WW1 Military Motors - 1916 set x 50 cards

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Although the Mark 4 mount used on the 13 pdr. 9 cwt QF AA Guns had been highly successful, always looking to improve the gun and mount, the War Department looked to combine various features found on the highly successful 3 inch 20 cwt QF AA Gun, and incorporate them into a new gun and mount for the 13 pdr. 9 cwt. QF AA Gun.

Two particular features found on the 3 inch 20 cwt. Gun, which were missing from the Mark 4 mount, were the fixed gun crew seating positioned on both sides of the mount which allowed the gun crew on the 3 inch 20 cwt. to maintain a constant sighting of the aerial target while traversing and elevating the gun, which was highly desirable for an Anti-Aircraft Gun.

Additionally, the 13 pdr. 9 cwt QF AA Gun on a Mark 4 mount had a significantly longer recoil of 35 inches as compared to that of 11 inches on the 3 inch 20 cwt QF AA Gun, with the much shorter recoil length giving the gun a higher rate of fire.

Another improvement which would be incorporated in the new gun, officially known as the ' Ordnance QF 13 pdr 9 cwt ' A ' gun on mounting motor lorry QF 13 pdr Mk 5 ' was the automatic cocking of the firing mechanism as the breech opened, another feature designed to significantly improve the gun's performance.

The new 13 pdr 9 cwt QF ' A ' Gun and it's Mark 5 mount would certainly have been manufactured in large numbers had it's development not come too late into 1918, and with the end of WW1, the new 13 pdr 9 cwt ' A ' gun with it's Mark 5 mount was mothballed with possibly only one gun and Mark 5 mount being manufactured and mounted on a ' Peerless ' lorry.

Back on 22nd May, 2014, I had posted a photograph of a highly camouflaged ' Peerless ' lorry mounted with a 13 pdr AA Gun, not knowing at the time, that the photograph actually showed the 13 pdr 9 cwt QF ' A ' Gun on a Mark 5 mount, as I was more concerned with the unusual camouflage paint scheme on the Peerless lorry rather that the gun it carried.

Here again, is that highly camouflaged ' Peerless ' lorry mounted with the 13 pdr 9 cwt QF ' A ' Gun, showing the various modifications taken from the 3 inch 20 cwt QF AA Gun, including new fixed crew seating on either side of the Mark 5 mount.

The first photograph, shows the 13 pdr 9 cwt QF ' A ' gun on the Mark 5 mount in the firing position, with side panels on the Peerless lorry lowered to form the firing platform, and with the stabilizing jacks deployed.

The second photograph, shows the ' A ' Gun in the travelling position with it's barrel lowered and supported by the barrel bi-pod.

Also of note, is what must have been an amazingly colourful camouflage paint scheme painted on the gun and the lorry.

LF

Hogg & Thurston British Artillery Weapons 1914-18 This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The 13 pdr 9 cwt QF ' A ' Gun on the Mark 5 mount shown in the travelling position, with it's barrel lowered and supported by the barrel bi-pod.

Also of note, is what must have been an amazingly colourful camouflage paint scheme painted on the gun and the Peerless rear-wheel chain-drive lorry.

LF

Hogg & Thurston British Artillery Weapons 1914-18 This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Looking very similar to the 13 pdr ' A ' Gun shown in the previous posts, here is an extremely interesting and important photograph of a 3 inch 20 cwt Quick Firing Anti-Aircraft Gun actually in service on the Western Front during WW1, mounted on a camouflaged Peerless lorry.

Photographs of the 3 inch 20 cwt QF AA Gun on the Western Front are seldom seen, as often, their photographs were either taken on the Home Front or after the end of WW1.

This particular 3 inch 20 cwt gun mounted on a Peerless lorry was photographed in France during WW1, and the Peerless lorry has W^D Census Numbers painted on the bonnet.

The Peerless lorry came in versions including 3 to 5 tons, and given the substantial weight of the 3 inch 20 cwt Gun and it's mount, this Peerless lorry is probably the 5 ton version.

The photograph shows the gun's 12 man Royal Garrison Artillery ( RGA ) crew, with the lorry driver perhaps being ASC ( Army Service Corps ), along with a young local admirer.

More details of the 3 inch 20 cwt QF AA Gun are in previous posts 3854/3857.

LF

This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Rockdoc]

The photo of the AA gun on the Italian front is a rarity and shows the hard limestone that is always close to the surface. Something that's struck me more than once as I've seen AA positions on the Salonika and Asiago fronts is how important the top brass thought they were. The AA Sections never received the plaudits that the RFC/RAF pilots did and I've read accounts by infantrymen that disparage their effectiveness on the grounds that they bang away but don't bring planes down. Look at how the lorry is positioned, though. Quite a lot of limestone has been blasted away to form a flat surface and that wouldn't take five minutes. Near Asiago, at the junction of Cima di Fonte and Cima del Porco, I've seen a huge platform, built in the fashion of a drystone wall on a very steep slope, that was made for two dismounted 9-cwt guns in a position where driving a road for the lorries would have been quite impractical. In Greece, I saw another large platform made of broken limestone near Causica, here being used to level a gradient and provide hard-standing for a lorry. Also in Greece, at the top of Coles Kop, on the Struma front, I saw another AA position that had been blasted out of the side of a limestone hill.

