----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Buettner" <ww2reenactor@yahoo.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2001 6:58 PM
Subject: [MV] Need help IDing WW II German Artillery
> Hello List-
>
> At a local park here in North-east Wisconsin we have a
> German artillery piece on display. I would like some
> help in Identifing it as there is no placard telling
> me what it is. Best I could measure the barrel is
> 150cm in diamater. There are a few marking on the
> breech that are as follows:
>
Intriguing, here's what we know but lets be aware that without a photograph
we could be adding 2+2 and getting 5. . . . . . . . .
> R 1810 (Waffenampt) Bs:FL 42207 qfs
> M:FL 1016 fxc
> (Waffenampt)
> S:FL 35746 qfs
>
I think you are looking at gun number 1810 and you have given us the serial
numbers of four parts, the gun itself and the 3 serialised breech parts.
There were two sources of 150mm field guns, Czechoslovakia and Berlin, bear
in mind that a vast amount of Wehrmacht equipment came from the
Czechoslovakian heavy industries like Skoda and indeed Czechoslovakia was
actually part of the Third Reich; Slovakia they left alone as it was
agricultural only but the rest was the Reich Protectorate of Boheme-Marine
(sp?).
The lowercase three letter numbers are the manufacturers code and the OKW
had a secret reference book in two volumes that gave the factory information
on these, they are to be had now but extremely rare.
(The code m?? [I've forgotten the last two] gives you the name of a factory
making pressed steel enamelled cookware, it gives the address and company
owner together with the works manager, who in this case is listed as one A
Schindler. . . . . . .)
The code qfs is likely to be Skoda as this has been seen often on Hetzer
drive sprokets, fxc is Hann & Kopowitz of Neisse-Neuland - I don't know
where this is but it sounds Czechoslovakian.
We would guess without a photograph that its a standard SMH 18 150mm field
piece but beware it could be post war, many items continued in "production"
in as much that many parts built during the war were assembled with post-war
items to make the same thing and re-start the economy, the 150mm piece was
in fact slightly re-machined to take the Russian 152mm ammunition and fitted
with a substantial muzzle brake, it could well be using Waffenamt (there is
no p) stamped components left over at the end of hostilities. Of course the
Germans also used a huge number of captured pieces on their own manufactured
chassis with German type numbers and this gets very complex.
Consider the Hetzer, mainly made by Skoda, most you see are actually post
war ex-Swiss army items and officially made as a Hetzer salad. There were
so many parts available at Skoda that some 700 were completed post war and
deliveries continued into the 1950's, no new hulls were used though, only
recovered/refurbished items and a few unused ones on the line, these with
the parts in hand mean that you will find copious numbers of Waffenamts on
Hetzers but the vehicle is not actually WWII or a Wehrmacht one at all.
This is a quandary, all (to all intents and purposes) the parts were made
under a Wehrmacht contract but the vehicle was delivered post war to a
different contract, the hull was almost certainly delivered to the Wehrmacht
though and carries an appropriate, and traceable wartime serial number. I'm
still debating this with myself, bit like a wartime jeep with a rebuilt
engine of the appropriate block number and the vehicle full of readily
available NAPA parts and a well restored tub. You have to draw your own
line as you see it. Then of course over here we have "WWII jeeps" made by
Hotchkiss and WWII jimmies with Norwegian data plates, just to catch the
unwary.
Consider the five Pz.Kpfw.V Panthers of which I think there is one at
Bovington and one now in the Patton Museum, these were completed by the
wartime German factory workers from parts still on the line directly at the
end of hostilities, they were thoroughly tested by the Allied Intelligence
people with breakdowns covered by cannibalising the failed ones to support
the running units, ultimately the part gutted hulls were used as hard
targets and for AP development. The final complete ones were donated to the
national museums and the issue was covered in W&T a while back I think, are
these WWII Panthers ?
It is unlikely that the people who placed the gun there are MV and
historical anoraks like some of us here; hey its got Waffenamt eagle stamp
things and its dark grey (gray), must be German WWII, well, not necessarily.
. . . . . . . . .
A piccy would be nice.
Richard
Southampton - England
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