Cornflower Blue & Corduroy: Wargaming the German-Herero & Nama Wars of 1904-1908: Images of Artillery used during the German Herero-Nama Wars

Monday, July 17, 2017

Images of Artillery used during the German Herero-Nama Wars

7.2 cm gebirgskanone L/14 M98

The Schutztruppe, Seebatallion and Landungskorps from S.M.S. "Habicht" had a range of artillery and machine guns available during the German/Herero War of 1904. Other sites do an excellent job of describing most of these artillery pieces, although machine guns will require a bit more research to determine what version of the Maxim gun was provided by the navy and marines, as these branches received machine guns before they were adopted by the army in 1901. My intention here is to briefly describe the artillery and then provide some historic photographs.

The Schutztruppe had both C73 and C96 feldkanone. The C73 came in two calibers: 7.85 Leichte feldkanone and 8.8 cm Schwere feldkanone. The C96 fired a 7.7cm projectile. At the outset of the Herero war, the Schutztruppe in DSWA had five C73 Leichte feldkanone and was later reenforced with C/96aA and C/96nA field guns from Germany and two feldkanone 91/93 from Kameruun.

The colony also had at least four 5.7 cm quick firing guns or schnellfeurgeschürtzen. Although these saw service during the Herero War as part of Battery 1 under Hauptmann v. Oertzen, I have not been able to locate any good photographs or even details about the design of these weapons.

Four mountain guns were issued to the Schutztruppe and were in service at the outbreak of the German/Herero war. These were 7.2 cm gebirgskanone L/14 M98 and saw hard service between 1904 and 1908 when the colony received the new 7.5 cm gebirgskanone L/17 M08.

Four outdated 10.5 cm fixed recoil field howitzers (feldhaubtize M98 by Rheinmetall) were sent to Southwest Africa during the German/Herero War.

The Seebataillon and Landungskorps from S.M.S. "Habicht" contributed 2 or 3 cone-mounted 3.7 cm Gruson-Hotchkiss revolverkanone and 8 M97 Krupp 3.7cm maschinenkanone.

There were several machine gun sections, served both by marines and sailors and by Schutztruppe.