The Reffye 85 mm cannon (French: "Canon de campagne de 7 de Reffye modèle 1870") was a French artillery piece of the 19th century, developed by the French artillery General
Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye, superintendent of the works at
Meudon. The weapon was adopted by the
French Army from 1870. It was an 85 mm (3.35-inch) rifled
breech-loading
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle).
Modern firearms are generally breech ...
cannon, equipped with a breech screw, initially made of
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
.
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 two years later with the invention of the
de Bange obturator. The cannon used shell cartridges for ammunition. It would be soon superseded by the
Lahitolle 95 mm 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 90 mm cannon (1877).
Reffye also developed the
Reffye 75 mm cannon
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, superintendent of the works at Meu ...
in 1873.
Reffye also developed in 1866 a
mitrailleuse (named "Canon à balles"), one of the best early
machine guns
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...
, which was used during the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
''The New Cambridge Modern History'' by G. N. Clark p.307
/ref>
Notes
External links
Artillery of France
85 mm artillery
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