During World War II, Finland was in a very embarrassing situation, its own national strength was relatively weak, even if it had the heart and did not have the courage to take the initiative to provoke the neighboring powers, but it was forced to get involved in the war. At that time, Finland's military strength was actually quite embarrassing, from the weapons and equipment can see the problem, some heavy weapons in addition to the purchase, gift and battlefield capture from allies, but also continue to retain some old equipment, today we will take stock of some of the old artillery.
M1878 120 mm L siege gun/field gun
This cannon is a weapon designed by France in the early 1870s, which began to enter service in 1878, this gun was a relatively new type of traction gun at that time, mainly reflected in its manufacturing technology, it adopts an all-steel structure, the barrel is simple and beautiful, the body tube diameter is 27 times, the barrel length is 3.25 meters, the breech is loaded, the ammunition is loaded, the initial speed of the muzzle is 525 m / s, the maximum range is about 10 km, there is no soft recoil system, and it belongs to the recoil of the gun.
This artillery was already backward in World War I, but the artillery production was large, about 2500 guns, the French army itself used most of it, in addition to supporting the use of other countries, it was also captured by the German army, after World War I, France still used this gun for fortress defense to exert residual heat, but in terms of performance it was completely obsolete.
So how did Finland get it? Finland received a lot of international assistance in the Winter War of 1939, but much of this aid was unreliable, France provided 78 such guns, and after the Polish Campaign Finland received another 24 from the Germans (Poland had purchased 54 in 1919), which were used by the Finnish army in World War II, mainly for fortress defense and coastal defense artillery, and they were used until 1944, when they stopped fighting because of the exhaustion of ammunition.
Type 31 75 mm rapid-fire gun
The Type 31 75 mm rapid-fire gun is a Japanese gun developed in 1898, this gun is similar to the later infantry gun, relatively light and flexible, weighing only 330 kg, the barrel is equipped with an early simple spring soft recoil system, the body tube diameter is 13.3, the initial speed of ammunition is 487 m / s, and the maximum range is 6500 m.
The history of this artillery in the hands of Finland is more tortuous, the Japanese army used it in the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian army saw the flexibility of this artillery, after the outbreak of World War I, in 1916, Tsarist Russia instead purchased 100 Type 31 from the Japanese army and put it into actual combat, at that time Finland was still an autonomous grand duchy of Tsarist Russia, declared independence on December 6, 1917, in the subsequent war Finnish army captured 44 guns from the Russian army.
The Finnish army sold 42 guns and about 27,770 rounds of artillery shells in 1936, and the official account was that the cargo ship transporting the guns sank in the waters near Spain, and in fact the guns entered Spain and participated in the local war. As for the remaining two doors of the Finnish army itself, they were all in active service until the end of World War II in 1945.
M1877 11in/9in mortar
These two defensive heavy mortars were heavy weapons designed and built by the Russian Obhof State Factory in 1877, mainly for fortress defense and coastal defense, and it was a breech-loaded mortar (or mortar gun). The gun had a box-type metal base, the barrel was mounted on the support frame through the trunnion, and the entire gun needed to be specially mounted on a concrete base. The gun was latched horizontally, with divided ammunition, and the 11-inch gun had a maximum range of 8.5 km and a 9-inch gun with a maximum range of 7.4 km.
Like the previous Type 31, the M1877 in Finnish hands was all captured from the Russians, the number of captures is unknown, at least 6, in fact, for a long time the Finnish army did not have a good feeling about this gun, almost forgot about it, in the winter war of 1939 they were reactivated, of which 4 were placed in the newly built defensive line to fight.
The Finnish army participated in the combat mission of the M1877 gun after World War II, except for some guns that continued to serve as fortress defense, one of which entered the front line with the army, this gun fought until June 1944, firing a total of 241 shells, because the bullets were exhausted and the artillery was bulky and difficult to transport was abandoned by the retreating Finnish army, it is said that most of the shells it fired did not successfully detonate, probably for too long the fuse has become unreliable.
M1904 6-inch siege gun
This gun is a rare weapon with a production of only about 200 guns, produced by Russia in 1904, its actual caliber is 152.4 mm, the total weight of the gun is 5437 kg, using a 30 caliber barrel, there is no soft recoil system, the muzzle initial speed is 623 m / s, the maximum range is 14.2 km.
The gun was also captured by Finland from the Russians, and there were only 4 of them. It was used for coastal defense during the Winter War, fought with the army during World War II, and was last launched in June 1944.
During the war, the Soviets lost only 2 M1904s, consuming most of the shells, and the remaining two are now in the museum.
M1877 90 mm field gun
This Schneider 90 mm field gun, which entered service in 1877, was once an important equipment of the French Army, it was breech-loaded, belonged to the mount retreat gun, and had a maximum range of 7 kilometers.
It was also an obsolete artillery during World War I, but was still widely used, mainly for second-line troops, with the British receiving some for home defense and training, and some installed on merchant ships to counter U-boats.
The M1877 in Finland's hands was also a donation from France during the winter war, with a total of 100 guns planned, and only 24 were actually shipped during the winter war, and other artillery were subsequently arrived. The Finnish army joined the Finnish army after World War II with 84 M1877s in hand, and these cannons fired a total of 174,000 shells.