I was watching a documentary recently and it showed a sequence of big British guns firing. One of the guns was an 8inch howitzer, and it had narrow, traction engine type wheels, very much like the ones in Strelets' recent set A002.

I have also found this picture in a contemporary artillery manual:



The wheels appear to be narrower than the ones seen in photos in earlier threads on this subject. (Also worth noting, although not the subject of this post, is that this ideal position does not use the large wheel chocks/scotches.)

It's not incontrovertible evidence, but I'd say it does at least present the possibility that there were different types of "traction engine" wheels, some of which were narrower than we have seen in earlier threads on this subject.

This next photo is one I took of the 8in Howitzer Mark VII in the War Museum, Ottawa. It shows a different type of wheel, but one which is fairly narrow and could therefore be an option for modelers who wish to change the Strelets' kit.

The Ottawa gun was the insperation for the camo pattern on the 6in gun I painted.

I thought it looked familiar, Gordon Pasha.

The mystery is, what gun did the War Museum use as their inspiration?

And may I take this opportunity to correct my initial post. The Ottawa Gun has, I believe, the same wheel. What I should have said was, a different tread pattern.

There is very little on the web about these guns,landships had the best help for colour/camo patterns. Finding the Ottawa gun was a real breakthrough.

I assume from the look that their Rubber pads but when were they added? perhaps to save the floors in the museum? the gun does weigh in at 8 n a half tons... which brings me too and you probarbly know this, the MKVI was a purpose built gun this had the advantage of reducing the overall weight of previous MKs(which were all conversions of naval guns)by nearly 5 tons, hence the narrower wheels...

Cheers

Ironsides
" which brings me too and you probarbly know this, the MKVI was a purpose built gun this had the advantage of reducing the overall weight of previous MKs(which were all conversions of naval guns)by nearly 5 tons, hence the narrower wheels..."

Yes
and also the Mks VII and VIII on carriages MkVI,VII,VIIa. Of the Naval gun conversions the weights varied depending on the carriages but some Mks I-V were over 13 tons so a 5 tons difference is about right. The upper carriage on Mks VI -VIII traversed so a little more space between the wheels was needed. To my mind the carriage has a little of the look of a WWII 25 pdr from above but of course larger. The normal emplacement was as in the drawing in the first post and was a Vickers platform which was partially buried and enabled accurate fire and small corrections. It took a long time to install and any major changes would require a lot of digging. Rather than large wheel scotches these marks of howitzer should have the visible (above ground) parts of the Vickers platform to look authentic. When conditions didn't allow the Vickers platform to be used I believe wheel scotches were substituted. Most European theatre emplacements were heavily camouflaged with a canopy, nets etc and the guns not just stood out in the open. The recoil because of the efficient recuperators was nothing like as great as the Mks I-V.

David