Landships II

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Wien. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum

CharlieC · Legend

Were these Skoda guns or built by the Wien Arsenal? I can see some Skoda design elements but other parts look quite different from usual Skoda practice.

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo Foti · Colonel

My understanding is that the M8 was build by the Arsenal, while the M12 was Skoda. The M12 was considered too heavy, requiring 6 pack animals

Massimo

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Quite an exotic piece, 8 cm Feldkanone Mgg prototype:

CharlieC · Legend

Massimo,

Have you got a date on the 8cm - it looks like it has a recoil spring inside the trail.

The screw breech is literally that - a screw. Hadn't they heard of interrupted screw breeches.

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo Foti · Colonel

8 cm Feldkanone Mgg should date to 1899.

A note on 7 cm Gebirgshaubitze M8 prototype, it was in bronze

Massimo

Massimo Foti · Colonel

8 cm Feldkanone M 18. Not too common, but well know:

Another rare beast, 8 cm Feldkanone 1903 prototype:

Massimo Foti · Colonel

9.5 cm Feldhaubitze 1914 prototype:

9 cm Feldkanone 1917 prototype:

Pzkpfw-e · Commander in Chief

All these different calibres, QM's nightmare for ammunition provision.

Massimo Foti · Colonel

At one point during WW I the Austo-Hungarian Army was looking for a larger, more powerful caliber for their field artillery, but concerns about standardization prevailed. In fact we are talking mostly about prototypes here.

CharlieC · Legend

I don't know much about A-H artillery but didn't they try reducing the calibre of the 10.4cm field gun to 88mm.

The late prototypes look like variants of the German FK 16 - strange they didn't just licence build the German gun.

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Charlie, I guess you are referring to the 8.35 cm Feldkanone M 17?

That was a very specialized gun, optimized for long range, counter-battery fire. Very few were build. I've seen one in Rovereto (Italy).

CharlieC · Legend

I couldn't remember the details but it sounds right. Wasn't there also an 88mm gun which used the carriage of the 10.4cm Kanone M15 - or was that a post-WW1 Italian development?

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo Foti · Colonel

The 8.35 cm Feldkanone M 17 indeed used the carriage of the 10.4cm Kanone M15

Massimo Foti · Colonel

10 cm Feldhaubitze M 99

10.4 cm Feldkanone M 15

CharlieC · Legend

May I use your image of the 10.4cm Kanone M15 on Landships II please?

I've got a few images of this gun but not from this angle.

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Sure, feel free to use any of my pictures on Landships! Just provide credits.
You can see more pictures from Wien here:
www.flickr.com/photos/massimofoti/sets/72157629220689906/

I have additional shots too, so if you are looking for a specific subjects, just drop me an email. I may have pictures from other locations too.

Massimo

Massimo Foti · Colonel

At one point heavier calibers were considered for mountain artillery. But the Army stick with 75 mm for portability.

Here you can see two rare prototypes:

10.4 cm Gebirgshaubitze 1912 Rohr prototype

10.4 cm Gebirgshaubitze 1912 Skoda prototype

Massimo Foti · Colonel

15 cm M 1914:

Massimo Foti · Colonel

15 cm M 15/16. As far as I know there are two survivors, this one in Wien plus one in Trieste:

Massimo Foti · Colonel

15 cm M 1915

Massimo Foti · Colonel

24 cm M 1898. Most likely this is the only surviving gun:

Massimo Foti · Colonel

32 cm Minenwerfer 1909 prototype. A unique, very rare piece. I saw it mentioned on an Italian book about Austro-Hungarian trench artillery, but I never saw a picture before.
It really looks like a medieval weapon

It's also interesting since it proves that the Austrians were already considering field mortars years before WW I

Massimo Foti · Colonel

38 cm M 16

Roger Todd · Legend

What a wonderful selection of photos, thank you!

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Glad you like it Roger. In fact I am thinking about posting pictures from Bucharest and Belgrade too (I've covered Sofia in a dedicated thread already). Bucharest and Belgrade museums host very interesting collections and on top of that I have a few questions about some pieces I would like to ask around.

Massimo

Massimo Foti · Colonel

This piece is off-topic, but since it's very rare an interesting, I am posting it anyway. I am sure everybody know the 47 mm Bohler gun, it was widely used during WW II, by many armies and, at the outbreak of the war, it was considered among the best guns of its class. Well, the 47 mm has a less well-know ancestor, a 44 mm model, I once read about it, but I've never seen any pictures, but I luckly saw one in Wien, as part of their temp display:

Matt Heil · Lieutenant

Massimo Foti wrote:
Glad you like it Roger. In fact I am thinking about posting pictures from Bucharest and Belgrade too (I've covered Sofia in a dedicated thread already). Bucharest and Belgrade museums host very interesting collections and on top of that I have a few questions about some pieces I would like to ask around.

