Now I have some photos from the town of Niğde, Turkey, where one can see the Russian 87-мм light field gun M1877 on the Engelgard M1895 carriage for foot artillery. As one can see, this gun was designed for use with Treuille de Beaulieu screw breech. AFAIK there were precious few of such a guns, wich survived in our days, may be it's the only one of the pattern. The gun (burrel) was manufactured at the Permskiy zavod (Perm gun factories) in the year 1894 (see stamp on the breech). So it was one of the first M1877 light guns of the Perm manufacturing. IMHO the gun have the wheels of the smaller diameter than the standart ones.
Upon the carriage one can see a plate with turkish letters. It would be intersting to know, what it mean. One could load this inscription in the autotranslator, but there are more than one abbreviations, and autonranslation wouldn't be correct. So, may be anyone help to translate this plate letters?
I have these photos from the our City local museum guide Milana Fyodorova, by her kindly permission. The pictures were taken in this april, when she visited Turkey as a tourist.
P.S. The name of the Turcish "small city" Nigde in Russian means "nowhere"! ))))
For those who cares - one can reed on the plate the following (in english): "1014 heavy repair factory sun of Haji Osman captain Gurbuz Ozdemir
ankara". So, it was а gift to the City...
-- Edited by Capitan Print on Sunday 1st of June 2014 09:11:09 AM
-- Edited by Capitan Print on Sunday 1st of June 2014 07:32:49 PM
The plaque - whatever its content - is post-WW1. Turkey didn't use the Latin alphabet officially until 1928 when Kemal Ataturk
introduced the 29-letter Turkish alphabet. Before that Turkish was written in Arabic script.
Regards,
Charlie
Thank you, Charlie, for your attension to the topic and for your answer. First, I need to correct my post in the part about the screw breech system of the gun. It wasn't а Treuille de Beaulieu, but of the de Bange pattern. Second, about the plaque - I see, it was of the post-WW1 time. The correct date of the plate may be determined by the time, when 1014 repaire factory was found, and when capitan Ozdemir served there. By the way, it's clear thе gun was taken as a trophy by Turkish troops. But question remains, where it was happened: at Caucas or at Saloniki fronts?
__________________
Our wifes are charged cannons! (the words from Russian folk song)!
I found a photo of another M1877/95 gun in Turkey, this time in Samsun, at the Bandirma Ship and War of Independence Museum:
P.S.
People who (unlike me) are registered on Facebook may find some photos at http://www.fb.me/media/set/?set=a.534652979945318.1073741832.534633543280595&type=1.
-- Edited by ain92 on Wednesday 19th of November 2014 09:29:49 PM