbia for 11 infantry divisions need 264 field and 132 mountain guns. Plus 12 field guns for cavalry division. Or 276 field guns and 132 mountin guns in total for divisions artillery.

-- Edited by nebojsa djokic on Friday 9th of March 2012 07:57:29 PM

exactly 180 75 mm M7 and 100 M7A or 45 battery M7 an 25 battery M7A. Were ordered 40 battery M7A.

You're English is great.

Thank you for this information you have posted here.