Canon de 194 mle GPF


Design

The vehicle was designed by colonel, deputy chief executive officer of the compagnie des forges et aciéries de la marine. The 194 mm gun was a derivative of the 155 mm GPF and was designed at Atelier de Construction de Puteaux by Louis Filloux. A prototype was manufactured with a 155 mm gun but a weapon of 194 mm calibre was eventually chosen since tracked self-propelled guns were heavy and expensive vehicles and only the more powerful guns were to be used. Saint-Chamond also designed the Mortier 280 mm TR de Schneider sur affût-chenilles St Chamond. Both SPGs used the same two tracked vehicles, avant-train and affut-chenille. The lead vehicle carried ammunition and a Panhard SUK4 M2 electrical generator. Both vehicles were powered by two electric motors, energy being sent to the affut by a flexible electric cable. The gun barrel was displaced at the rear of the chassis when the vehicle had to move. Compared to a contemporary British vehicle, the Gun Carrier Mark I which was a tracked vehicle upon which a field gun was sat, the Canon de 194 was much more advanced; it was driven by only one person, had hydraulic brakes and the gun had automatically adjusting recoil mechanisms and pneumatic recuperators.

Service

Production began in April 1918. Two days before the armistice, the vehicle, without its Puteaux gun, was tested at Saint-Chamont plant. By June 1919, Saint-Chamond was still waiting for the delivery of the oscillating mass, a key component manufactured by Puteaux.
During the interwar, they served in an artillery regiment in Valence, alongside the 280 mm SPGs.
36 were still in service at the outbreak of World War II and some were captured by the invading German forces. Surviving vehicles were pressed into Wehrmacht service as the 19.4 cm Kanone 485 auf Selbstfahrlafette. At least three of them were used by the Germans in Russia in about 1942. Two were used by the Italians as coastal guns near Rome under the designation Cannone da 194/32.
Germans also reused the guns on new fixed carriages. The 19,4 cm Kanone 485/585 were used for coastal defense in Denmark.
The only surviving example can be found at the U.S. Army Artillery Museum at Fort Sill, OK.

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