Landships II

Centurion · Legend

More guns

Roger Todd · Legend

The third one looks rather like the mortaio da 210, as modelled by Criel Models, with some parts missing:

http://www.crielmodel.it/immagini/modelli/mezzi/r059.jpg

http://www.crielmodel.it/immagini/modelli/mezzi/r059a.jpg

http://www.crielmodel.it/immagini/modelli/mezzi/r059b.jpg

Centurion · Legend

It does look like it (although the arched piece at the rear looks beefier than the model). As this gun was originally used up in the mountains, against the Austro Hungarians, as a block house buster one wonders how it got to Egypt where I photographed it. I can think of two possibilities

1 It was captured in the Western Desert in 1940/42 but this merely begs the question what was a WWI piece of mountain artillery doing in the desert?
2. It was part of the Italian contingent in Palestine where it would have been useful against Turkish fortified positions on the Gaza line. This makes sense of my being told that it had been used against the Turks.

BTW it wasn't always used with the complex sliding carriage - see attached. This might explain the missing bits.

Roger Todd · Legend

I think the photo I've attached is also of a mortaio da 210.

28juni14 · Hero

The first piece is a hybrid; the rohr is that of the Krupp 9cm C73, but the carraige is not. It is missing the protze ring on the trail. These guns were exported in large numbers before the turn of the century, and the Russians later did some license manufacturing of the gun.

The second piece is the standard Krupp 7,5cm M04 export model. It served with cosmetic changes in a host of countries from around the world.

Centurion · Legend

28juni14 wrote:

The first piece is a hybrid; the rohr is that of the Krupp 9cm C73, but the carraige is not. It is missing the protze ring on the trail. These guns were exported in large numbers before the turn of the century, and the Russians later did some license manufacturing of the gun. The second piece is the standard Krupp 7,5cm M04 export model. It served with cosmetic changes in a host of countries from around the world.

Which makes sense, I think that gun no one is the same late 19th century Krupp that was fitted on an extemporised truck mounting and used in the attack on Siwa oasis in 1917 (and afterwards they presumably found some carriage or other for it). The second gun was said to have been captured from the Turkish army and doubtless they were customers for this model of Krupp.

SASH155 · Major

The odd carriage of the "Mortaio da 210 A" was called an "affusto De Stefano", and similar, but substantially larger cariages with four large wheels like it were used with 203mm and 254mm guns, and the 305mm howitzer (the often seen photo of an extremely large captured Italian gun at Caporetto is of one of these last weapons). It is possible that the Italians may have had a small number of "obice da 210 A su affusto De Stefano" in storage in Libya at fortresses like Tobruk and Capuzzo in 1940.