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Post Info TOPIC: re: Romanian artillery holdings 1914-ca. 1925 updated 01/09/05
SASH155


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re: Romanian artillery holdings 1914-ca. 1925 updated 01/09/05
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Much of this comes from the 'Voina' site, Franz Kosar and my own research: note the designations may not necessarily be those that the Romanian Army used for these weapons, but reflect usually the original or commercial designations. The following list is a veritable artillery nut's dream and a quartermaster's nightmare. The Romanians attempted to standardise on new Schneider and Skoda designs from the late 1920s through the 1930s, but had not completed the process by its entry into the war in 1941.


In 1914 at the outbreak of world War I Romanian Army had:


Including several hundred examples of the 37mm Hotchkiss QF and Gruson Werke/Krupp 53mm and 57mm QF mobile fortress guns the Romanians had:


 
1. @ 360 (the Bulgarian source indicates that Romania had as many as 624) examples of the 75mm Krupp M-1903 QF fieldgun.



2. 426 examples of the old rigidly mounted 87mm Krupp M-1886/97 breechloading field gun.



3. 16 examples of the Krupp 75mm M-1904 QF mountain gun. 


4. 24 63.5mm 'Armstrong'  mountain guns (whatever this was exactly I was unable to discover, it seems to have been a rather odd duck (possibly a smaller version of the old 10 pounder (2.75 inch or 70mm) 'screw' mountain gun? Does anyone have photos and info. on the more obscure British artillery exports up to the Second World War?)


5. 3 mountain artillery batteries with 12 57mm Krupp QF guns (same as the Gruson fortress type?)


6. 60 105mm Krupp M-1898/09 and 60 105mm Krupp M-1912 QF howitzers plus an unknown quantity of 105mm Schneider M-1910 field howitzers.                              


7. 32 120mm 'canon de 120 long mle. 1878 de Bange'.


8. 8 150mm Schneider M-1912 QF field howitzers and quantities of old Krupp 120mm and 149mm 'ring-rohr' type field/garrison howitzers as well as quantities of turreted 120mm Gruson Werke/Krupp fortress howitzers in the forts.                                                            


9. 60 various heavy guns including: old 105mm L/35 Krupp 'ring-rohr' type siege/garrison guns, 120mm and 149mm Krupp 'ring-rohr' type siege/garrison guns and some 155mm 'canon de 155 long mle. 1877 de Bange'.                                                                                                                 


10. 15 combined total of some 210mm ex-fortress Krupp heavy howitzers/'mortars' mounted on a locally produced static siege carriage and some type of 240mm Armstrong heavy gun (ex-coast defense similar to the various British service 9.2 inch (234mm) naval and coast guns?)


11. Some truly ancient 'La Hitte' breechloading conversions of old rifled muzzle- loaders including a mle. 1865 120mm siege gun (ex 16 pounder?) and an mle. 1870 (75 or 80mm?) field gun (ex 4 pounder?): These were also
apparently held in the fortresses.


During the 1916-1917 period the allies rebuilt Romania's gun park and she also used many captured weapons. These acquisitions included quantities of: 


1. 37mm Vickers-Maxim 'Pom-Poms'


2. 58mm 'Duchène-Dumezil' mortars.


3. 65mm 'canon de 65 de montagne mle. 1906'.


4. 75mm M.15 mountain gun (Skoda). Captured examples and some post war acquisitions.


5. 75mm 'canon de 75 de campagne mle. 1897' (Puteaux, Bourges etc...).


6. 76.2mm M-1902 field gun (Putilov).


7. 8cm (76.5mm) M.17 field gun (Skoda): These may have been an immediate post war acquisition from Czechoslovakia as they built this gun until 1938.  


8. 95mm 'canon de 95mm mle. 1875 Lahitolle': Some of these may have already been in the inventory in 1914.  


9. 10cm M.14 field howitzer (Skoda): Captured examples and post war acquisitions.


10. More 10.5cm Krupp M-1912/16 field howitzers (ex-Bulgarian?): see M-1912 above. 


11. 4.5 inch (114mm) QF Mk. I field howitzers.


