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JANE'S Towed Artillery, Pocket Book No.18
Does anyone own or else have access to this book? Many years ago I read it (no longer have access to it) and i recall that it described a prototype US Army Howitzer with the unusual feature of a novel recoil-reduction system in which the barrel was propelled forward upon firing and toward the end of its stroke the firing pin was released. I would like to re-discover it so can anyone provide me the model type and number - even a page copy would be great. Thanks.

I don't have the book but it sounds a bit like the XM204.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDQDJnUJyl8

Hi 'Coldsteel'. Thanks for your helpful reply. Yes, I think that is the one. ('Soft-Recoil" was the correct term I was looking for in my initial post.
I've now got a bit of interesting reading to do!
Thanks again, regards.

Soft Recoil was also used in the design of the French 65mm Schneider Modèle 1906. I believe this was the first artillery piece to use the soft recoil principle. That I know of, it is the only artillery type ever in production and fielded to regular units with this system. The American gun was only a technology demonstrator and was never fielded.

These are some articles on the 65mm Schneider Modèle 1906:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...odele_1906

www.landships.info/lan..._1906.html

R/

Ralph Lovett

Not quite - the "Canon de Montagne de 65 Mle 1913 Saint-Chamond" used a very similar system. It seems the soft recoil system was invented by Deport but his designs were appropriated by Bacquet and Ducrest at the Puteaux Arsenal and resulted in the Schneider-Ducrest 65mm gun. An order of Saint-Chamond guns was built for export to El Salvador but the French authorities seized the guns when war was declared. The Saint-Chamond guns were given to the Belgian Army who used them in street fighting against the German Army in 1914. The Germans used captured Saint-Chamond guns in the Vosges until they ran out of 65mm ammunition.

landships.info/landshi...amond.html

Regards,

Charlie

(If you want the URL for Landships web pages scroll to the bottom of the page - an auto-generated URL is quoted on each page).

Charlie

I did not remember the 65mm St Chamond had soft recoil. Thanks for making the point.

On another note, I sure wish the 70mm St Chamond 1913 Mountain Howitzers exported to Congo and Guatemala had a European WW1 connection. I have two of those.

R/

Ralph Lovett