12-pounder 12 cwt improvised anti-aircraft guns

[RodB]

I raised this a year or two back but am re-raising it as (1) I never satisfactorily resolved it (2) I have a tiny new reference which may be relevant. The AWM has a photo of what looks like a (very) improvised AA gun on a barge, apparently in Mesopotamia :

Apparently the Royal Navy provided some 12-pounders for use ashore in the Mesopotamia campaign so this could be one - but if so the mounting is upside-down : i.e. the recuperator/buffer is now above rather than below the barrel.

Now - I'm reading "36 days" by Hugh Dolan, which covers the leadup to the Gallipoli landing, in which he mentions a 12-pounder on the proto-aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal being improvised into an AA gun by being "turned upside-down to increase its elevation". He doesn't reference this, so I have no idea where he got the info or its authenticity. Hogg & Thurston illustrate & describe an AA version of the 12 pounder 12 cwt apparently deployed in the home defence of Britain in WWI, which had an extra recuperator added above the barrel to facilitate runout at high angles - this appears to indicate that the standard recuperator was insufficient at high angles, for which it was not intended :

Logic tells me that if the extra recuperator was necessary for the British AA version, then how would simply inverting the mounting produce a workable HA gun in Mesopotami or Gallipoli ?

Does anybody know anything about this ? Documentation on weapons improvisation in the war is really hard to find, yet I believe it was really important in new areas such as AA.

Rod