was a Dutch fortress, siege and naval rifled bronze breechloading gun.

In the Dutch army it was called Kanon Brons getrokken van 12 cm K.A..

It was a short bronze breechloading gun meant for indirect fire.

The label 'short' stood for the relatively short barrel, but also that the gun was meant for indirect fire.

In the army, there were also Long 12 cm guns, designated L. or Lang.

In March 1871 the Minister for Defense therefore sent two artillery officers to Switzerland to study a new bronze breech loading field gun of 84 mm caliber.

These officers bought a gun (the 8.4 cm Feldgeschütz Ord 1871) and 500 shot in Winterthur.

[4] In early 1872 the gun arrived and was successfully tested against the Dutch 8 cm rifled muzzle loader.

[6] The House of Representatives then urged the minister to procure breechloader field guns.

In July 1873 the minister of Defense then suddenly approved the 12 cm gun short.

In 1874 the Austrian army then held successful trials with a new gun presented by Franz von Uchatius.

[8] Uchatius copied[9] an autofrettage (avant la lettre) process from a 1869 American patent without a license[10] and marketed it as steel bronze (staalhard brons).

It was an alloy of 92% copper and 8% tin, which was made tougher by chilling and pressing it.

In 1871 the gun foundry Maritz Company in The Hague came under control of the War Office.

[17] By late 1879 the Rijks Geschutgieterij had been equipped to produce steel bronze guns.

[18] Instead an attempt was made to produce a steel bronze 84 mm field gun, which was urgently required.

The Rijks Geschutgieterij then spent the rest of 1880 casting 60 steel bronze 12 cm Long.

[21] The navy then founded its own gun foundry at Rijkswerf Amsterdam, because the Minister for War did not want to produce guns for the navy due to capacity problems.

In June 1877 the navy gun foundry started to operate.

[22] This casts some doubt about whether the Koninklijke Fabriek van Stoom- en andere werktuigen really finished guns founded by Rijks Geschutgieterij, or whether this applied to guns cast in Amsterdam from the start.

[7] The first carriage had been made from that of the 15 cm howitzer, and weighed 635 kg.

[33] The first ammunition consisted of ring shells (grenades) and canister shot.

On 11.4 cm from the bottom it had a lead ring to position it in the tube.

were produced, it became clear that bronze was less suitable for guns that required a heavier powder charge.

2 was used by ships in the Dutch East Indies that were meant for internal security.

Ships that were meant to combat foreign enemies, e.g. the Atjeh-class cruisers generally mounted the steel version.