While going through WWI photos from NARA, I came across this photo which is identified as being a new French 75mm gun in service on the Somme in early 1918. Any ideas what it might be?
I believe the Saint Chamond identification is correct but I see some differences in the carriage between the one in the photo and the St Chamond guns I know of. The brakes, seat mount, and the sheet metal covering directly under the breech ring are different. There are two 75mm Saint Chamond guns in the USA in private collections and both are in Virginia. These two were export guns to Mexico and were later imported to the USA. Looking over my notes, I am only finding a few photos of limited quality, but have attached one for comparison.
-- Edited by Ralph Lovett on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 08:17:46 PM
There were two production batches of 75mm Saint-Chamond guns. The 1910 order of about 100 guns went to Mexico and some of these (32) went to Israel (3 survivors) in 1948 and, as Ralph has identified, some were imported to the US. There are high quality images around of the Israeli Saint-Chamonds - these are at Batei HaOsef (2) (Israel Defense Forces History Museum) in Tel Aviv and Beyt ha-Gdudim museum in moshav Avihayi.
The gun in the NARA image would likely be from the 1915/16 build of 200 guns. Given the 5 year gap in production of this gun it isn't too surprising that there are detail differences between the two batches.
Regards,
Charlie
-- Edited by CharlieC on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 11:19:59 PM
I dug out the issue of GBM with Gen. Francois' St. Chamond article (#115, Jan-Mar 2016). They did a color illustration based on the photo here, and indicate that it is a manufacturer's photo of the Canon de 75 TR Saint-Chamond as sold to the French army during the war. Gen. Francois in his article points out that the main difference between the "Mexican" and French guns was that the French army insisted that it fire the same 75mm ammunition as the M.1897 which was different from the 75mm ammunition used in the Mexican export guns.
