LEVA's 1/72 75mm Cannon mle 1897
by Stephen Brezinski, Portland, Maine, USA

The French "75" - or to be more precise: Canon de 75, modèle 1897 - was a new and revolutionary piece of weaponery. The truly great invention, and a tribute to French engineering skills, was of course the hydro-pneumatic recoil system, that allowed the whole recoil to be absorbed by the carriage. 

This meant that the gun - if properly placed - could be fired without moving at all, which meant that the gun layer didn't have to relay the gun after each shot, perhaps only checking it, and that it could be reloaded a whole lot faster, as the loader only had to wait for the gun tube to recoil back, before putting another round into the breech. The result was a rate of fire never seen before: a maximum of 20 shots per minute was possible - one shell every 3 seconds!

At the outbreak of the war in 1914, the "75" was the main gun of the French Field Artillery. Every Division had one Artillery Regiment attached, consisting of three groupes, each with three batteries equipped with four guns, or 12 guns per groupe, or 36 guns per Artillery Regiment. The Army had a total of 1.011 of these 4-gun-batteries in service in August 1914. 

You could very well say that the "75" was the main gun of the French Army in 1914, period. The French had an enormous faith in this fenomenal gun, with it's tremendous rate of fire, ease of maneuver (it was light) and accuracy. The gun was also very sturdy.

It had some problems but remained a formidable gun, that, if the conditions were right, could make a very telling effect indeed. And it is a testimony to the excellence of this gun, that it was also adapted by the US Army, and later also by the armies in Poland, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Portugal, Estonia and Lithuania. It was also used by a number of countries in WW2.

For more info on this gun, click here!

Contents of the kit:

This is the first all resin kit of this gun in small scale I am aware of and still compares well with more recent kits from other resin makers. The kit includes 12 gray-green resin parts for the gun and the caisson [no horses or figures are included].

LEVA actually offers three different version of this kit, the only difference being the wheels. One kit has the original wood-spoke steel-tired wheels, two other versions offered by LEVA Productions have the steel-wheel rubber-tired wheels of the 1930's European variant and the African variant. Examples of these wheels are included in the photo. [Also in the photo are an ivory-colored resin wheel and gun barrel from the NRC model for comparison.] An ammunition caisson is included that other models of this gun do not have. One side of the caisson has an open door with the gun rounds visible.

The kit is well cast and has sharp, delicate parts, with little flash to remove. Typical of resin kits we should be careful with removing the parts from the pour plugs. The gun appears smaller than the NRC and Model Trans kits of this gun and I suspect it is closer to 1/76 in scale, not 1/72. Crew seating and other fittings are missing.

Simple assembly instructions are included. Though the instructions state this is the "M1898" gun, I believe that "M1897" is correct.