NRC's 1/72 75mm Cannon mle 1897
by Stephen Brezinski, Portland, Maine USA

The French "75" - or to be more precise: Canon de 75, modèle 1897 - was a new and revolutionary piece of weaponery. The truly great invention, and a tribute to French engineering skills, was of course the hydro-pneumatic recoil system, that allowed the whole recoil to be absorbed by the carriage. 

This meant that the gun - if properly placed - could be fired without moving at all, which meant that the gun layer didn't have to relay the gun after each shot, perhaps only checking it, and that it could be reloaded a whole lot faster, as the loader only had to wait for the gun tube to recoil back, before putting another round into the breech. The result was a rate of fire never seen before: a maximum of 20 shots per minute was possible - one shell every 3 seconds!

At the outbreak of the war in 1914, the "75" was the main gun of the French Field Artillery. Every Division had one Artillery Regiment attached, consisting of three groupes, each with three batteries equipped with four guns, or 12 guns per groupe, or 36 guns per Artillery Regiment. The Army had a total of 1.011 of these 4-gun-batteries in service in August 1914. 

You could very well say that the "75" was the main gun of the French Army in 1914, period. The French had an enormous faith in this fenomenal gun, with it's tremendous rate of fire, ease of maneuver (it was light) and accuracy. The gun was also very sturdy.

It had some problems but remained a formidable gun, that, if the conditions were right, could make a very telling effect indeed. And it is a testimony to the excellence of this gun, that it was also adapted by the US Army, and later also by the armies in Poland, Greece, Portugal, Romania, Portugal, Estonia and Lithuania. It was also used by a number of countries in WW2.

For more info on this gun, click here!

Contents of the kit:

The kit is sold as a Polish field gun [Polska armata polowa] though appears to be the same as the French version used in WW1 as well as used by Romania, and the USA except for the wheels. The wheels are wood-spoked steel-tired type with 12 spokes of the Polish gun rather than 14 spokes of the French gun. For gaming I do not think this matter much. WZ.1879 is the Polish designation of the French M1879.

The model consists of six ivory-colored resin parts. Casting is rough with much flash to remove from around the parts and in between the wheel spokes. Removing this flash should be done very carefully with a sharp knife and razor saw so as not to brake any parts. No ammunition caisson, dial site or small shield for the site are included. On the parts photo I include the green resin gun barrel from the 1/72 scale LEVA M1897 kit and we notice that it is considerably smaller than NRC's gun. My initial feeling is that the NRC kit is a little larger than 1/72, and the LEVA kit is closer to 1/76 than 1/72 in scale.

NRC includes not assembly instructions. Fortunately the kit is simple to build so the box art and a few references should be all that is needed to build this model. Overall quality and accuracy appears below that of the Al By, Profi-Kit and LEVA M1879 guns.