Turkish Artillery

Discussions on the final era of the Ottoman Empire, from the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
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Osman Levent
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#271

Post by Osman Levent » 21 Nov 2012, 15:48

As in the German version where one reads "Nr.1" after the word "Essen"; the Turkish transcription indicates "Numero 1"
Best regards, Osman Levend

CharlieC
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#272

Post by CharlieC » 22 Nov 2012, 00:38

Thank you Osman.

It's a pity we don't have the breech markings. The gun is probably one of the 18 lost during the Balkan War of 1912-13.
I think it strengthens the case that the 15cm howitzer at Goulburn, NSW is a Turkish built Model 1905 howizer. The Goulburn gun looks the same as this one.

Regards,

Charlie


Osman Levent
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#273

Post by Osman Levent » 22 Nov 2012, 16:52

Indeed Charlie,
I believe this piece was one of those captured in Edirne, after that city capitulated on 26.03.13 to a joint force of Bulgarian and Serbian Divisions. So I always wondered if some of these pieces had ended up as trophies for the Serbian Army.
Best regards, Osman Levend

ltcolonel
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#274

Post by ltcolonel » 27 Nov 2012, 18:12

I've never seen any Turkish howitzer 15 cm in Serbian prey and even read about it in a document. But a lot of Turkish howitzers 12 cm used in the Serbian arms 1915th year.

Osman Levent
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#275

Post by Osman Levent » 28 Nov 2012, 13:27

Many thanks Itcolonel,
Now, we can say with some assurance that those artillery pieces were taken by the Bulgarians only. Apparently by March 1913, they already knew that a second conflict (i.e. the Second Balkan War) was to be fought soon amongst the former allies of the First one.
Best Regards, Osman Levend

CharlieC
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#276

Post by CharlieC » 28 Nov 2012, 14:12

Marco Pellerini (bulgarianartillery.it) says the Bulgarian Army deployed 14 15cm Krupp howitzers during WW1. Marco has
said he's fairly certain these were captured Turkish guns.

Regards,

Charlie

CharlieC
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#277

Post by CharlieC » 09 Dec 2012, 05:47

I have a request....

On another forum some years ago some images were published of a gun at the Military Museum in Istanbul. This gun was built by HiH in Holland around 1930 using captured British 18 Pounder guns that the Turkish Govt. supplied to HiH. HiH was a front company for Rheinmetall since Germany wasn't supposed to have an arms industry under the Versailles Treaty.
It has been claimed that this gun is 105mm calibre. I have a colleague in Australia who is reconstructing an 18 Pounder gun and has doubts whether an 18 Pounder (83.5mm) could be converted to 105mm since the wall of the interior tube of the 18 Pounder barrel isn't thick enough to bore out to 105mm. Replacing the 18 Pounder barrel would be extremely expensive since there are complex manganese bronze castings which hold the upper recoil tube in place. My colleague asks if anyone is going to the Military Museum in Istanbul to take along a tape measure to measure the bore diameter of this gun.

Regards,

Charlie
turkishvickershihno29front.jpg
turkishvickersHIHno15rearjpg.jpg
turkishvickershihno29.jpg

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nuyt
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#278

Post by nuyt » 09 Dec 2012, 18:15

Yes, it would be good if we could get comfirmation of my findings. I was not allowed to measure the howitzer (as the HIH named it) because it was not in a public area of the museum back in 2006 (dont ask how I made those pics). I almost got arrested (no joke). However there are several of these howitzers around throughout Turkey, possibly meanwhile also at the Istanbul museum.

My info on the calibre is second hand, but from a reliable source. I did not doubt the calibre, because why would HIH bother to change also the breechblock when keeping the 84mm? Then it would also still be a called gun. Conversion was possibly done because of lack of 18 pounder ammo and a surplus of 105mm how ammo. This way the Turks had a cheap way of enlarging their 105mm howitzer stocks. But confirmation would be nice.

Considering reboring there was a third possibiilty: inserting a 105mm inner tube and boring out the outer tube slightly. No need to touch the expensive stuff there.

What if it turns out not to be 105mm? Given the fragile tube, I would expect only 88mm to be another option for HIH conversion, which would make the concept tantalisingly close to the mysterious Rheinmetall/Solothurn 88mm gunhowitzer that was developed late WW1 and later supplied to China....

CharlieC
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#279

Post by CharlieC » 09 Dec 2012, 23:28

There is another option - HiH replaced the inner tube and the gun is a smaller calibre than the 18 Pounder (83.5mm).
Thinking about the problem - a quick comparison of images should be able to determine whether the Istanbul gun
calibre is larger or smaller than the original 18 Pounder. Taking an image of an 18 Pounder at Woolwich Arsenal and a
some work with Gimp seems to show the calibre of the Istanbul gun is smaller than the original - perhaps 75mm (attached). On the image the Istanbul gun is on the left side - I tried to match the half views on the centre mark of the muzzle.

Estimating the calibre of the Istanbul gun from the images gives a calibre of 75.2mm.

Regards,

Charlie
Woolwich_Istanbul_barrels.jpg
Woolwich_Istanbul_barrels.jpg (49.23 KiB) Viewed 1508 times

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nuyt
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#280

Post by nuyt » 10 Dec 2012, 00:11

Hmm, not sure if you can draw any conclusions from that, nice work by the way. It also looks like the outer tube on the HIH one is thinner, meaning they bored it out...

Gave the lesser diameter a thought too today, but would there be a reason why HIH would call the weapons howitzers, calibre wise? The 18 pdr barrel was around L30, a 75mm one would comparatively have had a far bigger cal length than that, so definitely a field gun and not a howitzer...
Barrel of the 18 pounder GUN was almost 2,5 meters, divide that by 75mm and you get a L33ish GUN.
unless HIH cut of the rear part of the barrel...

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nuyt
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#281

Post by nuyt » 10 Dec 2012, 00:40

I have one pic of two HIH howitzers flanking a German 10,5 cm howitzer and I measured the barrel diameter, they are equal:
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turkishHIHmesures.jpg

CharlieC
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#282

Post by CharlieC » 10 Dec 2012, 03:42

I agree - on the principle of "trust but verify" - pulled the image apart and measured the vertical diameters (least likely to be distorted) - found the 10cm lFH 98/09 diameter 15px, the HiH 105mm - 14.5px. That is pretty much the same so the HiH gun probably is 105mm. My error was in making the assumption that the inner tubes were the same diameter.

I tried matching the outer tubes but it seems as the distinctive bell on the 18 Pounder muzzle has been reshaped in the HiH gun so it doesn't match very well. I'd still like to get measurements on the gun barrel to be certain.

Regards,

Charlie
Barrel_comparison.jpg
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YC Chen
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#283

Post by YC Chen » 01 Jan 2013, 10:39

I have a friend who went to Istanbul on business back in 2010 and he was actually housed inside the Military Museum there. I lent him my camera and he eventually brought back a lot of photos which he said were "of all the guns in the courtyard of the museum". However, it seems that he never discovered those guns in Nuyt's photos :? ...
There is a 18pdr in his photos, but I think that gun had not been rebuilt.

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nuyt
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#284

Post by nuyt » 01 Jan 2013, 16:48

That's right, there is an original 18 pounder there...maybe they closed off the courtyard where these guns were?

Tosun Saral
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Re: Turkish Artillery

#285

Post by Tosun Saral » 02 Jan 2013, 22:57

Skoda 7,5 cm M 15 mountain gun at the Kalemegdan in Belgrade.
Shot by me for my collection in Sept. 2012
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skoda 7,5 M15 dağ topu.jpg

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