However many planes they did or did not bring down, their work was appreciated at the time, even if their star faded after WW1.

Keith

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Keith,

Many thanks for the additional information, and that series of photographs taken on the Italian Front, also contained a photograph of another 13 pdr. 9 cwt. QF AA Gun on a Mark 4 mount, this time mounted on a Peerless lorry.

Again, we see the same limestone formations found in that particular area of the Italian Front, with the Peerless lorry set up in what looks like a gully or dry river bed, which although providing the gun with good protection, it does give the gun's crew a remarkably tight working area.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

A photograph showing the support emplacement for those Italian Front 13 pdrs., giving good details of the Range Finder, Spotter and Signaller providing targeting information to the Gunners.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Rockdoc]

More great photos, LF.

Keith

[Lancashire Fusilier]

More great photos, LF.

Keith

Keith,

Pleased to hear, that you are finding the photographs of interest.

Regards,

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The 13 pdr 9 cwt Quick Firing Gun on the modified High Angle Field Carriage.

In response to Kevin's previous question in post 3892, asking if any of the lorry mounted 13 pdr. AA Guns were also horse-drawn, the answer is yes, and as we saw with the 13 pdr. ' A ' Gun, the War Department sought ways to both develop new weapons and improve existing weapons, and one such successful weapon which the WD saw as suitable for development and modification was the lorry mounted 13 pdr 9 cwt Quick Firing Anti-Aircraft Gun.

It was envisaged that this modified 13 pdr 9 cwt QF AA gun on a Mark 4 mount would be adapted to being both a High Angle AA Gun as well as a high velocity Field Gun, this being achieved by designing a field gun carriage mounted with a suitably modified Mark 4 High Angle mount to carry the 13 pdr 9 cwt QF Gun.

The modified field gun carriage would also be fitted with a pair of ' Slewing Wheels ' on pivoting stub axles, which could be rotated 90 degrees from their normal position on either side of the carriage to the front of the carriage, and with the two wheels in position side-by-side rim-facing-rim at the front of the gun, and with the gun's trail anchored in a static position, the gun's crew could then manually rotate the gun's wheels to the left or the right to pivot the gun through a 360 degree traverse when the gun was being used as a High Angle Anti-Aircraft Gun.

A specially designed, portable wheeled long handled jack was used to raise the gun's trail off the ground when maneuvering the gun into position, and also while the gun was being traversed.

The 13 pdr 9 cwt Quick Firing Gun on the modified High Angle Field Carriage was introduced in May 1917, ( Hogg & Thurston ) and is known to have seen service on the Italian Front, although it is not known how may of these modified 13 Pounder 9 cwt. Guns were manufactured or if they saw service on the Western Front.

As the gun was mounted on a Field Gun carriage, it was capable of being towed either by a vehicle or could also be horse-drawn. Unfortunately, in this series of photographs it is not shown how the gun was towed to the location, which could have been either using a towing vehicle or it was horse-drawn.

The first in a series of 5 photographs, shows the 13 pdr 9 cwt QF Gun on a modified Mark 4 High Angle mount fitted on a Field Carriage in action on the Italian Front, with a crew member using the wheeled portable jack to raise the gun carriage trail off the ground while the gun is being maneuvered into position on high ground.

Also, note the stockpile of ammunition crates already in position.

To date, these are the only photographs I have seen of this obviously unique version of the 13 pdr. 9 cwt. QF Gun.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

A closer view of the specially modified Mark 4 mount, adapted to fit onto the gun's Field Carriage.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Rockdoc]

This is a photo that shows up all over the place but, surprisingly, the story in Hogg & Thurston is muddled. I have the Diary for the AA Batteries in Italy and that makes it plain that this was designed and built in Italy and there was only the one by my reading. It took a fair bit of setting up so it would have been useless if its crew had been caught in transit.

First, a steel bar was driven into the ground and the tow-hitch went over that to act as a pivot. The wheels could be unlocked and moved through almost 90 degrees so the gun could be rotated - manually - through 360 degrees. The significant downside to the arrangement was how close the gun was to the ground. The carriage allowed the gun to be elevated as far as other AA guns but that meant the breech would hit the ground as it recoiled so the detachment would have to dig a circular trench that was deep enough to take the recoil and, I have to assume, put the next shell in the breech without having to alter the elevation. If they couldn't reload without moving the barrel then it was vastly inferior to its normal counterpart.

The Diary isn't clear why this was tried nor how successful it was but it is a very slim document and I get the distinct impression it was written after the armistice from personal notes.

Keith

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The Diary isn't clear why this was tried nor how successful it was but it is a very slim document and I get the distinct impression it was written after the armistice from personal notes.

