"Moving Heavy Equipment On Muddy Roads" Topic

"This footage probably dates from the campaign known as the Battle of Passchendaele in the fall of 1917, when the wet muddy terrain posed great difficulties. In the first segment, men struggle to load a large rolling gun onto a narrow-gauge railway trolley. The next shot of a mounted officer leading a horse-drawn battery is followed by images of artillerymen straining to position a BL 6" 26CWT (breech loading, 6-inch-wide barrel, 26 hundred weight) howitzer and a subsequent shot of the crew preparing to cover the gun with tarpaulin.

An image of three men digging lumber out of the mud is followed by images of men using horses to free heavy artillery from wet ground. We then see shots of men handling heavy equipment that has been fitted with wheel pads to ease movement over soft ground. Yet another shot of men struggling to position heavy artillery into firing position is followed by a high-angle shot of field artillery and their horse teams. An image of a large artillery piece being towed by tractor is followed by shots of horse-drawn artillery moving across a battlefield. A nearby corpse is visible. The clip closes with another sequence of men toiling to move heavy artillery through mud and a final shot of men digging lumber from wet ground and assisting horses…"
Full text and video here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting, some of the descriptions look to be wrong, for instance the gun being covered with a tarpaulin is either an 8 inch howitzer or a 9.2 inch. There are some 6 inch howitzers in the early part of the film but it quickly changes to a mix of 60 pounder guns and 8 inch howitzers – you can only really tell the difference when you can see the barrel, both have twin cylinders above the barrel but the 60 pounder has a long somewhat slender barrel.

As for the 'mud', some of the shots of horse draft shows dust being kicked up not mud, the only really muddy shots are of the field guns towards the end where it gets nearly knee deep. Another thing to look for with the field guns is the number of horses in the team – officially regular field artillery had 4 horse teams and horse batteries had 6, while heavy guns obviously had more.

Glad you found it interesting my friend!.

Amicalement
Armand