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Massimo_Foti

This gun is at the de Henriquez Museum in Trieste (Italy).

It's a 75 mm Krupp, it's not an italian 75/27 mod 1906, even if it has many things in common with that model.

Things on the breech don't clarify that much, the "blu area" looks like it was erased. The "red area" contains some characters that to me kind of look arab (not clearly visible in the picture):

This could be a former Turkish gun, build by Krupp as L/30 model 1903.
The turkish army used around forty of these guns in Lybia in 1911-12, during the italian-turkish war. But I am still not 100% sure.

Any feedback?

Massimo

Massimo_Foti

Two years and an half later, I finally have an answer Smile

The gun is confirmed to be Turkish, but it came from Yugoslavia, it was captured during the Balkan Wars.

See pictures from Belgrade:

75 mm Model 1903 Krupp by Massimo Foti, on Flickr

CharlieC · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Oct 24, 2012 Posts: 58

The gun at Trieste is definitely Turkish - I read the acceptance date "1323" or 1907 - pity the serial number is lost. The Turkish guns pre-WW1 were processed through the Imperial Arsenal at Istanbul and marked in Osmanli script (Turkish written in Arabic).

The date is consistent with the 1905 order of 462 guns. The script on the breech ring reads (at the top) "Fridh Krup Essn" and at the bottom "Kilogram 332" (332 kg) - the barrel weight.

There are a fair number of surviving WW1 Turkish guns in Australia captured in Palestine. Most of the survivors are documented in:
www.ammsbrisbane.com/h...&L1=4&L2=0

Turkish gun markings can be decoded fairly easily:
www.landships.info/lan...kings.html

Regards,

Charlie

Massimo_Foti

Thanks for the additional info. Another surviving gun in the UK:
www.flickr.com/photos/...9797044882

Massimo

CharlieC · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Oct 24, 2012 Posts: 58

That's interesting, there are very few 75mm Krupp field guns in the UK - most were scrapped during WW2. Pity there aren't any images of the breech markings but the general appearance of the gun suggests it's a Model 1903 and belonged to the 1904 or 1905 orders.

This gun has problems with corrosion even though it has been painted a number of times. The Krupp guns had very light trails made of a pair of sheet metal pressings joined by riveted top and bottom plates. Corrosion can get established inside the trail and since the steel is quite thin the trail can be destroyed from the inside out. I can see a couple of places on this gun where the corrosion has broken through to the exterior. The only long term fix is to pull the trial apart and treat the rust - this is a major job since it means dismantling the gun.

Regards,

Charlie

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