Thanks for that Massimo!
Interesting match of the Krupp 12cm how and Bofors split trail carriage. BUt why would they still call it 12/10,5cm if there is a 12cm barrel mounted? And what did they change around the breech?
BY the way does hte Solothurn museum have any 9cm gunhowitzer or 10,5cm mountain guns?
Kind regards
Interesting match of the Krupp 12cm how and Bofors split trail carriage. BUt why would they still call it 12/10,5cm if there is a 12cm barrel mounted? And what did they change around the breech?
I have no idea, sorry.
nuyt wrote:
BY the way does hte Solothurn museum have any 9cm gunhowitzer or 10,5cm mountain guns?
Which model/year or at least which period? I am not aware of any 10,5 cm mountain gun in Swiss service.
You can get a good overview of what's on display in Solothurn on first floor (the one where artillery pieces are on display) on this Flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/massimofoti/sets/72157624866330321/
I see now, I wasn't aware of that.
In Solothurn's Museum they have a few interesting weapons from Waffenfabrik Solothurn AG, but the heaviest are 20 mm, no more than that.
Glad to hear that you are still interested in those mysterious guns used by China. However I began to doubt that if these guns really were "marketed" by Solothurn. Only a few (not very accurate) Chinese weapons lists call them Solothurn guns, all the memoirs of those who really worked in Taiyuan Arsenal say that these designs were brought by Krupp personels, and the American Military Attache reports on Taiyuan arsenal also say so. Maybe the "Solothurn" name is merely used to disguise something, or just some kind of rumour(one of my friend has found out that many of today's published weapon list and museum plaques in China are just reproduction of names on early-1950s PLA weapon handbooks which, compiled by battlefield engineers who didn't participate in the design of guns, cannot be very accurate)?
Also I have managed to find out the German names of some of the Krupp engineers worked in Taiyuan and brought in the gun designs. I can provide them if you are interested.
OK, fine, actually it crossed my mind too that the "Solothurn" weapons were never manufactured at S, just labelled as such. You proved it! If you send me the Krupp names to my gmail I can see if I can match those names with Krupp engineers that worked at Bofors or HIH. I have just a handfull of names though.
Thanks, now I see it. This project must also have had substantial help from Bofors: the suspension, the equilibrators are all typical Bofors features of the time...
Thanks, now I see it. This project must also have had substantial help from Bofors: the suspension, the equilibrators are all typical Bofors features of the time...
That would be possible, since the thirties the Swiss Army acquired artillery more or less designed by Bofors and build in Switzerland. One of these days I will collect the info I have about the Krupp 75 mm in Swiss service and post a good selection of photos here. I haven't done it yet because this model had a more complex life than the models I covered so far (12 cm and 15 cm)
Certainly seems to be a complex story - most countries had given up trying to modify the 75mm Krupp gun by the 1930s but the Swiss seemed intent
on squeezing everything they could out of the gun design.
That's not uncommon for the Swiss Army. The 105 mm howitzers introduced in 1942 got their latest upgrade in 1991. In a similar fashion the 47 mm Bohler from the thirties were turned into low-pressure, 90 mm guns in 1950. You can see a pattern here
