The ''7 cm Gebirgsgeschütz M 99'' was a mountain gun used by Austria-Hungary during World War I. It was obsolete upon introduction as it had a bronze barrel, a spring-loaded spade to absorb the recoil forces and it had to be relaid after every shot. The high elevations required of mountain guns greatly complicated the provision of barrel recoil systems as the

breech Breech may refer to: * Breech (firearms), the opening at the rear of a gun barrel where the cartridge is inserted in a breech-loading weapon * breech, the lower part of a pulley block * breech, the penetration of a boiler where exhaust gases leav ...

could recoil into the ground, and it would be some years before satisfactory systems were developed. These would result in the ''7 cm Gebirgsgeschütz M 8'' and ''M 9'' that used the same barrel and ammunition as the ''M 99'', but had

Gun shield A U.S. Marine manning an M240 machine gun equipped with a gun shield A gun shield is a flat (or sometimes curved) piece of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, or artillery piece ...

s and more advanced recoil systems. These guns weighed and respectively, although the exact differences between them are unclear other than they broke down into four and five loads for transport respectively. The ''Gebirgsgeschütz M 99'' broke down into three loads for transport.

References

* Ortner, M. Christian. ''Austro-Hungarian Artillery From 1867 to 1918: Technology, Organization, and Tactics''. Vienna, Verlag Militaria, 2007

External links

Gebirgsgeschütz M 99 on Landships
World War I mountain artillery 70 mm artillery World War I artillery of Austria-Hungary {{artillery-stub