Missing Gun from the SMS Königsberg

[CPT Bob]

In photos of the disabled gun, I assume that the barrel of the gun was pointing north, regardless if it was being pulled along the road or if it was being fired at the British.

[Chris Dale]

Good work with the cave finding, now which of our readers volunteers to go in them and find shell casings?

[CPT Bob]

I can see the sky behind the gun; that means that a large rock outcropping is NOT behind the gun. If you assume that the barrel is pointing north, then the terrain should be relatively flat west of the road at the site that the gun was abandoned.

The local church likely has 111 shiny brass vases.

[Chris Dale]

Very good!
Cheers
Chris

[CPT Bob]

It must have been "fun" to fire 111 rounds of 10.5cm ammunition within one hour. Not so much if you were in the KAR. Ha!

[Chris Dale]

That's if they had time to aim... they may have been firing blindly "in the enemy's genral direction".

[CPT Bob]

Not too hard. You walk down the only road in the jungle and plot possible targets on your map as you pass by. At some point you stop, plot your location......and the rest is all "math".

[CPT Bob]

111 rounds of 10.5cm ammunition is a lot to fire in one hour. I would think that would has made the barrel so hot it would have blown apart on its own.

The advancing British troops would have mentioned a 111-rd artillery barrage on that date.

Why did the Germans hide used shell casings?

Hermann Müller reported that one empty brass shell casing weighed 5kg each. (11lbs) Is this correct?

Were the Germans simply being tidy?

[CPT Bob]

Hermann Müller reported that one of these item weighs 5kg / 11lbs.

"Ladies & Gentlemen, you may now place your bets."

[CPT Bob]

It was important for the Germans to hide 111 of "one of these items" from the British.

[Chris Dale]

Interesting. 5kg seems a lot for an empty shell case and you're right, 111 in an hour seems doubtful...

[CPT Bob]

The maximum range of a k-berg gun was about 7 1/2 miles, or about 2 hours walking distance. Were the British that close behind the gun? There certainly were German units behind the gun in the "big parade".

I can think of a good reason to cache live ammunition, but I can not make a reasonable argument for hiding empty shell casing from the people that you just fired 111 rounds at. They already know that you fired the rounds and they will find the disabled cannon. This part of the story is a bit....ummmmm......."stinky".

[stulev]

maybe needed to make more shells - the Brass would be difficult to get.

[CPT Bob]

"The infantrymen at the vanguard of the British advance were receiving incoming shells from large enemy guns, including one from the Konigsberg, but the British mountain and field guns with the vanguard did not have the range to reply to the Germans."

This does not sound like a one-hour, 111 round 10.5cm artillery barage.

http://www.kaiserscross.com/188001/442901.html

[CPT Bob]

Hello, "Stulev". I understand that the shell were manufactured in Germany and packed 3-per-canister for shipment & storage. The individual rounds were cleaned & oiled regularly to prevent corrosion, but I do know that ammunition for the 10.5cm Konigsberg guns was manufactured in East Africa. I do know that ammo was made for several obsolete and locally-made cannons.