Need ID Chinese artillery

[YC Chen]

I feel the need for a thread devoted to the identification of Chinese artillery because I have got a number of unidentified photos and a number of "empty names" which need photos...
Now here's the first one, a gun kept in Chinese Military Museum in Beijing, the introduction plate says it is a Schneider. Any further information on this gun?

[YC Chen]

And yet another one, part of a rare "colourized" photo of Chinese Communist artillery in North-west China in late 1940s. Can anyone id the gun?

[karlik]

And yet another one, part of a rare "colourized" photo of Chinese Communist artillery in North-west China in late 1940s. Can anyone id the gun?

Soviet 76,2-mm regimental gun M1927
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/76-%D0%BC% ... 0%B4%D0%B0

[YC Chen]

Thanks a lot!
Anyone for the first gun?

[YC Chen]

I feel the need for a thread devoted to the identification of Chinese artillery because I have got a number of unidentified photos and a number of "empty names" which need photos...
Now here's the first one, a gun kept in Chinese Military Museum in Beijing, the introduction plate says it is a Schneider. Any further information on this gun?

Finally I can identify this gun! This is a 10.5cm light howitzer (some sources claim that it was first made in 1925, hence it has the name "Type 14", but I can't confirm that this name was really used) made in Shenyang arsenal in 1920s. It was of Austrian design and used the same carriage as the Bohler 7.7cm field gun also built in Shenyang arsenal under the name "Type 14 7.7cm field gun".
AFAIK this kind of light howiter was seldom used by Chinese army, but Japanese army captured about 50 in 1931 and adapted them to fire shells of Japanese Type 91 howitzer.

[Akira Takizawa]

AFAIK this kind of light howiter was seldom used by Chinese army, but Japanese army captured about 50 in 1931 and adapted them to fire shells of Japanese Type 91 howitzer.

The Japanese called it as 改造14年式10糎榴弾砲. I upload its photos.

Taki

[YC Chen]

AFAIK this kind of light howiter was seldom used by Chinese army, but Japanese army captured about 50 in 1931 and adapted them to fire shells of Japanese Type 91 howitzer.

The Japanese called it as 改造14年式10糎榴弾砲. I upload its photos.

Taki

Yes, I found the information on that great Japanese book too.

[nuyt]

Fascinating!
Could this be the "10cm "Austrian type" howitzer, 300 were made" you mentioned in our discussion about Bohler in Mukden?

[YC Chen]

Fascinating!
Could this be the "10cm "Austrian type" howitzer, 300 were made" you mentioned in our discussion about Bohler in Mukden?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think so.
The strange thing about this gun is it seems that it never reached the Chinese army. The production number "300" was from a memoir article by an arsenal officer. Memoir articles written by former Fengtian army artillery officer never mention this gun, and it's also nowhere to be seen in the documents of KMT army artillery.
One artillery officer said in his article that he knew there was "a 10.5cm cannon is going to equip our army, but was interrupted by Manchuria Inccident". There was a 10.5cm cannon project being developed at that time in Mukden arsenal, a 10.5cm L/37 gun "Type 19" which I think never came off the drawing board. Or maybe this artillery officer mistakened the light howitzer as cannons?

BTW, was there any WWI Austrian guns similar to this gun?

[nuyt]

Artillery officers who mix up howitzers with guns should be transferred to the infantry.
This howitzer is by no means L37, more in the area of L22, a common caliber for light howitzers in the interbellum.
No doubt there were two different weapons: this 10,5cm light field howitzer, probably around L22 cal and a field gun 10,5cm L37, still under development. The latter may be about the same cal as the WW1 Skoda 104mm, L36,4 field gun of the Austrian army, so it might be a slightly upcalibered version of that one or else it was derived from an unknown Bohler prototype that lost the competition against the Skoda one...? Keep digging!

[YC Chen]

Hmm... I'm just not sure if he still didn't mix them after 50+ years.
The 10.5cm light howitzer and the 10.5cm gun ("type 19") are certainly two totally different types. Now I want to know if the 10.5cm light howitzer resembles any Austrian guns from WWI or inter-war era.

