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boer war railway gun

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former user:
I happened to find this interesting picture of a british naval railway mounted naval gun, just prior to the battle of Modder Station

hope it pleases colonial wargamers  :)

I am always wondering how reality differs from the "primitive" depiction of colonial warfare through us wargamers....
understandably, no european force would have fielded railway guns against native warriors  ;)

Silent Invader:
Interesting image B.  Presumably that would have had a limited traverse so as to avoid blowing itself off of the tracks?   ???

former user:
this is a very valid point!
however, we can see that the Gun is far too big for the carriage - so, hard to judge...
the carriage is not a normal one - it looks reinforced and without bogies
 - maybe someone has more consistent information?

otherwise, judging from the calibre, I would  classify it as heavy support and thus firing with a high trajectory.
It would also not be far off to expect an emplacement to be added in the firing position
but then the gun shield is rather useless.

My educated guess would be - rough aiming to the direction of the tracks, with traverse fine correction and sliding recoil buffering - that would also require the use of these gigantic beams visible in the foreground and the steel girders behind.

For an improvised gun this is the quickest way of deployment, since it requires the carriage only to be jacked up from the track - it was employed during WWI by the French.

Luthaaren Von Tegale:
Could it have been built on the chassis of a light steam crane? - the wheelbase might support that idea as well as the foldout jack which is mounted on the frames by the second axlebox.

But why sandwich it between two cattle trucks? A couple of open wagons with uprights to retain the barrel when in transit would have been a better idea.

   vT

Westfalia Chris:
It´s one of two 6in naval guns mounted on railway carriages and used for fire support tasks. From what I remember from "Railway and War before 1918" (Bishop & Davis 1972), it retained the original 360° traverse and was indeed usually fired as "broadsides", as opposed to the 9.2in railway gun which was also prepared for but never saw service in the Boer War, but was a "fixed firer".

Since those would run on Cape Gauge tracks, it would make sense stabilising the carriage, but I´m not sure it was actually necessary.

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