Landships II

I hope this post isn't too much off-topic, but since I've read Charlie's interesting article on 7.5cm Gebirgskanone M1904 I felt it was worth sharing some info from Switzerland. Especially since last year I had a great opportunity to visit the field artillery collection in Thun. This display is only visible upon request, time was limited and the collection is large. A selection of pictures is available here.

This visit gave me a unique opportunity to review the evolution of Swiss mountain artillery, from mid 19th century to mid 20th century. I will try to illustrate it in chronological order. This way we could see also how the Swiss Army moved from Krupp to Bofors designs.

4 pdr Gebirgskanone 1864. Wonder if this was already a Krupp design... I don't have documentation on it, sorry:

7,5 cm Gebirgskanone 1877

7,5 cm Gebirgskanone 1877/93

The 1895 version was missing from Thun's display, but I have pictures of it from Solothurm's Arsenal Museum.

7,5 cm Gebirgskanone 1906 test version. Both the gun and shield came from Krupp:

The little gun from Krupp was adopted as 7,5 cm Gebirgskanone 1906 and build in Switzerland under license, without the shield used on the test model above:

Occasionally this shield was used instead. I have no idea if the shield was a Swiss or Krupp design:

After WW I the Swiss Army started looking elsewhere for artillery and in the early thirties established a relationship with Bofors that lasted a few decades. This is 7,5 cm Gebirgskanone 1933, the first Bofors-designed gun adopted by the Swiss Army (the rest of its story is off-topic here):

Our Army traditionally tries to avoid waste, so at one point the old Krupp-designed 1906 guns were adapted to fire the new ammo designed for the Bofors too.
You can see one here: