155mm question

[p35]

Question for red legs out there:

I was reading a profile of a 155mm battery in Iraq. They made the comment that there's a rule of thumb that they don't fire more than a dozen rounds a day because otherwise the concussion makes the crew too disoriented and dizzy. Of course, they exceed the limit if needed in combat, but it's hard on the crew.

It seems pretty inefficient to me to get a 155mm in place and set up to only fire a dozen rounds a day. Also I suspect the damage accumulates on the crew. Isn't there some way to protect a gun crew from this?

 

[Yohan]

Switch out crew members? Take shifts? The concept! Isn't it baffling? !

 

[T.Stahl]

Replace them with German PzH2000s. Fully automatic 155mm self-propelled howitzer, capable of firing more than 12 rounds in the first minute.

 

[PsyWarrior]

A dozen rounds from 1 battery isn't bad. Remember that you have up to 20 batterys per unit. As to set up, it only takes a few minutes to set one up. Just longer to get mobile again.

Yohan, russian roullette works with a semi auto if you use snap cap and 1 live round. Have 3rd party load magazine randomly. No problem.....

 

[Blackhawk]

Doubt it. Spotted 18 rounds of 175mm from 4 guns over a period of about 10 minutes in Vietnam. If there'd been something left worth hitting, they would have been happy to keep it coming all day.

They don't want to overheat their tubes, though.

 

[Yohan]

Psywarrior, it wouldn't be so random then, would it?

 

[EOD Guy]

A dozen rounds from 1 battery isn't bad. Remember that you have up to 20 batterys per unit

?????

As far as I remember, a 155mm howitzer battery contained about 6 guns. I don't know what you mean by 20 batteries per unit. An artillery battery is a subdivision of an artillery battalion, just as an infantry company is a subdivision of an infantry battalion.

 

[Al Thompson]

I suspect seriously that this is bad info. Ours shot a lot more than that in training.

 

[Jeff White]

All of the US towed howitzers I've seen on the news were the M198 155mm howitzers belonging to the Marines. The Army also uses this howitzer, but I don't think they have any in theater except maybe the two M198 batteries that support both the 101st and 82d Airborne.

I haven't seen them load any cut charges, just full charge, looked to be charge 8 red bag, which is the maximum charge you can fire. According to the TM for the M198 you can only fire around 120 full charge rounds a day without risking injury to the crew. (I don't recall the exact number off the top of my head, I can look it up if anyone is interested.) The number of rounds you can fire safely depends on what charge you are shooting.

The American 155mm howitzers use seperate loading ammunition. This means that the projectile is loaded and then the charge (which is in cloth bags, much the same way it came for the 12 pounder Napoleon cannon used in the Civil War).

There are three types of charges, green bag, white bag and red bag. Green bag has five charges, white bag has seven and red bag has eight. The charge you fire is computed by the fire direction center. You always shoot the maximum charge you have when you shoot direct fire engagements.

The concussion is amazing. Much worse then being next to the guy with the post ban AR with muzzle brake on the range

When they were changing my Guard unit over from Infantry to Artillery and we were doing transition training, one of the instructors pointed out just how strong the concussion was. We were at Ft McCoy WI and had been bothered by the usual flies and mosquitos...till we started shooting. The instructor asked where we thought the bugs went? Nobody knew, it was suggested that they just flew away...wrong..they were dead on the ground..the concussion killed them. We were shooting charge 4 green bag, which is one of the lightest charges you can fire.

Jeff

 

[Mike Irwin]

Blackhawk...

"spotted 175mm in Vietnam"

What 175 was used in Vietnam?

I thought American field arty went from 155 to 240?

 

[Jeff White]

Mike,
We used to have a 175mm howitzer. It was self propelled and was the longest ranged gun we had. They weren't all that accuate though. The 8 inch replaced it and the MLRS has since replaced the 8 inch, making the 155mm the biggest howitzer currently in use by US forces, even though it's still called a Medium gun.

Jeff

 

[Mike Irwin]

Well I'll be. I never knew that, Jeff! Thanks.

If Aberdeen Proving Ground ever reopens to civilians, maybe I'll see one of those.

 

[Blackhawk]

Mike, I believe they were M107s based at Ban Me Thuot in II Corps, but I don't remember the unit designation since our mission didn't normally involve artillery and we only rarely called on them.

 

[mons meg]

What Jeff White said...and

I was an FDC (fire direction center) computerman during my time in the USMCR. When were were in action during Desert Storm, I can't remember any fire missions where we *didn't* shoot charge 8. What happened then is what seems to happen now during a strong armor push...the fire support units have a hard time keeping up with the rapidly advancing front line. By the time we would stop the convoy and get the guns laid in (surveyed for exact positions) the heavy armor and LAIs would be so far out there all our targets they needed taken out were pushing max range for us.


