Landships II

Phil R · Captain

is this a WW1 gun?

28juni14 · Hero

Gun... yes, carraige no. A hybrid of the Skoda 10cm M14. As a condition of the armistice, large numbers of KuK artillerie were ceded to the Italian, and lesser allies after hostilities.

SASH155 · Major

I'm backkkk...! The photo in this thread is unfortunately not great or particularly clear (are there any others better than this)? However, after looking closely at it, I have concluded that it is in fact not a Skoda 10cm M.14 field howitzer at all, but one of the the Ansaldo licensed copies of the Krupp commercial 15cm (149.1mm) M-1913 field howitzer, to be specific the "obice da 149/12 modello 1916", which was a variant of the more common direct copy of the Krupp M-1913 weapon, the "obice da 149/12 modello 1914" . There was also the latter "modello 1918" version, a photo of which can be found in my article on these howitzers found on this site entitled "A Case of Mistaken Identity", which addresses the confusion often encountered about the Skoda versus Krupp 15cm howitzers. The modello 1916 consisted of a specially designed carriage (as seen here with its characteristic small wheels and large shield) which was built by Ansaldo for use in mountainous terrain, but incorporating the ordnance of the modello 1914.

Phil R · Captain

thanks sash

in a few days i will be in Borden and will be photographing this gun and anything else i can find there

Peter Kempf · Field Marshal

I hope you will consider posting your WW1-related Borden pic here on the site. That would be great!

28juni14 · Hero

Giving the pic a closer look compromises my first impression; it is not a 10cm M14 tube; I can not distinguish the barrel sweat bands. Indeed the massive recoil housing suggests a larger calibre.

Still, I am unaware of any example of the commercial version of the Lange 15cm sFH13 where the recoil housing was flush with the muzzle. Further the tube is too short to be part of this weapon system family. The model supplied pre-war to Italy is typically long with no less than 6 inches of muzzle clearance past the recoil housing. A surviving example is displayed in the Royal Musee.

I too would be interested to learn the speciman's true identity....