Fished out this old US handbook on WWI artillery from The Internet Archive while mucking around in the WWI towed artillery category of Wikimedia Commons, particularly on the French C17S howitzer (below). Always thought that Project Gutenberg was the only major source for public domain books but I guess I was wrong there.

This book titled Handbook of Artillery : Including Mobile, Anti-Aircraft and Trench Matériel was published by the US Ordnance Department in 1920 and a digital copy scanned for the University of California was graciously uploaded to the Internet Archive in 2007.

The first section presents the workings of the firing and recoil mechanisms of modern artillery pieces as well as brief descriptions of the various vehicles that accompanied the guns in the era of towed artillery from carriage limbers to caissons for ammunition storage and battery, forge and store wagons.

What follows after is a whole load of technical details on the major artillery systems in service with the US armed forces during the Great War and the post-war years, presented with very thorough descriptions and specifications of each gun and their specialized support vehicles with a generous sprinkling of scale diagrams.

A 37mm infantry gun

A 7-inch naval rifle

A Vickers 9.2 inch heavy howitzer

Pieces ranging from the 37mm infantry gun, the 75mm light field gun to heavy artillery like the British 60 pounders and French 155mm howitzers e.g the C17S are covered together with monstrous 7-inch naval rifles and 9.2-inch Vickers heavy howitzers thrown in for good measure.

There’s a short section on anti aircraft guns still in their infancy with an interesting truck-mounted 75mm field gun (above), together with a brief coverage on trench mortars.

But the most interesting bit would be photos of probably the world’s first self propelled artillery, the Mark II (below) in which a 155mm gun was mated to a treaded chassis. Only 8 were delivered which suggested that it was probably constructed for evaluation trials but not adopted for front-line service.

Download the Handbook of Artillery : Including Mobile, Anti-Aircraft and Trench Matériel (that’s the actual title) or browse through other Ordnance Department books and manuals. On a related note, check out www.cannonartillery.com’s Cannon Walk feature for a glimpse at the history of US artillery from past to present.