Captured Artillery

[Khaki]

Was it possible to convert captured BL artillery to German specs for field use or was it not cost effective. It seems that most captured guns became nothing more than trophies, I realize that some undamaged guns were immediately turned against their former owners whilst there still was an ammunition supply, but I am referring to those guns that remained following an action.

khaki

[green_acorn]

Khaki,

The Germans formally deployed a great deal of captured artillery, particularly Russian and French pieces. If you have a look at German planning/force disposition maps and map symbol pamphlets there are numerous examples shown. The criteria for organised use was the amount of ammunition captured - though it must have been a logistics and maintenance nightmare for them.

I will defer to our noted GWF artillery experts, but my thought would be that reboring BL guns for German ammunition would have been time consuming and inefficient, requiring additional testing to confirm the ballistics of the gun/ammunition combination, something the Germans would not have wanted to waste time with.

Cheers,

Hendo

[The Prussian]

Hello!

There is a list in the "Ehrenbuch der schwerern deutschen Artilleriie" about captured heavy guns,

If soemeone is interested in that list, I could post it here later (now I´m in a hurry, the work waits for me...)

[Khaki]

Thanks Hendo & Prussian,

I would imagine that German factories as well as French and British were too into full production and repair of their own guns to worry about converting anything. Your list, Prussian,

I would like to see, I find anything to do with artillery very interesting.

thanks

khaki

[The Prussian]

I didn´t get it yesterday, so here we go now:

Field Guns

Russia: 5,7cm (coastal gun), 12,19cm (Schneider), 12,19cm (Krupp)

partial in use: 5,7cm canon, 7,62cm infantry gun, 7,62cm field canon 00, 7,62cm field canon 02, 7,7cm light canon for mounted troops, 7,7cm light canon 92/95

Belgium: 5,7cm (case mount), 5,7cm (shield mount), 8,7cm field canon

partial in use: 7,7cm canin in german 9cm mount

France: 8,0cm canon, 9,0cm canon, 9,5cm canon

England: 8,4cm field canon, 11,43cm field howitzer

Japan: 12,0cm light field howitzer

Heavy Guns

Russia: 10cm canon, 10cm canon M77, 15cm light canon M77, 15cm heavy canon M77, 15cm long canon M77, 15cm coastal gun, 25cm coastal gun, 28cm cosatal gun

partial in use: 10cm battery gun

Belgium: 12cm canon, 12cm K11, 12cm heavy gun, 15cm M86 and 90, 15cm heavy gun

France: 12cm long canon M78, 15,5cm long canon M77

England: 12,7cm Mark II, 12,7cm L/41

Italy: 10,5cm Schneider, 10cm vehicle-gun, 15cm long canon (Schneider)

Howitzers

Russia: 15,24 light howitzer L/12, 15,24cm light howitzer L/14, 20,32cm howitzer 77, 20cm howitzer 92, 15,24 coastal howitzer

partial in use: field-mortal C/86, 20cm howitzer 67 strenghthed, 20cm howitzer 67 unstrenghthed

Belgium: 12cm howitzer 06 and 08, 15cm howitzer 87, 15cm howitzer 90, 21cm howitzer 21cm howitzer L/12, 120mm short canon M90, 155mm short canon M81

England: 15,24 light field howitzer (Vickers), 20,3cm short howotzer Mark I-VI, 20,3cm long howitzer mark VII, 30,5cm gun

Italy: 15,2cm light field howitzer (Krupp), 15cm light field howitzer (Krupp)

I hope the list ok so far. If you need more technical details, let me know!

[SiegeGunner]

England: 15,24 light field howitzer (Vickers), 20,3cm short howotzer Mark I-VI, 20,3cm long howitzer mark VII, 30,5cm gun

I hope the list ok so far. If you need more technical details, let me know!

Not sure if it counts as a 'technical detail', but I'd love to know where and when the Germans got their hands on the British '30.5cm gun', which I presume was a 12" naval gun.

[The Prussian]

I will have a look this afternoon, maybe I'l l find something

[The Prussian]

Well, I checked it,but I couldn't find anything but the entry , that it was a british 30.5 railway gun. 1 battery with 3 pieces. It was a 30.5 howitzer with a range of 13.121 mts.

[SiegeGunner]

Thanks Andy. So a rail gun, as I expected, but not a naval gun. With that range it sounds like Elswick's 12" howitzer Mk V which entered service on the Western Front from mid-1917 onwards. With its shorter range, a railway howitzer would necessarily operate closer to the front lines than a rail-mounted naval gun, but even so I can't think of an occasion when the Germans could have got their hands on one before the Spring Offensive of March 1918. One can readily imagine the howitzer, stranded on a rail spur that had been cut off by shellfire, but it would have to have been overrun very quickly indeed to have fallen into German hands intact. Such a loss would have been exceptional and another member will hopefully be able to tell us the date and location of its capture, which I suspect will have been somewhere on the Somme front in the first few days of the Spring Offensive.