Keith

The series of photographs depicting this particular gun, were taken by a well known British Army War Photographer, Lt. Ernest Brooks, who took countless superb WW1 photographs on the Western Front and the Italian Front, which are held in the Imperial War Museum's photo archive, which must have been the source of those photographs from the series published by others.

Unfortunately, the IWM's captions only refers to the gun as being photographed on the ' Italian Front ', with no further details.

Sometimes, the photo caption for this gun just refers to the gun as being a standard 13 pdr., which clearly it is not. Hogg & Thurston give further details, and also say that they are unaware of how many of the guns were manufactured, and as with the ' A ' Gun, there may have only been one.

Interestingly, some of the other photographs in the series, which I shall be posting over the coming days, show the gun in it's various stages of set up and firing, which give us many more details of this very interesting and possibly unique 13 pdr 9 cwt Gun.

Regards,

LF

[Rockdoc]

The photos were taken on the Asiago front. There's one in the sequence that shows the gun ready for action in a shallow valley with a church on the skyline to the right of the photo. When we visited, a few years ago, Forum Pal Kibe took us there - into someone's back garden! There isn't anything to see and the only way you'd know you were in the right spot was by the position of the church.

Keith

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The photos were taken on the Asiago front. There's one in the sequence that shows the gun ready for action in a shallow valley with a church on the skyline to the right of the photo.

Keith,

I shall look and see if that church can be seen in any of the IWM photos.

Regards,

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The gun carriage wheels have now been rotated on their pivoting stub axles to the front of the gun, and long-handled wheel chocks have been put in place to help secure the carriage wheels.

If needed, crew members ( one per wheel ) are able to rotate the wheels and traverse the gun in any direction through 360 degrees.

Other gun crew members, are bringing up shells from the ammunition stockpile in preparation for high angle firing.

This photo, again gives good details of the modified Mark 4 mount.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Rockdoc]

I don't think the HA mount was modified, just taken off its pedestal and fastened to this carriage. Although the stockpiled shells suggest this is a site they were planning to occupy for some time, I think this is a posed shot while they were getting set up. The ground surface hasn't been prepared so it's tussocky - just what you want when you need to traverse the gun quickly and accurately. I can't see any sign of a trench for the breech, either.

Keith

[David Filsell]

I ask only out of interest, but are the pictures of the Peerless or of the exquisite model of the vehicle which fondly rememberwas on display at the IWM when it used to be a real museum.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

I ask only out of interest, but are the pictures of the Peerless or of the exquisite model of the vehicle which fondly rememberwas on display at the IWM when it used to be a real museum.

David,

All the photographs of the Peerless lorries are of actual lorries, not scale models.

I am wondering, if you are recalling seeing the superb scale model the IWM has/had on display of a Thornycroft J-Type lorry mounted with a 13 pdr. 9 cwt QF AA Gun on a Mark 4 mount ( see attached ), which was actually built at the Thornycroft factory.

Regards,

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

David,

Here is that same superb IWM Thornycroft J-Type scale model out of the showcase.

Regards,

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

This final photograph of the 13 pdr. 9 cwt. QF Gun mounted on a Field Gun Carriage, gives a better view of the gun and it's carriage, as the gun crew prepare for firing.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[David Filsell]

I obviously mist identified the lorry - it's been a long time. A also recalled the model I saw to be camouflaged. That said the Thornycroft, with a suitable background (which one of our photographic experts could, I am sure magic up)

As ever thanks for responding

David

[Lancashire Fusilier]

I obviously mist identified the lorry - it's been a long time. A also recalled the model I saw to be camouflaged.

David,

If the IWM model was camouflaged, then it was probably this IWM scale model of a camouflaged Horse Ambulance, and here is the link back to that section on Horse Ambulances posted on 14th May, 2014.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=173218&page=73

Regards,

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[johnboy]

Are there any photos of the above?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

A final photograph from a series of photographs taken by British Army War Photographer, Lt. Ernest Brooks, showing a possibly unique 13 pdr. 9 cwt. Quick Firing Gun on a Mark 4 High Angle mount, with it's pedestal removed, so as to fit on a field gun carriage, in service on the Italian Front.

This particular photograph from the series, shows excellent details of the special wheeled jack used to raise the gun carriage trail, whilst the gun was being maneuvered.

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Are there any photos of the above?

johnboy,

As yet, I have not seen any photographs of such a vehicle, and British WW1 camouflaged GS ( General Service ) lorries are particularly scarce and very seldom seen.

That particular camouflage pattern, which obviously looks completely different in colour, is very similar to that used on the Western Front, examples of which have been seen on a Thornycroft J-Type mounted with 13 pdr. 9 cwt AA Gun, and also on a Rolls-Royce Armoured Car.

Perhaps David, with his computer paint box, would kindly add similar colours to these photographs to show what they may have actually looked like in real life.

Here is the first camouflaged vehicle, a convoy of Thornycroft J-Type lorries mounted with 13 pdr. 9 cwt QF AA Guns on Mark 4 mounts.

Regards,

LF

IWM This image is reproduced strictly for non-commercial research and private study purposes as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised.