RELAWM05082.001 Accession Number: RELAWM05082.001

Description

German manufactured rifled breech loading siege cannon, with a screw-operated horizontally acting breech mechanism. The gun barrel's trunnions are mounted directly onto the carriage. The trunnions are secured with hinged trunnion caps. The barrel is elevated using a vertical screw mounted underneath the barrel and attached at its lower point to a transverse mounting fixed on the carriage. The carriage is made of steel, with a riveted steel strip running around the perimeter on each side. The two sides of the carriage are joined with a series of transoms and steel bars. For transport the trunnions were supported in two half bearings, one provided on either side of the carriage, thus distributing the weight over two pairs of wheels. The equipment was horse drawn.

The gun has no axial recoil system, nor a trail spade. It appears however, that the gun may have had a centrally running hydraulic recoil brake, which ran from the centre of the carriage near the rear, forward, to a point below the axle. There it would have terminated in an eye or hook, which was fastened or pinned to the ground. During recoil, the movement of the gun would have been limited by this hydraulic ram. Larges wedges were also placed on the ground behind the wheels.

The gun barrel and carriage are painted with a thin, highly abraded coat of light mustard brown yellow. In a number of areas this has exposed the pinkish-red primer.

A maker's plate would have been fitted to the left hand side of the carriage, just below the trunnion caps. The fastening holes for this plate are visible. An example of the plate is seen in AWM photograph H13176. A toolbox is fitted to the rear of the carriage. The lid of this box, made from thin gauge (2 mm) steel, has been considerably bent upwards, and no longer closes. A 'c' section length of steel channel is fitted in a transverse orientation above the box. This channel would have originally held a length of timber, which was held in place by two bolts. The timber is missing from our example, but one of the bolts remains. The purpose of the timber was to act as a cushion for the underside of the barrel, when it was unshipped and secured in place for transportation. This is evident in another of the Memorial's photographs: H03856.

The gun carriage is equipped with two wooden 12 spoked wheels, with metal hubs and rims. Both wheels are replicas, fabricated in 1981. These are painted with a light red-brown primer. The original wheels, as seen in both above-mentioned photographs, show that each of the junctions between felloes was covered with a thin metal plate which was secured on either side of the felloe with nails. The felloes were secured to the iron tyre with bolts, which extended through the fellow and were secured on bosom with nuts. The original spokes also appear to have been thinner, with a more rounded chamfer on the hub end, and tapered out to a fuller width on the tongues. The tongues on the original spokes passed into mortices in the felloes, rather than being held in place by spoke shoes (the latter being the more common approach).

The entire weapon weighed 3.6 tonnes. Of this, the barrel weighed 1.7 tonnes. A number of shells were able to be used, including several types of high explosive shells to a range of 8000 meters, shrapnel (firing 240 lead balls, also to a range of 8000 meters), and a 'grape' shell, firing 132 steel balls to a maximum distance of 500 metres.

Contextual Description

Captured by the Australian Light Horse in Palestine. Capture date, location and unit unknown. The gun fired a 16.7 kg projectile a distance of 8 km. Photograph H13176 shows an identical gun in action in Palestine in 1917. Photograph H03856 shows a similar gun (possibly the same gun) after its capture. A description of the gun type is given in Bulletin de renseignements de l'artillerie, Fevrier 1918 p48-56