Turkish WW1 Artillery

[infantry]

Turkish artillery at military museum in Istanbul (The year must be 1875 to 1880)

Sorry mate it was not taken at the Military Museum building (I mean Pangalti Barracks) but at the Mühendishane-i Berri Hümayun barracks in Halicioglu. Nowadays it is housing a navy command. You can still see the same façade from sea side.

The same photo from Library of Congress collection

[infantry]

Turkish artillery at military museum in Istanbul (The year must be 1875 to 1880)

Sorry mate it was not taken at the Military Museum building (I mean Pangalti Barracks) but at the Mühendishane-i Berri Hümayun barracks in Halicioglu. Nowadays it is housing a navy command. You can still see the same façade from sea side.

The same photo from Library of Congress collection

Sorry first attachment attempt did not work

[ain92]

Hi all.
The photo posted by T. Saral on 12 February 2012 shows an austro-Hungarian M.15 mountain gun.
And here're two photos of Ottoman artillery captured by the Imperial Russian Army:


They are exhibited in the Military-historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer and Signal Corps on St. Petersburg.

[Tosun Saral]

What gun is this exibited in Istanbul?

[ain92]

Hello, Tosun.
Can you define the location more exactly? The gun looks like a coastal Armstrong rifled muzzle-loader, like this one.

[Tosun Saral]

In Istanbul at the garden of a University.

[Tosun Saral]

The right answer: It is exibited in the garden of Naval Museum in Beşiktaş in İstanbul.

[ain92]

The right answer: It is exibited in the garden of Naval Museum in Beşiktaş in İstanbul.

Thanks. I found this geolocated photo:

You can see six grooves and some sort of dry friction recoil brake, so I tend to think this's a British RML 9-inch 12-ton gun Mark I:

[CharlieC]

Remember the odd looking smooth bore gun at Mt Morgan? It's been tidied up and repainted. It's been reassembled correctly this time
(attached). The barrel markings are now visible - the breech ring has the markings "Karlsruhe 1872" and the number "291" is cast into the
barrel. I don't know if that gets any closer to identifying the original gun barrel but perhaps someone has seen a similar barrel.

Regards,

Charlie

Mt_Morgan_95mm_smooth_bore.jpg

[YC Chen]

Remember the odd looking smooth bore gun at Mt Morgan? It's been tidied up and repainted. It's been reassembled correctly this time
(attached). The barrel markings are now visible - the breech ring has the markings "Karlsruhe 1872" and the number "291" is cast into the
barrel. I don't know if that gets any closer to identifying the original gun barrel but perhaps someone has seen a similar barrel.

Regards,

Charlie

Mt_Morgan_95mm_smooth_bore.jpg

I haven't got time to go through this forum for a long time, but just saw this and would like to share some of my knowledge. Forgive me if you have already known about all these information.

From the markings the barrel was most probably taken from a Broadwell gun that was made in Maschinenbau Gesellschaft, Karlsruhe by the American engineer L.W.Broadwell. Broadwell was one of the inventors of sliding breech block for breech-loading artillery and was in trouble with Krupp company in 1870s which he accused of pirating his design. And he was also the inventor of the 'Broadwell drum' for Gatling guns.

I haven't found a Broadwell gun that is a exact match, but here I attach a drawing of some Broadwell guns from Oct.9, 1874 issue of 'Engineering' and a photo of an actural 3-in Broadwell field gun found on the website http://bibliotecavirtualdefensa.es/

Regards,
Yichuan

[stevebecker]

Charlie,

Its still possible its another of those converted guns for the short lived Mortar Companies raised during 1917, and converting a number of older guns.

Most being abandoned by there crews during the third Gaza Battle.

Cheers

S.B

[CharlieC]

I asked Herbert Jaeger's opinion on the Turkish gun. He thought it was a modified Krupp 9cm (9.15cm) M1861 FK (Feldkanone).

The Ottoman Empire purchased several hundred of these guns between 1862 and 1875.

I know nothing about Broadwell's manufacture of guns or whether they sold any to the Ottoman Empire.

There were a number of these guns captured by the Australian Light horse at Beersheba. Turning an obsolete field gun into a smooth
bore short range fortress gun does make sense. These guns seem to have been intended for a mobile defence role since they were captured
with limbers (attached).

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

I'm starting to come around to "YC Chen's" opinion that the barrel on the Mt Morgan fortress gun is, in fact, the barrel from a Broadwell gun
not a Krupp gun. There are a few surviving Broadwell guns - I've attached the breech markings from a Broadwell mountain gun and the Mt Morgan gun. Part of the Mt Morgan inscription has been obliterated by rust but it does look very similar.

I saw a reference to a surviving Broadwell gun in a Turkish Museum in Instanbul but have been unable to find any images of it.

It may well be that the Ottoman Army was equipped with Broadwell guns since the Krupp guns of the same period, especially the 1861 model had a very bad reputation for breech explosions.

Something that hadn't registered about these guns is that the barrels are only capable of being depressed not elevated. It looks like they were intended to be fired downwards from a parapet.

Regards,

Charlie

[Tosun Saral]

Our friend and academicer Col.(R) Kadir Türker Geçer wrote and article over Türkish artillery at history magazine Anafarta Nr 9 Winter 2020