De Bange 80 mm cannon

De Bange 80mm Mle 1877 "Canon de campagne de 80 modèle 1877"
The gun in the Museum of Military History, Budapest
Type	Breechloading cannon
Place of origin	France
Service history
In service	1877-
Production history
Designer	Charles Ragon de Bange
Designed	1877
Manufacturer	Puteaux
Produced	1879
Specifications
Weight	423 kg
Length	2.28 m
Shell	4.9 kg explosive shell
Caliber	80 mm
Barrels	1, steel
Rate of fire	N/A
Sights	unknown

The De Bange 80mm cannon (Mle 1877) was a type of field artillery piece.

History

It developed in France by Colonel Charles Ragon de Bange in 1877,^[1] and adopted by the French Army that same year. It superseded the earlier Reffye cannon (1870) and the Lahitolle 95mm cannon (1875). De Bange also manufactured another cannon of a rather similar size: the De Bange 90mm cannon.

The cannon was breech loading and used the original mushroom-shaped obturator system developed by de Bange, allowing to properly seal the breech during each firing.^[2] The cannon still had an important recoil, meaning that it moved backward at each firing, necessitating re-aiming every time, which considerably slowed the rate of firing. This would remain a problem with all artillery pieces until the development of the recoilless Canon de 75 in 1897.

Details of components
De Bange 80mm Mle 1877 breech portion.  De Bange 80mm Mle 1877, at the Musée de l'Armée, Paris

See also

Media related to De Bange 80mm cannon at Wikimedia Commons

Notes

1. The Americana by Frederick Converse Beach, George Edwin Rines
2. Field Artillery and Firepower by Jonathan B. A. Bailey, p.208