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WW1 French 75mm with Naval Stamp?

MikeS0000

Well-Known Member
Hello Folks -

Picked this up a few days ago, and appears to be a standard French 75. However, it has an anchor stamp on the base. Is this indicative of naval use? Don't believe I have run across this before. Shell is 13-1/2"s tall with taper at top.

Thanks for looking!
- Mike
 

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It's rather hard to see, can you manage a close up, but I don't see why the French Navy wouldn't have some 75s for landing parties, Marines etc.
 
Actually, many 75x350 French WW1 army cases have been re-stamped by French navy. Sometimes they only have the anchor, sometimes a French navy primer and I even have a French army case that was navy re-stamped and then re-stamped for German use with a hollow charge crimp ;-).
I have seen images of Navy use on ships, I have also seen them on pedestrals (coastal defence?). I have to be off to work, but I can check my books later. I have some nice little book on the French 75 mm Schneider M1897, I am sure it will have some nice images I can share.
 
Here is more on this case , I quote;
"This french 75mm cartridge case was made in RENNES factory and after firing , it had been sent back to be reloaded and change of primer.
It occurred that it went back to a French naval factory as the anchor and the capital C
shows ; it should be Cherbourg. Others naval centres were Toulon, Brest among others."
 
Many thanks! Printing that summary out and popping it into the shell. :bigsmile:

Here is more on this case , I quote;
"This french 75mm cartridge case was made in RENNES factory and after firing , it had been sent back to be reloaded and change of primer.
It occurred that it went back to a French naval factory as the anchor and the capital C
shows ; it should be Cherbourg. Others naval centres were Toulon, Brest among others."
 
Hi, it looks like besides being reloaded at Cherbourg facilities (Pyrotechnie Maritime) which should explain the anchor, this casing was also reloaded in Rennes where it was first manufactured (Ateliers de Construction) "Rs" next to "C" and also possibly in Paris by Delaunay Belleville ("DB" next to "Rs"). It is not unusual for these casing to have a pretty long life and see various places where they were reloaded. Frank.
 
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