Page 3 - Canon de montagne de 65 Mle 1906

The 65 mm Mle 1906 mountain gun
The second characteristic and really unique design is the use of an differential recoil system in which the recoil had first to stop the moving barrel and then reverse it, another move to soak up as much of the recoil forces before they got to the trunnions. There is a rather curious and unique hydro spring – recoil system attaching the gun to the cradle: the gun is wound back manually to it’s fully recoiled position and there held by a catch connected to the firing lever. After loading and laying, pulling the firing lever releases the gun and the recuperator immediately pulls it forward into the battery position. A fraction of a second before it reaches the forward point, the gun is fired. The differential velocities (the recuperator’s forward one and the shell’s one) results in having a smaller recoil and resistance in which case the recoil generated by the firing has first to stop the forward moving weight and then drive it back in the opposite direction.
The gun in firing position.
As a result the actual, residual, recoil force was quite low and the all-up weight of the gun was only 400 kg. But as a field gun it was overcomplicated. If the ballistic
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