"The different types of Krupp guns" Topic

Hello All,

Who knows the difference between the Prussian Krupp C / 61-6pdr (9cm) field gun and the Prussian Krupp C / 67-6pdr (9cm) field gun?

Stay safe,

During the FPW a 6pdr C/67 didn't exist … the heavy calibre (6pdr or 9cm) were mainly C/64 and few older models C56/61. But the 4pdr (8cm) had tow models C/64 and C/67 (or C/64/67).

There were only minor differences between the two 4pdr systems, primarily the breechlock and the barrel – the German wikipedia article is rather detailed and describes the differences of C/67 to C/64 – look at link

Greetings from Berlin
Markus Stein

Thank you,

Well if I understood correctly there were two types of 4pdr, the C / 64 and the C / 67 and both had a square breechblock which replaced the Wahrendorff piston of the prussian M1959 Krupp C / 61 (9cm) field gun .

And there were two types of 6pdr, the C / 61 (9cm) with Wahrendorff piston then the C / 64 (9cm) with a square breechblock.

Now it would be interesting to compare the gun carriages of these 4 pieces.

PS: When the length of the tube is given, do they count the breechblock with?

Paskal,

you should download the work of Witte "Die gezogenen Feldgeschütze …" – there are detailed sketches of the tubes, the gun carriages etc.

According to my sources the c/61 carriages and canons had broader rims than the c/64/67. And there's one easy detail to check the differences between the older carriages and the carriages from c/64 onwards. The latter ones had iron supports at both sides and the back of the chest, whereas the older carriage only had two small handles at the sides.

Greetings
Markus Stein

P.S. I tried to add the link to the book at MDZ, but it gets errors – so go to digitale-sammlungen.de and add "gezogenen Feldgeschütze" to the search field => one of the first results is the book of Witte

Thank you, so the two cannons type C / 64 and the cannon C / 67 have the same carriage ???

By carriage, Markus, do you mean the limber or the gun carriage itself?

Only the gun has a carriage,the carriage and the limber are two very different things.
 

Dear Paskal, thank you for the rather patronising English lesson. I am fully aware of the normal use of the words in English. Markus' English is truly excellent, but it is not his first language. I have a copy of Witte, to which he refers, but my German is markedly inferior to his command of English. Witte refers to ‘protze' and ‘lafette' which I think are the equivalents of ‘limber' and ‘gun carriage' in English. As I look at the diagrams in Witte it appears to me that Markus' description of the differences might more easily apply to the ‘lafette' rather than the ‘protze', hence my question.

Herr Nichts, When I talk about "gun carriage" to Markus, we understand each other very well without asking any questions;-) , but not you and I'm not responsible for that that's all :-D

Finally, luckily now I know what I wanted to know :-)

Good morning from Berlin,

thank you for the comments, Nichts, and indeed I should be cautious with my translations, so I want to clarify what I meant with my posts.

The gun carriage (Lafette) was rather similar of all models – only the breechblock was different (as described in the German wikipedia article given above). The seats upon the chest described in my last post refer to the limber (Protze).

I added a really valuable article about the guns and other artillery material used by the Prussian (German) armies during the FPW, published in Zeitschrift für Heereskunde in 1936 on my site at PDF link – the author uses Lafette and Protze as it should be mentioned.

@Paskal: there you find some more additional information about the artillery park of the Prussian army.

Greetings
Markus Stein

Markus, thank you very much for this clarification, and for the excellent link to the new article. I know of at least one other British enthusiast who will be delighted with it!

Doh, now I see I caused some of the confusion in the last sentence of my earlier post! Note to self, check before pressing the button. I had thought it was on the limber (Protze), heaven knows why I reversed it in the last sentence – mea culpa!

The gun carriage (Lafette) was rather similar for all the gun models despite the different weights between the different calibers of the tubes? Impossible …

For my part, I will have to go into the matter in detail.

Paskal,

I wrote "rather similar" for the gun carriage as the article I linked wrote:

"Die Lafette war der Vierpfünderlafette ähnlich, jedoch stärker und schwerer. Die Räder vom Geschütz C/56/61 hatten breitere Felgen als die vom Geschütz C/64/67."

So the gun carriage of the 6lb was "stronger and heavier" – so it would be helpful to get measurements of the two carriages. The above mentioned work of Witte describes barrels, gun carriages as well as limbers for both cannon models.

It is a real interesting question I'll take up sometime on my site – but first I want to visit the exhibition in Dresden about the German unification wars, where an original Prussian cannon (from the Cologne historical museum) is presented.

Greetings from Berlin
Markus Stein

Yes this is a really interesting question that I will study on my side.

The Smoothbore Ordnance Journal, No 9, has an article on the Prussian 6 and 4 pdrs. It gives the carriage weight for the C/61 6pdr as 546kg, with a barrel weight of 425kg. For the C/64 4pdr the equivalent figures are carriage 360kg, and barrel 290kg. The article is by Stephen Summerfield.

I own The Smoothbore Ordnance Journal, No 9 which is of little interest to me since it is not about the C / 64 of 12 pdrs and the C / 67 of 4pdrs…

A few weeks ago I contacted Stephen Summerfield and alas he has nothing more …

@NapStein
Now I have finally understood that as far as the 6pdrs are concerned, there were only C/61s and C/64s, that the C/67s were only 4pdrs and that the C/61s were not were no longer in service by 1870.