Landships II

Roger Todd wrote:

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Feuerhöhe der Geschütze ist der senkrechte Abstand des Mittelpunktes des Schildzapfenlagers vom Geschützstand bei ausgeranntem Geschütz. (German)

• The guns fire height is the vertical distance from the center of the shield pin bearing of the emplacement with out geranntem gun. (English)

I imagine that it's the height of the gun barrel axis, or centre of the trunnion bearing (assuming the trunnion follows the gun axis), above the ground. Would this be correct?

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Roger, that's my understanding as well. Another, simpler definition:

Feuerhöhe, bei Lafetten der Abstand der wagerechten Seelenachse vom Erdboden; meist gleichbedeutend mit Lagerhöhe.

Which tranlates into the distance between the ground and the barrel gun axis.

You can also check the 1888 version of Brockhaus here.

I don't see the significance of ausgerannt in the definition you quoted. Ausrennen is towing a muzzle-loader into firing position, see here. But I'm no expert. Regards, Pat

As a trained German Artillery-Officer I may say that "Feuerhöhe" always means the vertical distance between the centre of the trunnion-holes and the base on which a gun or piece is laid.

As the trunnions are always fixed to the recuperator-unit the word "Feuerhöhe" is not the distance of the base to the axis of the barrel-bore, not even in late muzzle-loading guns, where the trunnions usually were cast a little bit below the center to make the gun "bite" on the elevation device upon firing.

With a german "Zu - Gleich!" 

Luger

"Zu - Gleich" means "to - gether" used as a hailing in all artillery-units germanywide or when ramming home a grenade in the gun-barrel by the gun-crew.

Sorry, Roger

I forgot about "bei ausgeranntem Geschütz". (past tense)

It stems from the german term "ein Geschütz ausrennen" meaning to forward an artillery-piece

 in "ready-for-firing" position.

The order "Geschütz einrennen" is the opposite meaning to retract a gun for loading/cleaning purposes.

Those two terms are usually used with muzzle-loading guns, but also remained in the German Navy until 1936 with the german re-armament. In the Navy with modern guns it meant "guns level after loading waiting for orders concerning traverse and elevation.

Sorry for causing you to look twice,

Luger (Peter)