Background and Design
Early in World War I, the Norwegian Army realised that aircraft was a threat that needed to be countered. At first attempts were made to mount existing field guns on new mounts to allow high angle fire, but it was soon obvious that a more specialised weapon was needed. At first attempts were made to buy British and French guns, but both nations needed the weapons themselves because of the ongoing war.
The history of the M/16 can be traced to a letter from the Norwegian Ministry of Defence dated 17 December 1915. After initial design work had been carried out, it was decided to manufacture 1 prototype and 12 production cannons. The detailed design work took longer than anticipated, and with the end of the war the urgency seemed to leave the project. Due to this the prototype was not ready for test firing until 20 May 1920.
The M/16 was a relatively simple design. It was intended for static emplacement, and was mounted on a pedestal, allowing for 360° sideways movement. The mount allowed for elevations between -1° and 75°. The gun barrel was 45 calibres long, and had 28 rifles twisting to the right. The breech block was a semi automatic horizontal wedge - the gunner had to manually open it to remove the case from the previous shoot, but it closed automatically on insertion of a new round. Under the barrel was a hydro-pneumatic recoil cylinder with a heavy spring to aid the forward motion of the gun at high elevations. Originally it was designed to fire under local command, but was later equipped to receive gun-laying information from a central sight.
The gun was also equipped with a device for automatically adjusting the time fuses on the shells.
The M/16 was served by a crew of nine: The gun commander, one soldier for adjusting sideways, one for adjusting elevation, one to operate the breech block and fire, one loader, one 'fuse adjusting device operator', one 'fuse adjuster' and two to fetch ammunition and take away the shell casings.
Read more about this topic: 7.5 Cm L/45 M/16 Anti Aircraft Gun
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