Guest matt Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Hi, I was wondering,how many WW1 British artillery guns survive in the UK? and of those how many are in working order? I know there are several 18 pounders but what about the bigger guns? Finally,does anyone know anything about a WW1 German gun which was placed on a hilltop in mid or south Wales a few years ago as a memorial? Cheers, Matt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 From my experience, there are very few of the big artillery pieces surviving. In fact i can only think of one (non emplaced) example and that was in the IWM in London. I will have a look for a photo. There are plenty of the smaller ones around, in fact the Royal Horse Artillery have about 8 i think. There is talk of them disbanding, so i wonder if those guns would make it on to the market. There are also quite a few German artillery pieces around. I met a guy at beltring about 8 years ago who had rcovered a German piece from a scrapyard and was hoping to restore it. I wonder if it was the same one now in Wales. Two nicely restored German examples came up for sale at an auction in Yorkshire about 10 years ago. I only just threw away the catalogue which had pictures of them. I have no idea where they went, but it would be nice to know. There was a fashion at the end of the war to put captured German guns on plinths in various towns as memorials. The one at Mounts Bay got melted down as scrap in WW2 and then replaced by a British 5.5 at the end of the war. There were two examples near me at Burford and at Bourton on the Water. The locals kept wheeling them down the hill and dumping them in the river. In the end the councils got fed up with dragging them out and sent them both to the scrap yard. Sad. Tim (too) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rlangham Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 At the North of England open air museum, Beamish, in the park there is a German WWI gun on a plinth on it's carriage, although i'm not sure if this is a naval gun put on a carriage or not. I think the Royal Artillery museum at Woolwich has a couple at least WWI guns, I know theres an 18 pounder at least Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted March 8, 2006 Share Posted March 8, 2006 The IWM in London has examples of the following British 9.2 inch howitzer 18 pounder French 75mm IWM - Duxford has a wide range of both German, French and British WW1 ordanance Which includes from memory 18 pounder, 13 pounder, French 75mm, German 77mm and a bg German howitzer. Bovington Tank Museum also has an example of a German WW1 howitzer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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