ARTILLERY REGISTER |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| Historical Specifics: | The Hotchkiss 37 mm gun, a revolving barrel machine gun was developed about 1874 (Hotchkiss gun the gun was made in four sizes from 37 mm to 57 mm). These Hotchkiss weapons were crank-operated, five-barrel revolver-style rotating guns, externally similar to a Gatling gun but having a different ammunition feed system.
Designed to fire up to 60 rounds per minute, its practical rate of fire was 32 rounds per minute. This gun was mounted on the German Steam Yacht Komet which was captured, along with her crew of 57, by members of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force in German New Guinea on Sunday 11 October 1914. Taken to Sydney as a prize she was commissioned into the RAN as HMAS Una. Decommissioned following World war I she was renamed Akuna and used as a pilot vessel in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne. The Komet was armed with this Hotchkiss gun which remained on board until the vessel was decommissioned when it was taken into naval Stores. It was later placed at the Navy Apprentice School HMAS Nirimba at Schofields, NSW and when this establishment closed in 1994 the gun was moved to the RAN Repository at Spectacle Island. It is the second trophy gun taken during World War I.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| General Information on Gun Type: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Additional Photos: | |||||||||||||||||||||||
