4.7 Inch Gun

My work on the 1938 US Army continues with this piece of artillery I just got.  I classify it by the breech and call it the ring gun.

Wooden wheels are removed and the gun has been stripped of paint.

The wheels will be replaced with spoked wheels, like these.

Then the slush cast gun is repainted in gray, with red wheels and black barrel with brass breech.

Here a HaT 1/72nd scale US Army WWI French 75 crew man the gun and use the limber from the same set.

In the century between the ACW and WWII the US Army did use gray chassis, red wheels and black barrels but sometimes in various combinations with other colors.  Wooden spoked wheels mean the gun is towed by horses usually or very slow tractors.  Wooden wheels can't go very fast because they don't have any suspension and can't bounce well, pulling them with a fast truck will flip the gun."

 

 

The US Army used horse drawn guns until at least 1943.  Here are the three types, the ring breech, the sight breech and the square block breech as I call them. I consider these to be 4.7 inch guns and I am working to achieve three batteries of four guns each.  For wargame use I will consider them to be 120mm guns since 4.7 inches is 119.38 mm.  The longest barrel will have the longest range and the shortest the shortest range.