The Germans were no doubt delighted to acquire such a prestigious piece of Beute, intact or otherwise, but I rather doubt whether they will have made any use of it. If it could be got into running order, it might, perhaps, have been sent back to Germany for evaluation.

[green_acorn]

Image from 1917 of two captured 12" railway howitzers

[SiegeGunner]

Damn ... not just one, but two, and in 1917! But if they were already rail-mounted when the Germans acquired them, where and when were they captured?

[The Prussian]

In my recordings there were three guns mentioned

[SiegeGunner]

All rail-mounted, Andy? The range you cited corresponds to that of the Elswick 12" railway howitzer MkV (not the Mk III as I said earlier in post #9, which I have now edited). So where, in 1917, did the Germans capture British-held territory to a depth of (say, for the sake of argument) 1 mile and hold it so completely that they were able to haul away one or more rail guns and their associated equipment and ammunition? The Cambrai counter-attack perhaps?

[The Prussian]

You might be right, but I only have this infos.

Please have a look for the british captured guns (the 30,5 is on bottom right).

The battery was the german heavy battery N°. 1025

[SiegeGunner]

Thanks again, Andy. I wonder why so little technical detail is given for the '30,5cm E-Geschütz' compared with the other captured British guns. Do you know what '13121' relates to?

[The Prussian]

Hi Mick!

Yes, it´s the longest range of that gun in metres. So roundabout 13km.

I´ve found another source, in which the battery 1025 is mentioned with only ONE Rail-gun. I think that will be correct, because most of the german batteries with Rail-guns only had one gun.

The Battery 1025, in 1918, belonged to the 19th army.

4.2.18-11.11.18: Trench battles in Lorraine

[green_acorn]

Damn ... not just one, but two, and in 1917! But if they were already rail-mounted when the Germans acquired them, where and when were they captured?

Arras?

[SiegeGunner]

Yes, it´s the longest range of that gun in metres. So roundabout 13km.

Doh, of course it is. Sorry Andy. Still mystified, though, as to how the RGA came to lose three apparently intact 12" rail howitzers at some stage in later 1917. If they were subsequently used 'in anger' by the Germans, then presumably a reasonably substantial amount of ammunition was captured with them.

[The Prussian]

Well, I couldn´t find any german sources of the capture of those gun; only the fasct, that it did exist...

Probably we catched three of them but used only one. Maybe the orther two were destroyed or we used one or both of them because of their spare parts...

Arras could be a place, but I´m not sure. The german sources are mostly from the 30s. In that time most of the reports about captured artillery didn´t get published, because it was a bad propaganda for the german military...

[The Prussian]

Jesus, Maria! Just after I wrote my thread, I reminded another source. The book from Mr. Muther about the heavy artillery. He also said, we had three british 30,5cm Railway-guns.

In that book I found one single photo. Taken near Vailly. Vailly is east of Soissons.

The problem is: The gun on the photo is NOT a british 12"... It´s a french 370mm, M15 (Batignolles and Schneider). And because of the range I agree with you because of the Elswick 12" Mk V.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_12-inch_railway_howitzer

Another source is Herbert Jäger ("German artillery of world war one"): "Of course, there were also captured railway guns. The russians´ 152mm rail howitzers wer not used by the German army, but three British 12in railway guns were."

The big calibres seem to be mysterious in the recordings of all nations...

[SiegeGunner]

Well, the guns in the IWM photo found by Green Acorn look like Mk Vs, but there are only two of them. Maybe the crew of the third gun managed to disable it sufficiently to make it unusable, but the Germans took it along anyway, for spares etc. The loss of three of these beasties, apparently all at the same time, was clearly an exceptional event and must be recorded somewhere. I can't find anything about it in my own limited range of sources.

[sheldrake]

There is evidence that the Germans made extensive use of captured artillery in WW1. A significant part of the German artillery park at the beginning of the Somm eoffensive in 1916 were captured pieces.. Volume 10 of Dwer Weltkreig: Die Operationen des Jahres 1916 : bis zum Wechsel in der Obersten Heeresleitung includes a table compatignm the artillery used on the Somme with Verdun. http://digi.landesbibliothek.at/viewer/image/AC01859962/731/LOG_0612/

The table on the following page seems to mention "Russ" 10 cm guns at Verdun (8 on 21 Feb and 28 on 25 June) while the German artillery on the Somme on 25 June included 30 "Belg 8.7cm" guns (out of 34C 9% of the German light guns). Of the 62 guns listed as medium (100-149mm) guns 32 were "Belg 12cm" and 12 were "Franz 120mm" and 12 of the 50 heavy guns (15-19.9 cm) were "Russ 15 cm)

Many of the captured pieces pressed into service seem to have lacked modern recoil systems - if I have interpreted "schnellefeuer (rohrruecklauf) geschutz" correctly

The Belg 8.7cm might be the Krupp 1878 model http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Legere/FC871866MRABruxelles.html

The Belg 120mm might be these http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Forteresse/FC120CAMRABruxelles.html

The French 120mm is likely to be the (Canon de 120 Long modèle 1878 (de Bange) while Russ 150mm is probably 6-inch siege gun M1904 (there is one in the Belgian Army museum in Brussels) or the earlier M1877. #

Supplying ammunition for this mixed bag of obsolscent medium and heavy guns in the great "materialschlacht" must have caused a few headaches.

