155mm Gun Model of 1918 (Filloux) - AEF
The Cowboy Cannoneers

The US entered the Great War with only two modern field artillery pieces in their artillery park. These however, were not the same caliber as that used by our French and British allies and would be a logistics nightmare to field and supply in Europe. It was therefore decided to purchase proven artillery pieces from France and Britain that had an extensive and robust ammunition manufacturing and distribution chain in Europe. The excellent medium 155mm GPF gun was purchased from France. This gun along with the French Schneider 155mm Howitzer formed the AEF's medium artillery.

There are only two kits of this historically important gun available - both in resin. I was unable to get DES Kit in France to respond to my attempts to order a kit; so, I purchased the US based Commander Models kit. A number of the parts in the kit were so poorly molded as to be useable and unfixable. I emailed Commander with a list of defective parts and they promptly sent me a replacement kit. The quality of second kit was only a little better than the first; but, between the two kits, I was able fix enough parts to build the model.

Both barrels were warped and had a noticeable seam from the two-part molds used. So, I ended up using the barrel and upper carriage from an Academy M12 kit that I had in the stash for conversion into a T30 ammunition carrier and the associated Eduard PE.

I spent about 30 hours cleaning and fixing molding defects in the parts prior to breaking out the glue. In addition to the Academy barrel, breach block, and upper carriage, I ended up scratch building the spades from sheet and strip styrene and copper rings. As I wanted to depict this in firing order, I decided to only build the top portion of the spades that would be visible above ground level. I added / corrected a lot of details to the carriage and limber.

I wanted to depict as gun 51 in Battery C, 148th Field Artillery AEF in a French 4-color camo scheme with bucking bronc & rider regimental logo on the trails. I chose to depict it in firing order rather than traveling order as in the photo. The completed model was primed with Krylon ColorMax rattle can primer from the local hardware store. I pre-sunned the upper parts with Tamiya white. After penciling on the camo pattern, I then used the silly putty method to apply the camo with a Badger 100G airbrush. I used Tamiya XF68 NATO Brown, XF66 NATO Green, XF60 Dark Yellow, and XF53 Neutral Gray for the camo colors with XF1 applied with a fine brush for the black interline. I applied a dot filter with Winsor & Newton Oils. My son-in-law created the decal artwork from photos and scans of the logo in the unit history. I attempted to create my own decals using the the Testor's decal kit for inkjet printers. The results were not acceptable. A fellow modeler printed the decals for me on a color laser printer.

The decals were applied after a coat of Future and then sealed with another coat of future. A pin wash of thinned AK Steaking Grime was applied to outline the details. This was followed by drybrushing with Winsor & Newton oils to highlight the details. AK Streaking Grime and AK Rainmarks for NATO vehicles were applied and then blended with mineral sprits. A thin dust coat of Tamiya XF72 JGSDF Brown was applied. The brass on the handwheels was polished up with AK Brass wax.

This ended up being a lot of work, but, the results were worth the effort.