TOPIC:

The Naval 6-inch QF Gun saw some limited service during the ABW.

Buller requested that one be landed from H.M.S. Terrible. This gun was mounted on a Scott carriage similar to the 4.7s, and saw action on the Tugela. However its great weight (7 tons) meant that it lacked the manoeuvrability required for quickly evolving battles.

Subsequently, a few guns were mounted on railway carriages, manned by men of the Royal Garrison Artillery.






The 6-inch gun landed from H.M.S. Terrible, photographed at Durban. Top: shortly after completion in the Durban Railways Workshops; bottom: during trials on Durban Beach.





















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Drawings of a few of the ships that landed men and guns in South Africa during the ABW, showing their respective armaments. Note that of these, only Doris and Forte carried 4.7-inch guns. All ships to scale.





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During his tenure in South Africa Lieutenant Frederick Jarvis (13th Hussars) wrote a number of letters to his mother, Lady Jarvis, residing in a nice pile of bricks called Uphall, Norfolk.




Uphall, Hillington, Norfolk

In the three letters I have in my collection (Nos 10, 18 and 20) Fred conveys all sorts of interesting tidbits about his army life and details some operational information that shouldn’t have made it passed a Censor. In letter # 20, written from Fort Edward, Spelonken just after the signing of the Peace Treaty on June 28, 1902, he mentions a.o. that Lord Kitchener was asked if he wished to go home for the postponed Coronation and that Lord K reputedly replied that he’d “rather marry Miss Hobhouse.” Compared to most other women at the time, Emily Hobhouse could be considered rather dishy, but since the Lord was gay, I figure he probably didn’t want to go.
What is perhaps of interest in in the context of the topic of this thread is that Fred Jarvis, when in Pietersburg “still reeling from the Bushveld Carabineers business,” mentions a 9-pounder gun taken from the Boers.




This type of gun is extensively described by Neville in post # 79599 of this thread. Perhaps Neville, or other forum member, knows which of these 9-pounder guns ended up in Pietersburg in June 1902, its war history and what happened to it afterwards.

Everhard,

Given the location, this is almost certainly the "9 lb" Krupp captured at Pietersburg on 9 April 1901.

Little is known about this gun, of which the Transvaal had only one example (seemingly acquired in c. 1886). After the war, the piece was shipped to the UK and allocated to the Chief Ordnance Officer, Aldershot. It is not known whether it has survived.



MC Heunis writes:

85/78.5mm Krupp RBL

This was the dark horse of the Transvaal’s armoury and the gun’s exact calibre is still unknown. Contemporary sources described it as a 9cm, 8.5cm, 8cm, 7.85cm or even 9 lb. Krupp.

A letter in the National Archives in Pretoria suggests that this gun was ordered because the Transvaal possessed a large number of Krupp shells, which did not belong to their 65mm guns. A list of “Goods Delivered out of Her Majesty’s Stores” at Pretoria on 7 November 1881 contains 2000 “Shells, Krupp 9-pd Field Guns”, indicating that the projectiles might have been ordered, incorrectly, by the British during their 1877 to 1881 occupation of the Transvaal.

In an August 1886 letter, which also contains a drawing of the gun’s rifling, Adolph Zboril requested that a “9 lb. Krupp” barrel with a calibre of 7.9cm (7.85cm?) should be ordered. Whether this was the calibre of the actual gun ordered and delivered to the Transvaal still remains unanswered and subsequent Staatsartillerie lists usually referred to it as an 8, 8.5 or even 9cm gun.

The gun was ordered without a carriage, probably with the idea of manufacturing one locally. When the acquisition of more guns was proposed in 1893 Zboril stated that under no circumstance should the guns be ordered without carriages again as this did not result in any savings and that the “9cm” Krupp was still unserviceable because of this. It seems that the carriage problem was sorted out shortly after this letter was written as the gun is mentioned under the equipment used during the 1894 and 1895 expeditions against Chiefs Malaboch and Magoeba.


No clear photographs of the gun could be found. One photo, presumably taken at the Pretoria Ordnance Depot after its capture, only shows its breech, minus the breech block, standing out behind a Transvaal 75mm Krupp QF gun. The construction and length of the barrel and the narrow rectangular breech opening indicates that this was an example of one of the early German rifled breech loaders, similar to the 7,85cm C/67 (“4-pfunder”) guns used during the Franco-Prussian War. If so, this gun also fired a lead coated shell by means of a bagged black powder charge and had an early square (probably two-piece) horizontal sliding breech block.

At the outbreak of the Boer War, this obsolete gun was stationed west of Pretoria at Fort Daspoortrand. Later it was moved to the magazine at Pietersburg where it was found abandoned on 9 April 1901 during the British occupation of the town. After the war it was shipped to Britain before being allotted to the Chief Ordnance Officer at Aldershot on 30 June 1904. It is not known whether the gun survived . Shells that are believed to have belonged to this gun did survive (with and without the lead jacket) and can be seen at the Green Magazine and the Cultural Historical Museum in Pretoria and at the War Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein.









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MC Heunis mentions that the gun was probably similar to the 7.85cm Krupp C/67. Here are some drawings of the latter piece, together with diagrams of the lead-coated shells it fired.








For more on lead-coated projectiles, see: Two castings from Thomas Begbie’s Johannesburg foundry

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Here is a photograph of a 155 mm Creusot "Long Tom" that I haven't come across before. From the album of Emilie Chamberlain (Joseph Chamberlain's niece).





And one I have seen before, but a stunning, sharp print. Clearly taken at the very beginning of hostilities. All arms & accoutrements are pristine, as is the Long Tom itself.





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