Vickers, Sons & Company/Vickers, Sons & Maim/Naylor, Vickers, & Co. were chummy with Krupp post 1900 and were paying royalties for either armament, ammo or both. Alone Krupp couldn't make great advances as they had contractual obligations. But by 1912 they too were in the stainless steel game. So, why not lump the steel type recipes and armament together in one royalty payment?? The reason I mention this is that I suspect that Thomas Kilby & Sons procured steel from one of the Vickers entities/reps and they would pretty much have had one stop shopping: Krupp, Vickers, Whitworth, and possibly others. Armstrong was shackled to both Vickers and Whitworth and may have been the Whitworth link but I'm not sure of the date or time period when it all materialzied -
http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...true#Post177490 .
The reason for all this Vickers conjecture is that there's a stamp forward of the flats that reminds me of either a Vicker's hardness test(but this was 1924 or after) or a Vicker's type trademark. Also, I'm not sure I've seen the English version of the Krupp 3 Ring Gun Barrel Steel. But could Krupp have broken the deal with Sauer and doled out the 3 Ring Steel to Vickers, or some other steel entity that was paying royalties? This might be all for naught as it might be that of Matska.
As a side note I forgot to mention in the 1897-1902 period Bethlehem Steel(of Penn. I think) was also in the mix and all involved paid Krupp $45 per ton of hull armour produced. So the Krupp-Bethlehem connection also.
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
