Historic context :

After the 1870 / 1871 war between France and Germany, Austria-Hungary, aware of the obsolescence of its muzzle-feeding fieldguns, made several unsuccessful attempts to modernize its weapons on the basis of bronze barrels.

This metal traditionally and talentuously used by this country, with a lesser manufacturing cost, proved itself unable to resist to the high internal constraints induced in the tube because of the higher pressures needed by the range extension target, so that in 1874 the Army gave up and considered ordering to the German Krupp guns from the C/73 series.

At the last minute, the Vienna Guns Foundry director, the general Uchatius, avoided the disgrace for his country thanks to the presentation of a new manufacturing process for bronze barrels, based on a casting under pressure followed by internal forging, giving to this material properties close to the ones of this period steels, while keeping a lesser cost. This 'new' material was to be named the 'bronze-steel'.

This is the birth context of the new 9cm M 1875 fieldgun (sometimes named the 'Uchatius' gun) with a 87 mm calibre, made of bronze and breech loaded: It was obviously inspired by the German 9cm C/73 Krupp gun. A smaller 7 cm gun (6.6 cm calibre) was also introduced as a mountain gun. The adoption of this gun by Austria created a commercial issue with Krupp who was requesting financial compensations since it had widely contributed to its developement.

This gun was later modernized into a 9cm M75/96fieldgun with tha addition of a spring spade meaned to partly absorb the recoil energy, and was used during WW1 on the fronts held by Austro-Hungaria. Numerous French soldiers witnesses related its presence on the western front in 1915, but the artillery experts agree to consider this is a confusion with the German 9cm C/73 fieldgun, whose use conditions, ammunitions and performances were real close.

Technical data :

• Complete description : 9 cm light fieldgun M 1875 and M 1875/1896
• Design year : 1875, mod. 1896
• Calibre : 87.00 mm
• Weight in firing position : 1084 kg
• Weight for transportation :
• Tube length in calibres : 23.60
• Grooves : 0
• Projectile weight : 6.3 kg
• Initial speed : 440 m/s
• Fire rate : 6 rounds / minute
• Range : 6400 m
• Elevation range : -10 to +25 degrees
• Direction range : none