France

37mm Mle 1916 Infantry Gun

The 37mm Infantry Gun was introduced in the French Army during 1916 (and it thus preceeded the introduction of Mortars in that army. It's was mainly meant to be employed against enemy Machine Guns and entrenched positions, using pin-point accurate fire against loop holes etc. The whole Gun could be easily broken down into three packages, that could be carried by soldiers. The packages where: the barrel (40 kilos), the undercarriage (40 kilos) and other parts (28 kilos). It could also be fitted with wheels and pulled by a horse, or manhandled by soldiers, which gave it excellent mobility. If the wheels were removed from the foldable trail, a forward leg could be folded down, thus making a sort of low tripod. It could also be fitted with a small shield. The gun had a maximum range of 2.400 meters, but the general view was that fire beyond the range of 1.500 meters was pretty pointless. On short ranges it was very accurate. The trajectory of the gun was very flat, however, which meant that it could only be used in direct fire, as it could not shoot over intervening terrain. My model is scratch-built, using the barrel for the "2-pounder gun" that comes with the HÄT WW1 US Infantry set. This was a easy job, most of it done in one evening only.   Click on the thumbnails to see more views of this model:

---

Gallery | Reviews | Disclaimer |Kitlist
Guest Book | Vote! | Search | Back to Index | Contact