Massimo

Your pictures are excellent, Massimo, thank you so much for sharing them. I would be very grateful if you posted some from Bucharest - especially if you have some shots of the Russian Obuchov M1904 76mm Mountain gun they have there. I believe it is the only still on its original wheeled carriage. Thank you!

Matt

Massimo Foti · Colonel

I guess you are talking about this:
www.flickr.com/photos/massimofoti/5124342140/in/set-72157624595717860

I am posting pictures from Lesany, I'll cover Bucharesta and Belgrade later on inside dedicated threads

Massimo

Matt Heil · Lieutenant

That's the one, thank you! I look forward to your future posts.

Massimo Foti · Colonel

I realized I forgot to post the link to the whole photoalbum:
www.flickr.com/photos/massimofoti/sets/72157629220689906/

kkfj1 · Major

Massimo Foti wrote:
This piece is off-topic, but since it's very rare an interesting, I am posting it anyway. I am sure everybody know the 47 mm Bohler gun, it was widely used during WW II, by many armies and, at the outbreak of the war, it was considered among the best guns of its class. Well, the 47 mm has a less well-know ancestor, a 44 mm model, I once read about it, but I've never seen any pictures, but I luckly saw one in Wien, as part of their temp display:

Hello,

I'm very interesting in this Bohler gun. Since early 1920s many Bohler engineers and foremen were sent to Mukden in Northeast China to help establish an arsenal there under Marshal Chang Tso-lin, in order to keep their ability in weapon manufacture. They built the Type 14(1925) 7.7cm field gun(technically a Bohler M. 18 with 7.7cm barrel from Skoda M. 17 gun) and 10.5cm light howitzer(utilizing the same carriage as M. 18) and probably other guns for Chang's army. Since the work on Bohler 47mm started from about mid-1920s, is it possible that they made the first design in Mukden? Any further information about this 44mm gun?

YC Chen

Massimo Foti · Colonel

I don't have any additional info. Hope somebody would be able to help.

Massimo

Tonys · Field Marshal

That 38cm M 16 is an impressive beast - does anyone know of decent pans for it?

Tony

Roger Todd · Legend

I've only seen schematics (with dimensions helpfully appended) of the carriage for the 24cm gun, but that carriage was identical to the carriage for the 38cm howitzer (it was used for the first series of 38cm weapons, apparently, but that appears to be what the museum example is anyway). They appear in Michal Prasil's Skoda Heavy Guns. They appear to be proportionally correct, though lacking fine details, so I imagine they could be used as a basis for producing your own scale plans.

-- Edited by Roger Todd on Monday 28th of July 2014 09:05:30 PM

Massimo Foti · Colonel

I have many additional pictures showing details, I could make them available if anybody is interested.
I took pictures in Bucharest too and will open a dedicate thread about those.

Massimo

Roger Todd · Legend

Massimo Foti wrote:
I have many additional pictures showing details, I could make them available if anybody is interested.
I took pictures in Bucharest too and will open a dedicate thread about those.

Massimo

Definitely, please! That would be wonderful, thank you, I'm sure many people would love that! wink

alfisherjr · Colonel

Am always looking for images of WW1 vehicles. Would appreciate seeing any that you might have.

Bosun Al

Tonys · Field Marshal

Thanks Roger,

I have the book, but far more detail is given to the transporting of the guns than the gun itself!

As far as schematics go, I think the M17 howitzer would be the best bet for info in the book.

Tony

Massimo Foti · Colonel

Roger Todd wrote:
Massimo Foti wrote:
I have many additional pictures showing details, I could make them available if anybody is interested.
I took pictures in Bucharest too and will open a dedicate thread about those.
Definitely, please! That would be wonderful, thank you, I'm sure many people would love that!

I collected all the pictures I have, thiese are 79, very large jpeg files. The vast majority are unprocessed, uncropped, out of camera shots, not up to the quality standards of the ones I usually post on Flickr, but I kept them all because they may show additional details.
The pictures are contained inside a huge zip file, it's a 1 Gb beast that will take a lot of time to download, you definitely need some decent bandwidth to get it.
Please keep in mind it will be available only for a very limited amount of time, I just can't kept such a large file on my server forever, if you want pics, get them asap:
http://www.massimocorner.com/afv/38cm_wien.zip

Hope it may help

Massimo