12. More 120mm ''canon de 120 long mle. 1878 de Bange'.


13. Some 5 inch (127mm) BL Mk. II field howitzers.


14. Reportedly some 6 inch (152mm) 26 cwt. BL Mk. I field howitzers.


15. Reportedly some 60 Pounder (127mm) BL Mk. I field guns.


16. Russian 152mm M-1877 Krupp/Obuchov guns (whether 120 'pud.' or '190 pud.' version not indicated): Some of these apparently were in the forts in 1914.


17. 155mm Rimailho CTR mle. 1904 field howitzers (likely very small quantity only).


18. More 155mm 'canon de 155 long mle. 1877/16 de Bange': the slightly modified version of the 'canon de 155 long mle. 1877 de Bange' (with a revised suspension).


19. Reportedly some 'canon de 155 long mle. 1877/14 Schneider': The French had 24 of these guns in Salonika in mid-1916, but they disappear from the holdings there after early 1917; did they pass these on to the Romanians? I have heard that quantities of this gun were also employed by the Russians, but when, how many and who they acquired the guns from is unclear. They had their own 152mm M-1910 g. Schneider field gun as well, upon which was largely based the French Army's mle. 1877/14. The number of foreign users of this piece is somewhat surprising, given that I calculated that Schneider built only @ 100+ of them between 1915 and 1917, when it was replaced on the production line by the more powerful 'canon de 155 long mle. 1917 Schneider' (L17S). Presumably the French would have wanted to retain for themselves as many modern heavy guns as they could get their hands on in the early part of the war to leaven the stocks of the numerous old de Bange mle. 1877s. 


Shortly after the war in the early to mid 1920s Romania seems to have acquired:


1. 10.4cm M.15 fieldguns (Skoda): reparations, possibly some captured. 


2. Krupp 10cm (105mm) K-17 field guns: reparations.  


3. ex-Russian 107mm M-1910 g. QF field guns (Schneider). 


4. Some 15cm M.15 'Autohaubitze' (Skoda): reparations.  


5. 145mm 'canon de 145 long mle. 1916 St. Chamond'. 


6. Some ex-British Army 6 inch BL Mk. VII field guns.


7. 155mm 'canon de 155 court mle. 1917 Schneider' (the ubiquitous C17S). 


8. And I have recently seen a photo of a 155mm 'canon de 155 long mle. 1917 Schneider' (L17S) being used by the Romanians on the Eastern Front in 1942, but I am not certain if these guns were acquired post war directly from France or were captured French or Belgian guns passed on to the Romanians by the Germans after 1940.    



-- Edited by SASH155 at 01:10, 2006-01-10

-- Edited by SASH155 at 01:25, 2006-01-10

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Wesley Thomas
Peter Kempf


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RE: re: Romanian artillery holdings 1914-ca. 1925
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Jeez! What an array of types and calibres! The logistical downside to this must have been enormous! No wonder that the Romanian Army made such a bad show in WW1...

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/Peter Kempf
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Thanks for all the info!

4. 24 63.5mm 'Armstrong' mountain guns (whatever this was exactly I was unable to discover, it seems to have been a rather odd duck (possibly a smaller version of the old 10 pounder (2.75 inch or 70mm) 'screw' mountain gun? Does anyone have photos and info. on the more obscure British artillery exports up to the Second World War?)


Wasn't Armstrong actually an Italian concern? Ian Hogg gives Sir William Armstrong as the operator of the Terni factory that produced Italy's outdated Canone da 149/35 M1900. Perhaps this was an export version of the 65mm M1913, or something different altogether.

Interesting that the Romanians ended up with some of the crazy Schneider-Ducrest mountain guns.

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Centurion


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Anonymous wrote:

 Wasn't Armstrong actually an Italian concern? Ian Hogg gives Sir William Armstrong as the operator of the Terni factory that produced Italy's outdated Canone da 149/35 M1900. .
Like many arms manufacturers of the time, Armstrong owned plants in a number of countries, but was essentially a British operation. Much as Whitworth owned torpedo factories in Britain and Austria and so ended up equiping opposing navies (RN, German and Austro Hungarian) with torpedos.

