"Austro-Hungarian Mountain Guns" Topic

I have finally found pictures and figured out some of the more obscure Austro-Hungarian mountian guns of the Great War.

While the more know light guns such as the M75, M99 and the widely known M15 are pretty plentiful for pictures and information, so are the heavy mountain gun of 10cm.

The hard part is all the other lighter guns of approximately 7.5cm.
So here is what I found.
The M8 in 7.2cm was a bronze barrel piece in the same calibre as the older M99 but with a simple recoil system added. this picture is from Landships with incredible thanks to Massimo Forti!
The first picture down is the M8.
link link

The next piece is the 7.2cm M1907 GebK made for sale to China then seized and used by the Austro-Hungarian army to supplement their artillery park. Anyone in Prague to confirm if it is 7.2 or 7.5cm???
Also know as the 7.2cm GebK M9, found here in a museum on Prague. Note the similar breech block as the M8 but a recoil system as ordered by the clients.
link link

Lastly the precursor of the famous M15 was developed a bit at a time and sold abroad to China, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay. It was also known as the M1913, the M1914China and for the fifty two seized by Austria-Hungary as the M1912.
This is finally in 7.5cm and starts to appear similar to the later M15, note the lighter barrel.
Second picture down on the Landships page.
link link

Finally seeing them all in pictures is kind of like winning the lottery.

Thanks also to Axis history forum for the explanations of each pattern. Strange having to find the last details only because of their exports to China before the Great War?

Now I have collected the parts to try to make them or proxies in 28mm.

The M8.
Use the Tin Soldiers UK Turkish Krupp 1904 Mountain Gun as a basis. Separate the barrel from the recoil system, add a spacer between the barrel and recoil system near the breech and near the front third of the barrel.

The M9.
Use the trail and wheels of an Askari Italian 75mm mountain gun. Use the barrel and recoil system of a US M118 75mm pack howitzer. Cut the barrel back, shave the ribs off the side of the recoil system and add a bottle cone to the center front of the recoil cylinder.

M1912.
Use the leftover trail of the US M118 pack howitzer. Similar but not exact to the later M15 to work as an odd one off.
Find some small wagon wheels.
I have leftover 20mm barrels from Irregular miniatures 150mm Skoda howitzer that I will cut back and then decide if I will shave the breech block into a more rounded shape or not.

Strangely enough, a lot of these will be used with my Ottoman Turks.

What do you think, does it sound workable or do you have better ideas that would work out easier?

Have exacto knife and willing to glue,,,.

The M99 mountain gun is actually made as such by Siberia Miniatures. It has two Basmachi crewman and a turkish officer avisor. Only a tiny thing that comes up to thigh height.

The Italian 75mm mountain gun from Askari will do in a pinch too, only the breech block os round rather than square. So a bit of exacto knife work rounding the breech block might help.

Now the wonderful M15 mountain gun.
This is actually made by three companies in 28mm.

Brigade Games has one but it is frustratingly out of production.

Strategia e Tatica has one too, but they don't ship outside of the EU.
(Anyone local in Rome that can walk into the shop and pick up some for me and willing to ship to me in Canada?)

Finally there is Great Escape Games to turn to who does ship anywhere.
"May God protect their moulds!"

Warlord makes the M15 too, but wow my wallet can't take that kind of punishment.

Interesting, with lots of good photos!

I've been looking at Skoda guns from the opposite direction: many survived and were used in the early part of WWII. I have been specifically looking at the Greeks, who had a variety of different guns in both 75 mm and 105 mm. Logistically, the only redeeming grace was that they were standardized by division.

Grelber

if you want to concentrate on the Grreks I have a few suggestions.

Schbneider Danglais, sams-same the Russian supprt gun, use Company B artillery under the Czeck Legion line up for the spoked wheel version.

Schneider mountain gun 1906 from Empresss minaitures under the Spansi Civil War Nationalist line up.

Also the Schneider mountain gun in the Perry Miniatures WW2 French line up with senegalese crew. While it is a M1928, the same gun was developped before the Great War as the 1909 and then only adopted by France post war. Some countries already had it in service before the war already like the Turks and maybe Greeks.

There are two websites that you must see.
link link
Check out the Surviviing Guns pages by nation and lose the day.

Also incredibly useful is the website of Bulgarian artillery.
link bulgarianartillery.it
Look up the pages on captured artillery and lose track of time completely.

I hope those are helpful to you.