Professional paper
EPIGRAPHY IN THE SERVICE OF ARTILLERY / THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARMOUR-PIERCING SIX POUND CANNON (57 MM)
Sonja Kirchhoffer
; Zagreb
Zoran Kirchhoffer
; Tehnički muzej, Zagreb
Abstract
The British gun named Ordnance QF 6 pounder 7 cwt or a field
gun of 57 mm started to be mass produced at the end of 1941,
and began to be deployed on the battlefield in 1942. It was
made in several versions and could be used in several ways.
So effective was this gun that it started to be produced in the
USA. Unlike the USA, where the use of these guns stopped
after World War II, Britain kept it in use until 1960, and its
units used it in the Korean War (1950-1953) as did the troops
involved in the occupation of Suez. After 1960 it was used by
armies of less developed countries, including the Yugoslav
People’s army.
The remainder of the paper describes the procedure of the
restoration and conservation of two guns of this type. The
guns came to the workshop of the firm “Industrijska arheologija”
without any additional historical documentation, and
during the course of the restoration an attempt was made to
acquire details about their history, and inscriptions on both
the guns and the carriages helped in this. An analysis of the
inscriptions on the guns showed that part of the inscription
was formed during the production process, and the second
subsequently, the latter-mentioned data being easily identified
since they are usually harder to see and of poorer workmanship.
Part of the inscription enabled a reconstruction not only
of the year and place of production, but part of the history
after that.
The renovation process went on largely without problems,
except for the fact that while mechanical cleaning was going
on, a discrepancy was noted between the weight recorded
in the documentation and the real weight. The difference in
weight is a consequence of the needs for compliance with the
Agreement on Subregional Arms Control signed in Florence
in 1996. This agreement regulates the quantities of arms in
some categories of conventional weaponry, including in the
category of artillery. It provides for the reduction of arms
through their static exhibition in museums, but also seeks
for the weapons displayed to be decommissioned, which is
disputable from a museum point of view, for it destroys the
object and stops the museum from carrying out its role
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
174267
URI
Publication date:
3.2.2015.
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