Peigné-Canet-Schneider mle 1897 gun carriage

The Peigné-Canet-Schneider mle 1897 gun carriage was a railway gun carriage designed and built during the late 1800s. Two types of guns were mounted on these carriages and both the French Army and US Army used them during World War I. They were retired soon after World War I. Although the majority of combatants had heavy field artillery before the outbreak of the First World War, none had adequate numbers of heavy guns in service, nor had they foreseen the growing importance of heavy artillery once the Western Front stagnated and trench warfare set in. Since aircraft of the period were not yet capable of carrying large-diameter bombs the burden of delivering heavy firepower fell on the artillery. Large-caliber field guns often required extensive site preparation because the guns had to be broken down into multiple loads light enough to be towed by a horse team or the few traction engines of the time and then reassembled before use. Building a new gun could address the problem of disassembling, transporting, and reassembling a large gun, but it didn't necessarily address how to convert existing heavy weapons to make them more mobile. Rail transport proved to be the most practical solution because the problems of heavy weight, lack of mobility, and reduced setup time were addressed. The mle 1878 was a breech-loaded siege gun with a de Bange obturator that used separate loading bagged charges and projectiles. It had a box trail carriage, no gun shield, two wooden-spoked steel-rimmed wheels, unsprung axle, and no recoil mechanism. The 120 mm L mle 1878 was classified as a siege et de place (stationary siege gun) in France's Séré de Rivières system of fortifications. In line with this mission, the carriage was tall because it was expected that its barrel would overhang a parapet and provide long-range, low-angle, counter-battery fire against enemy artillery. A drawback of the gun was that it required considerable time to prepare a firing platform made of concrete or timbers before use.