Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here at Morphy's today with
a Krupp manufactured 50mm mountain gun
made for Thailand (Siam at the time, Thailand now).
I have a video from a bunch of years ago
where we kind of went over some of the basics of these guns
and also did a little bit of shooting with them.
But I thought having access to actually two more of them today
I wanted to show you guys some of the elements of the gun up close,
which is something I wasn't able to do last time.
So first off, the basic short story of this is approximately 1906
Thailand bought a bunch of these guns, I don't know an exact number.
Eventually, once they were well and truly obsolete, about 30 of them
came into the United States, including the two that you'll see today.
The whole point of this gun was to be light and easily transportable.
So, the whole thing comes apart into a number of individually man-portable pieces.
And the idea was this could be transported on three mules or like one elephant disassembled.
And if you had to carry it on a human back, you could.
The breech block's uncomfortably heavy, but it can be done
if you have to dismount the gun to get it over some sort of obstacle.
And this is important, because the terrain and the road network
in Thailand at the time were pretty rough and pretty primitive respectively.
So you needed an easy gun to manipulate over rough terrain.
So let's take a look first at how all the bits come apart on this.
The first thing you would do to disassemble it is take the actual gun off.
So to do that we have a pair of locking pins on the trunnions,
rotate that vertical, that pin comes out,
and then you can pop the trunnion cover open.
We can do the same thing over here, this one's a little stiff, it'll come.
There we go, pop that open, and then
this whole thing just lifts right out of the gun.
Now it's pretty heavy, so I'm going to leave it in there.
Next up you can take the axle off.
And we do that by removing another one of these locking pins.
Now this one is stuck in place because the previous owner
clearly never took the axle out of the gun.
But you can take this pin out, and then this lever opens up,
and the axle can come off. And that's a unit.
Next both of the wheels come [off], and that is very easy.
These just have locking pins right there, you would run this
through the bottom so that the pin can't come out while you're rolling the thing around.
But with that pin out, the wheel just comes right off the side.
Notice that this is a wood spoked wheel
with metal hardware connecting the wood spokes to the wooden rim.
And then a metal tyre/belt around the outside.
And then lastly, the trail comes apart.
So we have yet another locking pin right here.
This one is also frozen in position, but you pull that locking pin,
you can then pull this locking bar out.
And then the inside piece of the trail here, the rear section,
is actually separate from the front section.
And you can see that in action, just slightly,
if I lift up, there we go, you can see that the two are separate.
Now for moving the gun we have a nice setup here.
We have this handle that is going to slide into the back of the trail.
There is a locking piece right here, when you rotate it up
it allows this to slide all the way in and then, there we go, lock it down.
And it rotated down and it locks into that semi-circular cutout in the handle.
So this now won't come out, and you can use this to move the gun around.
Once you are in the final position where you actually want to emplace the gun
and get it ready to shoot, you have a spade sitting here.
Now this normally just sits on the back of the trail.
But we can pull it off and flip it around,
and it
catches right onto the back of the trail, locks in like that.
And you can dig this nice and firmly into the ground
to prevent the gun from rolling backwards when you fire,
because this is a gun that doesn't have any recoil absorbing system to it.
The barrel is fixed in the trunnions,
and the only thing that's going to stop this from moving backwards when you fire
is that spade in the back, and so the gun's going to lift up.
Now later technology would incorporate hydraulic or pneumatic recoil systems
that would allow the gun barrel to reciprocate backward in its carriage.
But for these Thai Krupp guns, first off that adds a lot of weight,
and expense, and bulk, and so they don't have any of that.
Now to operate the gun it is a simple single-shot, side-sliding breech mechanism.
So when I pull the handle backwards, that's going to open the breech.
I can then slide a round directly into the breech block there,
and then the handle goes 180 degrees forward, and the breech block closes, locks.
And is fired by a lanyard on that little trigger right there,
kind of hiding under the ... breech handle.
