Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Holy Krupp!

This artillery piece decorates The Armories of The Brockville Rifles in, well, Brockville, Ontario:


According to my copy of Ian Hogg's Twentieth-Century Artillery (Etobicoke, Ontario:  Prospero Books, 2000), it's a 15cm Field Howitzer FH17.  It was originally produced by Krupp for the German army in 1913, and quite a few survived the first world war to be used as training weapons during the second.  Here are its specs:


From the information on the breech, this one appears to have been made in 1918:



A close up of the controls below.  Really quite beautifully machined.


Finally, take a look at the end of the barrel.  What could have done this?!


Being on the receiving end of such "whiz-bangs" was universally feared and deplored:

Richard S. Lambert.  The Twentieth Century Canada Britain USA.  Toronto:  The House of Grant (Canada) Ltd., 1960.



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