Ammo for Your Cannon? Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Lincoln Park............ Stealth may be necessary, quiet small
neighborhood park.
This is a dry park, NO ALCOHOL! Cripes there are large weapons
here!
Boring History Lesson Follows:
This cannon appears to be a
“Canon de 75 Modele 1894”.
Also known as the French 75 or Soixante Quinze. It was introduced,
for the first time in field artillery history, an oleo-pneumatic
recoil mechanism which permitted very high rates of fire while the
gun's aim remained unaffected by the recoil. The forerunner of the
French 75 was an experimental 57mm gun which was first tested in
September 1891 at Bourges arsenal. It pulled together a
comprehensive package of the most advanced artillery techniques
available at the time: 1) Vieille's smokeless powder invented in
1884. 2) Self-contained ammunition : the powder charge was in a
brass case which held the shell. 3) An early oleo-pneumatic
short-recoil mechanism designed by Lt Baquet . 4) A rotating screw
breech, soon to appear on the 75mm field gun , built under licence
from Thorsten Nordenfelt . The 1894 model was the first functional
model. The gun was adopted on March 28,1898 under the official name
of " Materiel de 75mm Mle 1897. " The French 75 was a devastating
anti-personnel weapon against waves of infantry attacking in the
open, as at the Marne and Verdun. However its shells were
comparatively light and lacked the power to obliterate trench
works, concrete bunkers and deeply buried shelters.
Thus,eventually, the French 75 batteries became routinely used to
cut corridors, with high-explosive shells, across the belts of
German barbed wire. Finally, after 1916, the 75 batteries became
the carriers of choice to deliver toxic gas shells, including
mustard gas and phosgene. The US Army having adopted the French 75
during WWI kept a large inventory of the gun and used it for
training purposes. During the 1930's many of those were equipped
with rubber tires. The information presented here was condensed
from Wikipedia.
A short vintage video of this gun in action.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/video/french75.htm
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