The Reffye 75mm cannon (French: ''Canon de campagne de 5 de Reffye modèle 1873'') was a French artillery piece of the 19th century, developed by the French artillery General
Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye
Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye (30 July 1821 – 6 December 1880) was a French artillery general of the 19th century, and superintendent of the works at Meudon. He was a former Ammunition#Ordnance ammunition, ordnance officer for Napoleon III. H ...
, superintendent of the works at
Meudon
Meudon () is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris. The city is known for many historic monuments and some extraordinary trees. One of t ...
. The weapon was adopted by the
French Army
The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...
from 1873. It was a 75 mm rifled
breech-loading cannon, equipped with a breech screw, initially made of
bronze.
The sliding breech block, and the interrupted screw used for sealing were advanced features, but the perfect sealing of the breech would only be achieved with the invention of the
de Bange obturator. The cannon used shell cartridges for ammunition. It would be soon superseded by the
Lahitolle 95mm cannon
The Lahitolle 95 mm cannon (Mle 1875) was a French cannon of the 19th century, developed in 1875 by the artillery commander de Lahitolle. The Lahitolle 90 mm was the first French field cannon made of steel, and one of the first to be e ...
(1875) and especially the
De Bange 90mm cannon
The de Bange 90 mm cannon (Mle 1877) was a type of field artillery piece developed in France by Colonel Charles Ragon de Bange in 1877, and adopted by the French Army that same year. It superseded the earlier Reffye cannon (1870/73) and the ...
(1877).
De Reffye also developed the
Reffye 85 mm cannon in 1870.
De Reffye also developed in 1866 a
mitrailleuse
A mitrailleuse (; from French ''mitraille'', " grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either all rounds at once or in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army ca ...
(named ''Canon à balles''), one of the best early
volley gun
A volley gun is a gun with multiple single-shot barrels that shoot projectiles in volley fire, either simultaneously or in succession. Although capable of unleashing intense firepower, volley guns differ from modern machine guns in that the ...
s, which was used during the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
''The New Cambridge Modern History'' by G. N. Clark p.307
/ref>
Notes
Artillery of France
75 mm artillery
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