Other Translations
A couple of other translations from the fuse wrench. "Sprengpkt. hoeher" is "Sprengpunkt hoeher" or "point of burst higher"; likewise, "Sprengpkt. tiefer" is "point of burst lower". I can't see the images now, but wasn't there a "96" on an inscription that may have described the model of fuse wrench in the usual cryptic fashion?
Ian Hogg states in Twentieth-Century Artillery, in a description of the "10cm M1917 Gun", that "A long range medium gun was something the German Army had not thought about before 1914," and that Krupp designed it during the war, and built just under 200 by war's end. I think he is all wet here. I am reading German and French sources on WW I about 5 hours a day, and I frequently see mention of batteries of German long barreled medium guns in mid-war, not just 10 cm but several other calibers, such as (from the top of my head) 9 cm and 13 cm. (The French also had a bunch of gun models of this type.) Hogg must have gotten info on the improved M1917 model, but not got wind of the older models. I think I even recall 10 cm guns in Belgium in 1914, where my grandfather was the "Id" of the Oberkommando of III. Reserve Armeekorps besieging Antwerp; I have letters he wrote from the firing battery positions of the 42 cm howitzers, describing them firing on the Belgian forts and their shells to my father; he also had a lot to do with the 30.5cm mortars there and in Russia. In a letter from Jan. 3, 1915 from northern Russia he told my father that he finally had a billet, but it was as cold as Hell, as he had had to shell the town before they took it "with my big guns", and he had broken every pane of glass in the town, and he had left his cute little stove in Belgium when they were rushed to the East. The 42 cm guns would break windows two blocks away from where the gun was fired, as the Belgians found out when they were fired from a central Brussels city square on the forts on the western side of the city. At the first shot, the gun not only broke lots of windows, it knocked down a crowd of Belgian civilians who were angrily watching the guns being set up, according to a Belgian account. One can imagine what happened at the other end, with typical shells of 2550 lbs., with an early shell model weighing 3150 lbs., dropping from about 5 miles up. Ouch!!! Grandfather described the effect of one of those armored shells penetrating the shell magazine of a Belgian fort before the two time fuses set off its two explosive charges. He reported that the entire fort flew in the air, which I am sure was an exaggeration, but it must have been quite a bang.
Hogg describes the "10cm M1917" as actually 105.2mm, weighed 3200 kg., was 45 caliber = a 4.735 meter long barrel; a 18.75 kg HE shell could be thrown 14,100 meters. He said the M1917 had to be broken down for transport, with the barrel and gun cradle in a special wagon. Of course the gun pictured in the excellent photos someone posted seem to be a WW II model modified for motorized transport, not horse-drawn locomotion, seemingly with pneumatic tires.
Bob Lembke (Imperial visitor)
PS: You guys have a great forum here!
A couple of other translations from the fuse wrench. "Sprengpkt. hoeher" is "Sprengpunkt hoeher" or "point of burst higher"; likewise, "Sprengpkt. tiefer" is "point of burst lower". I can't see the images now, but wasn't there a "96" on an inscription that may have described the model of fuse wrench in the usual cryptic fashion?
Ian Hogg states in Twentieth-Century Artillery, in a description of the "10cm M1917 Gun", that "A long range medium gun was something the German Army had not thought about before 1914," and that Krupp designed it during the war, and built just under 200 by war's end. I think he is all wet here. I am reading German and French sources on WW I about 5 hours a day, and I frequently see mention of batteries of German long barreled medium guns in mid-war, not just 10 cm but several other calibers, such as (from the top of my head) 9 cm and 13 cm. (The French also had a bunch of gun models of this type.) Hogg must have gotten info on the improved M1917 model, but not got wind of the older models. I think I even recall 10 cm guns in Belgium in 1914, where my grandfather was the "Id" of the Oberkommando of III. Reserve Armeekorps besieging Antwerp; I have letters he wrote from the firing battery positions of the 42 cm howitzers, describing them firing on the Belgian forts and their shells to my father; he also had a lot to do with the 30.5cm mortars there and in Russia. In a letter from Jan. 3, 1915 from northern Russia he told my father that he finally had a billet, but it was as cold as Hell, as he had had to shell the town before they took it "with my big guns", and he had broken every pane of glass in the town, and he had left his cute little stove in Belgium when they were rushed to the East. The 42 cm guns would break windows two blocks away from where the gun was fired, as the Belgians found out when they were fired from a central Brussels city square on the forts on the western side of the city. At the first shot, the gun not only broke lots of windows, it knocked down a crowd of Belgian civilians who were angrily watching the guns being set up, according to a Belgian account. One can imagine what happened at the other end, with typical shells of 2550 lbs., with an early shell model weighing 3150 lbs., dropping from about 5 miles up. Ouch!!! Grandfather described the effect of one of those armored shells penetrating the shell magazine of a Belgian fort before the two time fuses set off its two explosive charges. He reported that the entire fort flew in the air, which I am sure was an exaggeration, but it must have been quite a bang.
Hogg describes the "10cm M1917" as actually 105.2mm, weighed 3200 kg., was 45 caliber = a 4.735 meter long barrel; a 18.75 kg HE shell could be thrown 14,100 meters. He said the M1917 had to be broken down for transport, with the barrel and gun cradle in a special wagon. Of course the gun pictured in the excellent photos someone posted seem to be a WW II model modified for motorized transport, not horse-drawn locomotion, seemingly with pneumatic tires.
Bob Lembke (Imperial visitor)
PS: You guys have a great forum here!
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