"Quick firing guns" Topic

Besides the well-known French 75mm fieldgun that was able to fire numerous rounds per minute, what other guns (from any nation) could one describe a 'quick firing'?

QF guns generally refer to those which don't need to be re-laid after each shot. The usually have those recoil compensator tube thingies on. If you watch film of different types of WW1 artillery firing, the difference is fairly clear.

All the 1914 Field artillery in use by the major powers (13pdr, 18pdr, Soixante Quinze, 77 etc) was Quick Firing in the Ordanance sense.

QF guns and magazine rifles firing smokeless ammo were what transformed warfare in the early twentieth century.

The French gunners were trained to fire rapid salvos, but their guns weren't any more 'QF' than anybody elses. Same as 25pdrs in WW2. The rate of fire was more training and doctrine than equipment.

I'd suggest anything which had fixed ammunition (i.e. charge and shell or shot in one package), a recuperator to return the barrel after each shot and a breech mechanism that can be worked fast to allow rapid reloading.

Yes, fixed ammo is a must – which field guns of the era generally had.

also ability for one man to load shell, say 100-lb shell or less.

I thought some of the howitzers used in WW1 qualified as quick firing as well.

I compiled a list of all the main WW1 weapons I could find when I was doing my research for the Westfront game, you could have a look at the rate of fires (rpm):

imgur.com/kNtA6v5

It is by no means exhaustive, and more of a rough reference based on wikipedia than exact accuracy. the shell types for example aren't 100% correct. HV stands for High velocity, but I would probably ignore that as many of the howitzers that fired upwards at speeds faster than sound weren't really considered "high velocity" by those on the ground – they were meaning the whizz-bangs.

It will give you a rough indication of rates of fire though, so hope that helps.

Any gun can fire as fast as you can load it. The ROF is based upon insuring the longest life of the gun tube as the total rounds fired will eventually erode the rifling of the barrel and create weak spots in the tube which could cause a tube failure. Exceeding the recommended ROF can greatly reduce the tube life if done excessively.

"I thought some of the howitzers used in WW1 qualified as quick firing as well."

Yes, many the lighter howitzers had compensaters and fixed ammo too.

Note, there is a difference between artillery defined as Quick Firing, and merely putting a lot of rounds down the tube. It has a very specific technical definition.

I found the definition.

Characteristics:
The characteristics of a quick-firing artillery piece are:

*Buffers to limit recoil, so the barrel can quickly eturn to position after being fired.
*A breech mechanism which allows rapid reloading
*Single-piece ammunition, e.g. a cartridge containing both shell and propellant, also called fixed ammunition. (This criterion was sometimes taken as the definition of quick-firing, but many quick-firing guns dispensed with it, using separate ammunition in which the shell and propellant case were loaded separately).
*The use of 'smokeless powder' – nitrocellulose, nitroglycerine or cordite – which created far less smoke than gunpowder, meaning that gun crews could still see their target.

These innovations, taken together, meant that the quick-firer could fire aimed shells much more rapidly than an older weapon. For instance, an Elswick Ordnance Company 4.7-in gun fired 10 rounds in 47.5 seconds in 1887, almost eight times faster than the equivalent 5-inch breech loading gun.