Information on the 10.5cm L/37gun "Type 19" is very limited. The only thing I can say now is it appears several times in KMT military documents (the KMT central army in the south also wanted to adopt it as their standard weapon).
Keep digging...

[nuyt]

Hmm... I'm just not sure if he still didn't mix them after 50+ years.
The 10.5cm light howitzer and the 10.5cm gun ("type 19") are certainly two totally different types. Now I want to know if the 10.5cm light howitzer resembles any Austrian guns from WWI or inter-war era.

Information on the 10.5cm L/37gun "Type 19" is very limited. The only thing I can say now is it appears several times in KMT military documents (the KMT central army in the south also wanted to adopt it as their standard weapon).
Keep digging...

NO, the Chinese 10,5cm light howitzer on Bohler carriage was not in use anywhere else and was not an ex-Austrian army weapon. The calibre was different anyway. It was a completely new weapon. It should not have been hard for this steel factory to produce new artillery barrels in those days. The factory was probably excellently equipped with ex-Bohler stuff as I wrote on the other thread. So it is possible that this weapon was devised by the Bohler staff in Mukden, using their own equipment brought over from Kapfenberg.

There is one other possibility. As there were so many ex-German and other weapons around and being traded all over the world after WW1 it is also possible that the barrels were from the 10,5cm lFh16, fitted by Mukden on the Bohler carriage. Just some speculation but still also very feasible. It would have made a functional weapon and the box trail carriage had room for a howitzer type elevation.

Now the L37 gun. Nothing else existed in the Austrian or German inventory duting WW1 and nothing came in to service in the 20s. There was a 104mm L36,5 Skoda field gun and the Austrian staff in Mukden must have known it. Most likely possibility is they developed the Chinese weapon from that Skoda one.

The only other weapons close were the Krupp 10,5cm Feldkanone M14, a L35 weapon and the Rheinmetall 10,5cm L35 of 1913. The Dutch trader and (from 1923) producer of artillery HIH (owned by Rheinmetall and indirectly by Krupp) held 60 R'metall L35 barrels and other parts of the gun in stock in Holland. There is no record of them selling these weapons, but they did of course sell artillery to China. HIH designed and offered several 10,5 cm field guns in the 1920s, one of them L40 and the other one L35 calibre. The latter was offered to the Dutch Army. It had a recoil cylinder on top of the barrel.

But I have not records at all of HIH contacts with Mukden nor Bohler.

Digging is fun!

[YC Chen]

Thank you very much! So the 10.5cm light howitzer is a brand-new weapon, thus explain why they came out at a quite late stage.

"But I have not records at all of HIH contacts with Mukden nor Bohler"
-There's in fact another possibility: Note that the "Type 19" stands for "designed in the 19th year of ROC", that is, 1930. At that time Mukden arsenal has very close connection with Chiang Kai-shek's central army(they in fact sold all kinds of weapons-perhaps including the 7.7cm Bohler gun-to Chiang when he was at war with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, and made quite a lot of money ). I remember reading somewhere in Chinese sources that the time of Chinese navy buying HIH naval guns was about 1930. So maybe the HIH technology was somehow transfered to Mukden by KMT central army? Hmm...

P.S. Do you have information on the purchasing of HIH 7.5cm infantry guns by China? When and how many? It is quite unusual that I haven't found a single word talking about the purchasing of these guns in Chinese sources.

[YC Chen]

Cool artillery, I LIKE it

Yes they ARE cool . I'm glad you like these lovely things.

Here is yet another gun need identify. This photo was posted by Peter H here: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 2&start=15
and it shows weapons captured by Japanese at Beidaying. Anyone have ideas about the two mountain guns? I think they look like "Shanghai Krupp"(that is, Chinese copy of Krupp L/14 mountain guns(Gebirgskanone M. 04?) made in Shanghai arsenal) mountain guns with an additional shield. At least regarding the barrel and the recoil mechanism I think they are similar to "Shanghai Krupps".

[YC Chen]

See here for Turkish and Bulgarian krupp mountain guns with shield:
http://www.bulgarianartillery.it/Bulgar ... Turkey.htm
http://www.bulgarianartillery.it/Bulgar ... 904_Gb.htm
I think they are almost the same as the Manchurian guns in the photo!