Landships II

i would guess the 65mm Schneider-Ducrest guns to have been captured by the Turks from the Greeks during the latter's Asia Minor campaign in the early 20s. The Greeks had them since WW1.

CharlieC wrote:

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... Apparently the Mle 1906 had an unusual recoil system - the gun was loaded with the barrel in the fully recoiled positionand then pushed back to the firing position by the recuperator springs, it fired just before reaching the full forward position.This reminds me of the 150mm Mle 1904 Rimaiho howitzer. This apparently allowed the recoil assembly to be much lighter than if it was a conventional system (I'm making the assumption my French translation is moderately accurate).There was also a similar Mle 1911 mountain gun built for the Italians....

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Ingenious - probably wouldn't do a lot for accuracy but weight and firepower/muzzle horsepower were the obvious priorities.

-- Edited by Rectalgia on Monday 21st of January 2013 05:01:05 AM

I expect your translation is fine Charlie; a system that fires before the barrel has returned to the forward position must expend some of the recoil energy in slowing and stopping the forward movement of the barrel before it can force the barrel to recoil. As such, the resultant recoil force is effectively lower than it should be, so the recoil assembly can indeed be made less robust - hence lighter. A similar idea was used in some automatic weapons, where I think it was termed Advanced Primer Ignition.

Some years ago an Australian company (Recoilless Technologies International Corp. Limited) started re-developing the idea, initially with small arms. Haven't heard much of them lately but they're (I think) still beavering away with R&D in Singapore (practically impossible to do it in Australia these days). One of their patent applications can be seen at http://www.rticl.com/pdf/PCT%20WO0165195A2%20010907.pdf I think Advanced Primer Ignition (API) mostly relied on the momentum of the breech-block (an advanced form of blow-back with inherent limitations on pressures), rather than that of the whole barrel and (closed) breech (no penalty on pressures), which those mountain guns utilised, but details are a little sketchy. There's some discussion of API at http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/apib.html Whichever way you cut it, those mountain guns, as described, were a brilliant concept and presumably quite effective in their role.

 

The advantage of the Schneider-Ducrest system certainly shows up in the emplaced weight of the Mle 1906 gun - 400 kg. The equivalent 75mm Krupp M08 gun weighed 529 kg although, to be fair, the Krupp gun had a gun shield and the Schneider gun did not. 

Regards,

Charlie