Krupp gun

The Krupp gun is a family of artillery pieces that was adopted for use by several world armies from the nineteenth century onwards.

History
In 1811, Friedrich Krupp founded his cast-steel factory Gusstahlfabrik, but it was his son, Alfred Krupp, who attained notable success. In 1856, Fried. Krupp A.G., produced a 9cm muzzle-loading rifled gun of cast steel, which gave such good results that Prussia adopted steel for making army guns, it being the first country to do so.

The Krupp guns were purchased by the armies of Russia, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire during the 1860s. From the 1870s, they were purchased by countries all over the world. Naval guns were also rapidly developed; from 1863, guns were being manufactured for several navies, including the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Ottoman Empire and Russia.

By the 1880s, Krupp had developed an 88mm naval gun and adopted 75mm as the caliber for the army's field and mountain guns. In 1897, when the French 75mm quick-firing gun appeared, Krupp produced the similar 77mm, which was much used in World War I.

The Honduran Navy maintains one Krupp cannon from 1948, in the Amapala Naval Base in the Pacific Honduran, according military sources is still in working order.

Characteristics
The principal characteristic of Krupp guns is that they are made of steel. Alfred Krupp was introduced to the Bessemer process to mass-produce steel by his London agent and friend, Alfred Longsdon, in 1859-60. After a lengthy period of trial and error, this steel was developed to such quality that the royal factory of Woolwich in England acquired steel from Krupp to manufacture guns that conformed to British naval ordinances. Also, Krupp was one of the first manufacturers to design practical breechloading guns for army use.

Initially, Krupp developed a breechloading system with a wedge breech block, but, because of problems with escape of gas, it continued to manufacture muzzle-loading guns until the adoption of the Broadwell ring allowed the problem to be solved. By this means, they developed the best breechloading guns of the time, assisted by Longsdon's patented designs. Initially, Krupp only sold its breechloading guns to Prussia, but, from 1888, it began exporting all over the world. Breech closure was achieved by a steel wedge that slid transversely on a short groove at the rear part of the gun. The movement was imparted by a screw mechanism and the gas-check by the Broadwell ring system.

Krupp also copied the Blakely system to manufacture banded guns.

Caliber
At first, the caliber of the Krupp guns was determined by the weight of the projectile in pounds, but, in the 1860s, they began to designate caliber by the diameter of the bore in centimeters or millimeters.

The principal guns between the 1860s and the 1880s were: