15 cm Lang staal L/24
The 15 cm Lang staal L/24 was a Dutch rifled breechloading steel siege gun made by Krupp. Context The name 15 cm Lang staal L/24 The Dutch army had a rather efficient naming system for its artillery. The 15 cm Lang staal L/24 was at first known as '15 cm zwaar' in order to distinguish it from a planned '15 cm licht'. When many more breechloading guns appeared in the Dutch Army's inventory, it added an 'A' for (breechloader) to distinguish these from the smoothbore or rifled muzzle loaders. When steel and bronze guns of the same caliber appeared, it added the label (steel) to distinguish the 8 cm staal, 12 cm Lang staal and this gun as '15 cm Lang staal' from other guns. At first this gun was therefore simply known as '15 cm zwaar', later it became the '15 cm Lang staal'. However, within a few years, even longer guns of the same caliber appeared among the coastal artillery. Therefore, the Dutch army added the length in calibers (L/24) in order to keep these apart. In fact they did this only for the long guns, and by replacing the label 'Lang' with the exact length in calibers.