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wingsofwrath — FNG Fortified Line - Plate IV

#armor #armour #book #fng #fortification #fortress #galati #gun #illustration #military #romania #turret #focsani #fortifiedcamp #namoloasa #sereth_line
Published: 2015-04-16 13:00:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 12558; Favourites: 142; Downloads: 0
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Description This is part of a series of nine drawings made for the non-fiction book "The Fortified Region Focsani-Namoloasa-Galati" published by the Romanian Military Museum about the eponymous Fortified Line (also known in English as the "Sereth Line" and by it's abbreviation "FNG") built by Romania for defence against a presumptive Russian invasion during 1888-90.

Fifth drawing, showing the 5.3cm Schumann-Gruson Fahrpanzer in transport configuration, mounted on its horse drawn carriage.

This is the first type of the 5.3cm mobile turret, designated Md.1888 in Romanian usage and I've decided to draw it because there are no extant examples and only a few pictures, since this turret was almost instantly replaced by an updated type, referred in some sources as Md.1890.

EDIT-  it appears a Md.1888 turret survived and is currently being restored in Bulgaria - this can only be a Romanian turret captured at Tutrakan/Turtucaia, since although the Bulgarians also purchased the Fahrpanzer, they did so only in 1892 so all the turrets they had were of the third type, not the second.

The transport carriage is pretty straightforward - a platform made out of steel girders with two wooden wheels 1.4m in diameter. The axles are set up at a 5° downward angle and the whole weight of the contraption was 800kg. 
The turret itself weighed an additional 2,000kg and the whole thing was drawn by a single horse or ox harnessed between two 3,4m shafts, with the option to add two more on both sides in difficult terrain. 

On this version of the cupola/carriage combo, the driver sat on the extension at the back of the turret, and, when that was deleted on the M.1890 version, the carriage was modified by adding an articulated front end with two extra wheels and a separate seat for the driver .

The other drawing in this series can be found here:

Cover, showing cutaway through 5.3cm mobile gun turret
Plate I, the 3.7cm mobile gun turret and transport carriage.
Plate II, the 3.7cm gun and ammunition.

Plate III, the 5.3cm mobile gun turret in its concrete emplacement .
Plate IV, the 5.3cm mobile gun turret in transport configuration.

Plate V, the 5.3cm disappearing cupola.

Plate VI, the 5.3cm gun and ammunition.

Plate VII, the 12cm gun and mortar armoured battery.

Plate VIII, the 12cm gun and mortar and their ammunition.
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Comments: 7

xSamiamrg7x [2015-04-16 17:16:29 +0000 UTC]

I can't help but think that gun looks way way too small to be 5.3 cm.

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wingsofwrath In reply to xSamiamrg7x [2015-04-16 19:57:16 +0000 UTC]

And yet, that's exactly how big it is - I used the original blueprints to get the proportions right, so there is no error there.

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xSamiamrg7x In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-04-21 05:04:22 +0000 UTC]

Oh right, now I see it, for some reason I was thinking 5.3cm=530mm instead of 53mm.

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wingsofwrath In reply to xSamiamrg7x [2015-04-21 08:14:24 +0000 UTC]

Ah, I see!

Well, 530mm is definitely a huge cannon - it's almost 21 inches, about 100mm larger than even the guns of the mighty Yamato...

The closest thing to it would be this French WW1 rail howitzer , which shoots this kind of things shells , which is just a bit bigger than the railway gun I drew for Shadowless .

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xSamiamrg7x In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-04-22 00:20:07 +0000 UTC]

Alternatively, I could have mistaken 5.3cm for 53cm

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wingsofwrath In reply to xSamiamrg7x [2015-04-22 06:18:06 +0000 UTC]

Well, you're from the US, aren't you?
Back when I lived in the US it was pretty difficult to me to think in inches because I came form a metric background, so I believe it must be just as confusing for you being used to inches and having to  think of centimetres and millimetres. So don't worry about it, glad we sorted it out.

And by the way, I know DA comments don't tend to carry tone of voice very well (understatement), so I hope you don't think I was being snappy at you or something. My lines could, occasionally, be interpreted to that respect, even if that wasn't my intention. I just found it incredibly funny trying to squeeze a 53cm gun in that little cupola...

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xSamiamrg7x In reply to wingsofwrath [2015-04-24 06:03:56 +0000 UTC]

It's funny actually, I play a lot of World of Tanks and Warthunder which has given me a really good sense for the size of guns and cannons as long as their size is given in millimeters, so when I see a gun caliber given in inches, pounds, or even centimeters it throws me off.
And I understand what you mean about written tobe, since I was afraid of the way you would interpret my writing too. At this point I feel as though we are just having a conversation.

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