Army Ducks - 6 pounder, 6 pounder, CANNON DE 75!
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The year is twenty-twelve. There has been an ongoing feud between two rivals that many are unaware of. After the southern migration of the Canadian Geese, so many years ago, they have became a nuisance to us all. One inhabitant of this area is very angry at the fact that the Canadian Geese are stealing their food and ponds. They are beginning to join in massive flocks to create a force that is unstoppable. Their goal is to drive these geese back to their homeland. General Donald Duck has created an army of SUPER ducks!
I, Gen. Donald Duck of the Army Ducks, is calling you to join us in the war against the Canadian Geese. As a Geocacher and new recruit of the Army Ducks, your mission is to find caches at current Army Duck post while learning about the past wars and equipment used. Godspeed fellow Army Duck/Geocacher on your journey and hunt.
-General Donald Duck
In this mission, you are to play DUCK DUCK GOOSE, except its with cannons instead of people.
The cannon at the final location is a 75mm M1897A mounted on a M2A3 carriage.
The Ordnance Quick-Firing 6-pounder 7 cwt, or just 6 pounder, was a British 57 mm gun, their primary anti-tank gun during the middle of World War II, as well as the main armament for a number of armoured fighting vehicles. It was first used in North Africa in April 1942, and quickly replaced the 2 pounder in the anti-tank role, allowing the 25 pounder to revert to its intended artillery role. The United States Army also adopted the 6 pdr as their primary anti-tank gun under the designation 57 mm Gun M1. The U.S. 57 mm M1 gun is popular with modern-day cannoneers, as there is a relatively good supply of shell casings and projectiles.The gun is also reportedly still in active military use with some South American countries and, in coastal defense emplacements, outlying island garrisons of the Republic of China Army.
The French 75 mm field gun was a quick-firing field artillery piece adopted in March 1898. Its official French designation was: Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897. It was commonly known as the French 75, simply the 75 and Soixante-Quinze (French for 75).
The French 75 is widely regarded as the first modern artillery piece. It was the first field gun to include a hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism, which kept the gun's trail and wheels perfectly still during the firing sequence. Since it did not need to be re-aimed after each shot, the French 75 could deliver fifteen rounds per minute on its target, either shrapnel or high-explosive, up to about 5 miles (8,500 m) away. Its firing rate could even reach 30 rounds per minute, albeit only for a very short period of time and with a highly experienced crew. These were rates that contemporary bolt action rifles could not match.
At the opening of World War I, in 1914, the French Army had about 4,000 of these field guns in service. By the end of the war about 12,000 had been produced. It was also in service with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), which had been supplied with about 2,000 French 75 field guns. Several thousand were still in use in the French Army at the opening of World War II, updated with new wheels and tires to allow towing by trucks rather than by horses.
It is not to be confused with the Schneider-manufactured "Canon de 75mm Mle 1912" used by French cavalry and the Serbian army, and its 1914 modification. Although they used the original French 75's ammunition, these privately manufactured Schneider guns were lighter, smaller, and mechanically different.
The French 75 fired two types of shells, with a muzzle velocity of 500 metres per second (1,600 ft/s) and a maximum range of 6,900 metres (7,500 yd). Because of these characteristics, the shell's trajectories were relatively flat. The French 75 had not been designed for high-angle plunging fire.
A 5.3 kilograms (12 lb) impact-detonated, thin-walled steel, high-explosive (HE) shell with a time-delay fuze. The delay lasted five hundredths of a second, designed to explode at a man's height after bouncing forward off the ground. A melted explosive called trinitrophenol, picric acid, or "Melinite", used since 1888 by French artillery, filled the HE shell.
A 7.24 kilograms (16.0 lb) time-fuzed shrapnel shell containing 290 lead balls. The balls shot forward when the fuze's timer reached zero, ideally bursting high above the ground and enemy troops. Later, during World War I, several new shells and fuzes were introduced due to the demands of trench warfare, including a boat-tailed shell (with a superior ballistic coefficient) which could reach out to 11,000 metres (12,000 yd). Every shell, whether it be a high-explosive or shrapnel shell, was fixed to a brass case which was automatically ejected when the breech was opened.
Despite obsolescence brought on by new developments in artillery design, large numbers of 75s were still in existence in 1939 (4,500 in the French army alone), and they eventually found their way into a number of unlikely places. Some had been delivered to Poland in the 1920s, together with infantry ordnance, in order to fight the Bolsheviks. They were known as 75mm Armata Polowa wz.1897/17. In 1939 the Polish army had 1374 of these guns, making it by far the most numerous artillery piece in Polish service. A 75 was used by Polish forces during the Battle of Westerplatte, making it the first artillery weapon deployed against German forces during the war.
Some French guns were modernized between the wars, in part to adapt them for anti-tank fire, resulting in the Canon de 75 Mle 1897/33 which fired a high-explosive anti-tank shell. Many were captured by Germany during the Fall of France in 1940, in addition to Polish guns captured in 1939. Over 600, renamed 7.5 cm Pak 97/38, were mounted on a 5 cm Pak 38 carriage and put to use by the Wehrmacht in 1942 as an emergency weapon against the Soviet Union's T-34 and KV tanks. Its relatively low velocity and a lack of updated armor-piercing ammunition limited its effectiveness as an anti-tank weapon. When the German 7.5 cm Pak 40 became available in sufficient numbers, most remaining Pak 97/38 pieces were returned to occupied France to reinforce the Atlantic Wall defenses.
During the 1930s, many of those were equipped with rubber tires. Others were mounted on a split trail, permitting plunging fire (the French 75 M2A1, A2, and A3). M3 Half-Track-mounted French 75's (M3 GMC) were used in the Pacific theater for some time following Pearl Harbor and later during the landing operations in North Africa and Italy. One of the more ingenious uses for the old gun was its mounting in B-25 Mitchell bombers to attack Japanese shipping, possibly the inspiration for the production-line-ready XB-25G prototype, which used a more modern gun of US manufacture intended for the purpose. Otherwise, the French 75 was replaced by the more powerful and more versatile U.S. 105 mm M101 split-trail Howitzer by 1941.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
RTT sbe nyy 3 fgntrf