[14276265]

Regarding British 12" howitzers, three were captured by the Germans by the end of the first week of the 1918 spring offensive. Initial loss statistics for guns and gun ammunition attached herewith. A further three 12" were captured by 7 July 1918.

265

[The Prussian]

There is evidence that the Germans made extensive use of captured artillery in WW1. A significant part of the German artillery park at the beginning of the Somm eoffensive in 1916 were captured pieces.. Volume 10 of Dwer Weltkreig: Die Operationen des Jahres 1916 : bis zum Wechsel in der Obersten Heeresleitung includes a table compatignm the artillery used on the Somme with Verdun. http://digi.landesbibliothek.at/viewer/image/AC01859962/731/LOG_0612/

The table on the following page seems to mention "Russ" 10 cm guns at Verdun (8 on 21 Feb and 28 on 25 June) while the German artillery on the Somme on 25 June included 30 "Belg 8.7cm" guns (out of 34C 9% of the German light guns). Of the 62 guns listed as medium (100-149mm) guns 32 were "Belg 12cm" and 12 were "Franz 120mm" and 12 of the 50 heavy guns (15-19.9 cm) were "Russ 15 cm)

Many of the captured pieces pressed into service seem to have lacked modern recoil systems - if I have interpreted "schnellefeuer (rohrruecklauf) geschutz" correctly

The Belg 8.7cm might be the Krupp 1878 model http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Legere/FC871866MRABruxelles.html

The Belg 120mm might be these http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Forteresse/FC120CAMRABruxelles.html

The French 120mm is likely to be the (Canon de 120 Long modèle 1878 (de Bange) while Russ 150mm is probably 6-inch siege gun M1904 (there is one in the Belgian Army museum in Brussels) or the earlier M1877. #

Supplying ammunition for this mixed bag of obsolscent medium and heavy guns in the great "materialschlacht" must have caused a few headaches.

There is evidence that the Germans made extensive use of captured artillery in WW1. A significant part of the German artillery park at the beginning of the Somm eoffensive in 1916 were captured pieces.. Volume 10 of Dwer Weltkreig: Die Operationen des Jahres 1916 : bis zum Wechsel in der Obersten Heeresleitung includes a table compatignm the artillery used on the Somme with Verdun. http://digi.landesbibliothek.at/viewer/image/AC01859962/731/LOG_0612/

The table on the following page seems to mention "Russ" 10 cm guns at Verdun (8 on 21 Feb and 28 on 25 June) while the German artillery on the Somme on 25 June included 30 "Belg 8.7cm" guns (out of 34C 9% of the German light guns). Of the 62 guns listed as medium (100-149mm) guns 32 were "Belg 12cm" and 12 were "Franz 120mm" and 12 of the 50 heavy guns (15-19.9 cm) were "Russ 15 cm)

Many of the captured pieces pressed into service seem to have lacked modern recoil systems - if I have interpreted "schnellefeuer (rohrruecklauf) geschutz" correctly

The Belg 8.7cm might be the Krupp 1878 model http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Legere/FC871866MRABruxelles.html

The Belg 120mm might be these http://www.passioncompassion1418.com/Canons/ImagesCanons/Belgique/Forteresse/FC120CAMRABruxelles.html

The French 120mm is likely to be the (Canon de 120 Long modèle 1878 (de Bange) while Russ 150mm is probably 6-inch siege gun M1904 (there is one in the Belgian Army museum in Brussels) or the earlier M1877. #

Supplying ammunition for this mixed bag of obsolscent medium and heavy guns in the great "materialschlacht" must have caused a few headaches.

Hello!

Here are the sources of the vol. 10

#2

[SiegeGunner]

Those appear to be stats for the artillery of all sides present/participating in the battles at Verdun and on the Somme, Andy, rather than guns captured by the Germans. I see, though, that there are some Russian guns in the German column and some French ones in the British column (and it's interesting that the table uses 'Britisch' rather than 'Englisch').

Thanks to '265' for his contribution of info on the British losses in spring/summer 1918. No mention there, though, of any of the 12" hows being rail-mounted. I am still struggling to think of circumstances in which the Germans could have captured three 12" railway howitzers in 1917. Early 1918 seems so much more likely.