Incidentally, "red bag" is charge 8 only...there are no increments for that hell powder. The cannon portion of the M198 system recoils violently, and the base plate almost look as if it is going to leave the ground. Charge 8 Red, plus a RAP (rocket assisted projectile) will get you a max range of about 30K meters according to the TFT. (tabular firing table). Incidentally, charge 8 also will send a 95lb HE projectile out of the tube at around 2300-2400fps. We had a couple lucky shots on tanks, and according to the FO's, there isn't much left of a T62 when said high velocity steel chunk impacts old Russian armor. Who needs depleted uranium?

 

[mons meg]

Also, FYI an artillery battery is (as EOD guy stated earlier) roughly equivalent to an infantry company. Our unit, Battery F, 2/14 consisted of two gun platoons of three howitzers each, a motor transport platoon, and an HQ platoon. Normally the FDC is part of the HQ platoon, but our unit was so overstrength we were able to put together two complete FDC sections and attached them to the two gun platoons.

After we arrived at Lejeune in Dec. '90, were were given two extra howitzers, so our battery was an "augmented" 8 gun battery, as were most Marine batteries in the Gulf. This, combined with our two FDC layout, allowed us to do true "split ops", meaning we could engage two separate targets on two separate fire missions simultaneously.

We did rock the casbah over there, if I do say so myself.

 

[Dannyboy]

A Paladin battalion is made up of 4 batteries. IIRC it's 3 line batteries and a HQ battery. Each firing battery is made up pretty much the same way, 3 firing platoons with 4 guns and a HQ platoon. I'm not sure how they run their FDC ops but in MLRS, we had our own FDC tracks in each firing platoon.

As for the original question, not true. Or if it is true it's not followed at all.

 

[Gmac]

12 rounds???????? I was in A 1/30 arty in RVN 1969-70 and we'd put more than that on H&I targets every night in addition to supporting fire for infantry etc.Can't remember if we swabbed out the breech after every round or every three rounds but we shot a helluva lot more than 12 rounds per day, I guess that's why everyone in the battery lost his hearing.Interesting about red bag powder, we had green bag & white bag & charge 7 white bag was max. charge. This was a 155 split trail but I can't remember the model no. ( H&I target = bicycle track in jungle seen by intelligence personnel,we'd fire on the chance the bad guys might be in the vicinity)

 

[EOD Guy]

We used to have a 175mm howitzer.

There was no 175mm howitzer in Vietnam. The 175 was classified as a gun, not a howitzer.

 

[mons meg]

Interesting....this is from dictionary.com:

Howitzer:

A relatively short cannon that delivers shells at a medium muzzle velocity, usually by a high trajectory.

\How"itz*er\, n. [G. haubitze, formerly hauffnitz, Bohem. haufnice, orig., a sling.] (Mil.) (a) A gun so short that the projectile, which was hollow, could be put in its place by hand; a kind of mortar. [Obs.] (b) A short, light, largebore cannon, usually having a chamber of smaller diameter than the rest of the bore, and intended to throw large projectiles with comparatively small charges.

n : a muzzle-loading cannon with a short barrel that fires shells at high elevations for a short range [syn: mortar, trench mortar]


So by these definitions I would not consider the M198, M109, or the little M101A1 (105mm) as howitzers, since they are all breach loaded and capable of long ranges and high velocities.

 

[Mike Irwin]

Found a neat "action image" of the M107, as well as some websites with specifications...

Never knew this thing existed!

 

[moa]

I am quite surprised to see so much towed artillery still in use. I would have figured it would all be self-propelled by now. It is not like that is a new concept.

Anybody know why so much reliance on towed artillery? Seems to me to quite vulnerable too.

I understand from a conversation with a Nation Guard artillery officer at work, that the rule for towed artillery was "shoot and scoot". Fire three rounds per gun per mission and get the hell away. Of course, that was the concept during the Cold War in the 1980s.

Does that sound right?

 

[hops]

Cost as I understand it. Towed artillery is less expensive to build and maintain as self-propelled artillery.

 

[Al Thompson]

I would imagine most of the towed stuff is either 101st/82nd or USMC. Eaiser to deploy than SP.

Shoot and scoot would be to get away from counter battery fire.

 

[mons meg]

The preferred method of counter battery fire for the USMC is either the F/A-18 C/D or the AV-8B, although the M198 will do in a pinch.

 

[p35]

Since at least the Marines in Lebanon, the US has had "firefinder" radars that track a shell in flight and give the coordinates of the tube that fired it before it even reaches the target. If the other side has those, you "shoot and scoot" before they dial those coordinates into their own artillery. In a situation like Iraq, where the other side isn't trying to do counterbattery fire, movement is less urgent. I hear they are using the FireFinders to discourage the Iraqis from popping off mortar rounds at their own people.