Girish Mahajan (Editor)

10.4 cm Feldkanone M. 15

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Type
  
Field gun

In service
  
1916-1945

Place of origin
  
Austria-Hungary

Designer
  
Skoda

10.4 cm Feldkanone M. 15

Used by
  
Austria-Hungary  Nazi Germany  Italy  Poland

Wars
  
World War I World War II

The 10.4 cm Feldkanone M. 15 was a heavy field gun used by Austria-Hungary in World War I. Guns captured or turned over to Italy as reparations after World War I were taken into Italian service as the Cannone da 105/32 and were bored out to 105 mm to fit Italian ammunition. It was one of the principal Italian long-range guns in World War II and saw service in North Africa and Russia. Those few guns that were captured from the Italians by the Germans after the Italian surrender in 1943 were designated as 10.5 cm Kanone 320(i). It doesn't seem to have seen service with any of the Austro-Hungarian successor states after World War I.

For transport it broke down into the customary two loads. And it carried the customary two seats on the gun shield for crewmen. All data given herein is for the Italian version of the gun.

Four guns were used by Poland during the Polish-Soviet war 1919-1920.

A rusting 10.4 cm Skoda was found in the Presanella mountains in the year 2000, where it supposed it was dueling an Italian 149/23 during the First World War. Found at 3171 meters altitude, the gun came completely out of the glacier in the very warm summer of 2003. Because it was located on a 45 degree slope, the risk of it sliding down was considered too great, so the gun was relocated by lifting it with a Superpuma helicopter.

References

10.4 cm Feldkanone M. 15 Wikipedia