The French mountain gun designed by Col. Ducrest and manufactured by Schneider was a specialized infantry support weapon. It was very small with a weight of 400 kg (882 lbs) and an height of 1.25 m (49 in) and easily transported by four mules over difficult terrain. The gun had a range of 5.5 km (3.4 mi) and a rate of up to 15 rounds per minute. It was used extensively by the French army mountain troops during WW I and was sold or donated to several countries between the world wars.
French 75 Sight
A week ago I posted my model of the French 75 gun. In the
write-up I mentioned that most of the photos of the gun that I found were
lacking the sight so I left it out of the model. Then I found a YouTube video
about Matthew Switlik and his 30-year
effort to own the gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDz0uW2jex0&t=983s.
In it there’s quite a lot of discussion of the sight. He also mentions drawings
of the 1901 sight that I found on the internet.
In 1898 the French army adopted a revolutionary new piece of field artillery, the Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897 or as it came to be called in English, the French 75. The gun is considered to be the first modern artillery piece because of its rapid firing system. It used a hydro-pneumatic recoil absorbing mechanism that allowed the crew of six to fire the gun repeatedly at a target without re-aiming after every shot. By the end of WWI, about 12,000 had been produced and were in use by many different armies including the British and Americans.
The gun in this model is the 1901 version. The model is based primarily on museum photos. There are some missing pieces in the model due to the fact that they are not in most of the available pictures: the telescopic sight and two leather pouches on the back side of the shield. This is my second effort modelling this gun.