As for aiming, we have a rather sophisticated sight on this gun.
There are actually two different styles of sights that are on these.
And I don't know exactly when they were adopted or under what circumstances,
because both of the guns we have today to look at are marked on the breech 1906
(in Thai, I'll show you that up close in a moment), but they have two separate versions of rear sight.
Now, the top components on this one are reproductions,
but they fit the basic style of the original. So we'll go ahead and show you this anyway.
We have an elevation dial here on the side.
And then it has a lockout on it, so if I flip this forward,
I can then move the rear sight to whatever elevation I want quickly.
And then lock it in place, and from there I can fine adjust using the little wheel.
And then I have a windage adjustment up here.
The originals had a set of graduations visible here, so you could move by a very specific amount.
And there's your rear sight picture. These have a big ol' post for a front sight,
right there. The sights are offset to the right so that the empty shell casings
can be ejected straight out the back of the gun without hitting the sight.
Now here's the other pattern of rear sight, which is far simpler, obviously.
This does have windage adjustment, but all you can do is undo the screw,
move this a little bit left or right, and then tighten the screw.
And the same thing is true for elevation. You loosen this,
you can then move the whole bar, and it is graduated there.
And then when you get it where you want, you tighten it down.
So the first style of sight you saw is almost certainly the later pattern,
I just don't know when it was adopted, or if all of the guns were upgraded to it.
It would appear not, since at least this particular example
came into the US with the early pattern of rear sight.
So here are the breech block markings on the gun,
and both guns have identical markings on them.
These were manufactured by Friedrich Krupp in Germany, in Essen specifically.
And then this is 1906 in Thai numerals, we have a Thai property mark.
And then this is RS 125 which is the Thai date based on the ruling dynasty. That equates to 1906.
In addition we have a little Krupp data plate on each of the carriages.
So this is Krupp Essen, and this is carriage number 28. The other gun is carriage number 20.
That is a brass plaque that has been painted black in this case.
Originally in Thai service these guns were painted a fairly glossy, pale green colour.
Now, if you are the sort of person who is both interested in artillery,
and interested in shooting artillery
(as opposed to simply collecting it, or learning about it, or appreciating it),
there are a couple of cool factors about these Thai Krupp guns.
So the first is they have been removed from the National Firearms Act list.
Which means while something like this firing fixed ammunition
(which is to say a self-contained cartridge),
... with a bore over .50 calibre would typically be considered legally a destructive device,
and require an NFA tax stamp to transfer,
these have been specifically removed from the list and they transfer ... the same as any other firearm.
So no tax stamp. That's very cool, that speeds up the transfer by like nine months which is a great thing.
In addition, while the ammunition really can't be purchased, it's not that difficult to make.
Because the cartridge case that's used in this
can be made from simply a 40mm Bofors case cut down to the appropriate length.
The Bofors is tapered, and at the right length it's 50mm at the mouth, just like this gun is.
So, Bofors cases are fairly easily available,
as relative to things in the artillery and cannon world.
And so loading this is really pretty easy, it's black powder.
You would use black powder, a simple cast lead projectile and a cut-down Bofors case.
... As far as artillery goes, it's a really good sort of entry-level gun.
Combine this with the fact that it's not NFA registered,
that it's portable enough that you can actually move it around.
This isn't one of those 4,000 pound, high pressure, modern artillery pieces,
this is something that had to be designed for easy transportation in the first place.
Well, you get one of these things you can take it apart,
and you could fit all of this into a really nice little compact car.
Or you could just wheel the whole thing onto a pickup truck if you don't want to take it apart.
At any rate, there are just a small number of these turn of the century
light artillery pieces like this that ... have those benefits.
So, if you're interested in these things, ... this is definitely a model to keep in mind.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
If you want to see a little bit of footage of it shooting,
and me perhaps in a slightly more awkward way explaining some of this information
from a video that's like six or seven years old now,
check out that video. I will link to it at the very end of this one.
Thanks for watching.