BL 6inch 30cwt Howitzer

[David]

The British BL 6inch (152mm) 30cwt Howitzer was typical of those near-obsolete designs that were used early in the war. Introduced in 1896, it was the first back-loaded (hence: BL) medium howitzer to be used by the British Army, though similar models had been built for the Indian Army previously. (The 30cwt designation comes from the weight of the barrel and breech. The whole gun weighed 3507kg deployed.)

The gun used a hydro-spring recoil system, the springs protruding very prominently under the barrel. The carriage was a very simple design, with no traverse capability at all, save for physically shifting the whole trail, and limited to 35° of elevation - which suggests that it could be a cannon by virtue of the limited elevation or a Howitzer by virtue of the short barrel length, which shows some of this the guns draw-backs. It fired a 53.75kg shrapnel shell with a muzzle velocity of 237m/sec up to a maximum of 4755meters, which was a rather poor range. Another drawback of this gun was that it was difficult to transport.

Note however, that the gun had been designed to fill two quite different roles: that of a heavy field gun and that of a heavy siege gun. In the first role it was used on its short and simple conventional carriage. For use in the heavy siege role, where high angle plunging fire was needed, an entirely different set-up was to be used. Then the gun was to have its wheels removed and the carriage then laid onto a heavy wooden platform, 3.6m square, made of woodplanks in three layers, bolted together. In this new configuration the elevation was increased to 70° and the maximum range was increased to 6400m. However, it was probably never used in action this awkward and time-consuming manner. Some 120 guns were produced and they were used in most theatres of war, but were eventually replaced by the much more modern 6in 26cwt howitzer.