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Centurion


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For Whitworth read Whitehead (Whitworth made currents)

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eugene


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YES

thank you, thats the most complete list I ve ever seen of anything thats wwi romanian


thanks a lot SASH155

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SASH155


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RE: re: Romanian artillery holdings 1914-ca. 1925 updated 01/09/05
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The following is an entry I wrote last year for a still in the works book on arms exports to Latin America through ca. 1950. I speculated that the mysterious 63.5 mm 'Armstrong' might be one of these Italian 65mm mountain guns, but the Bulgarian source indicated 'old' in connection with it which could mean almost anything (the “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” was not particularly 'old' in 1914). Here goes (note: in my work I list ordnance sequentially by caliber and then by service entry date):


 


65 mm: Vickers “Mark E” mountain gun. This gun may have in fact been simply the Italian “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” mountain gun which was produced at the Turin Arsenal, but was also produced by Vickers’ Armstrong subsidiary in Terni. This weapon is the only one of this caliber that existed at the time that has any connection to the Vickers organization. It would have been a rather simple matter for Vickers to buy the weapons from Vickers-Terni in Italy and then pass them on to Bolivia under a commercial Vickers designation. Bolivia acquired thirty of these guns between 1929 and 1933 as part of a 115- gun artillery order placed with Vickers prior to the Gran Chaco War. The “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” mountain gun was also used by Ecuador and Nicaragua. 



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Wesley Thomas
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SASH155 wrote:

The following is an entry I wrote last year for a still in the works book on arms exports to Latin America through ca. 1950. I speculated that the mysterious 63.5 mm 'Armstrong' might be one of these Italian 65mm mountain guns, but the Bulgarian source indicated 'old' in connection with it which could mean almost anything (the “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” was not particularly 'old' in 1914). Here goes (note: in my work I list ordnance sequentially by caliber and then by service entry date):   65 mm: Vickers “Mark E” mountain gun. This gun may have in fact been simply the Italian “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” mountain gun which was produced at the Turin Arsenal, but was also produced by Vickers’ Armstrong subsidiary in Terni. This weapon is the only one of this caliber that existed at the time that has any connection to the Vickers organization. It would have been a rather simple matter for Vickers to buy the weapons from Vickers-Terni in Italy and then pass them on to Bolivia under a commercial Vickers designation. Bolivia acquired thirty of these guns between 1929 and 1933 as part of a 115- gun artillery order placed with Vickers prior to the Gran Chaco War. The “Cannone da 65/17 modello 1913” mountain gun was also used by Ecuador and Nicaragua. 

It is not the Italian gun. The Rumanian mountain gun was designed: 63mm Mountain gun system Armstrong Model 1883. In Military Notes on the Balkan States compiled by the general Staff. August 1915, p. 10 it was described as "not QF, but said to be very useful".  It was also knows as 6.3cm Elswick mountain gun. Till now I could not find more information about it.


 


 



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After a little inquiry I found what may be the answer.


The gun is perhaps the English 2.5 inch Mountain gun Mark I (but I don't know wether Romania bought some of these guns).


                             


Calibre :                         63.5mm L/28.5


Weight of the barrel :      181.4 kg


Weight of the carriage :    238 kg


Weight in action :            419 kg


Shell weight :                  3.35 kg


Shrapnel weight :             3.45 kg


Case shot weight :           3.18 kg (78 ball x 28 gr)


Muzzle velocity :              439 m/s


Max. range :                   3660 m


Elevation :                      + 10° / -25°


Transport :                     5 loads (two for the gun and three for the carriage)


 



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SASH155


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So what we are seeing here is that one of the major combatants was still using an old rifled muzzle loader as late as 1915! The Brits also were still using some old 9 inch Armstrong/Fraser pattern RML coast howitzers (mounted on a modified carriage with a recoil sustem nevertheless!) This 2.5 inch gun was Rudyard Kipling's original 'screw gun'.

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Wesley Thomas
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Note that this is only an hypothesis. Whatever I noticed that during WW1 old mountain guns were used more often that old field guns. As for Rumania (that I think was not « a major combatant »), it greatly understimated the opportunity of having a lot of pack guns (probably because before the war it was an ally of Germany and its main warfield seemed to be Bessarabia and not Transilvania). Rumenian sources unanimously blame the lack of mountain artillery, badly needed for the coming campaign. This forced Romania to use obsolete (these 63.5mm guns) or improvised pieces (the above mentioned 57mm guns ?). As for the 57mm guns, does anybody know wether « Krupp 5.7cm Gebirgskanone L/18 M. 1905 » was mass-produced and sold abroad ? If it did, it might be the Rumenian gun. But it is only another hypothesis.

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