Ladies and gents, 1989 was my last year at school. I spent that year at a school in the town of Potchefstroom, South Africa, where the artillery command was.
We were fortunate to have a cadet program at the school with a rifle range on the premises. We had .22 bolt action rifles and we had teachers who were ex military teaching us how to shoot and also teaching some of the academic subjects.
One weekend we were given the opportunity to spend the weekend with the bombardiers at the Potchefstroom artillery range. There were various items of interest there, including an R4 rifle (a Galil clone), the Ratel APC (6x6) and about six or seven 25 pounder howitzers. Here is a detailed image of a 25 pounder:
http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/howitzer.htm
The primary focus of the weekend was artillery, and the target was a double-decker bus a few kilometres away. Now you might think that hitting something as big as a bus should be fairly easy with all that ordnance. Well it was much more complicated than any of us teenagers ever imagined.
Firstly, there was mathematics involved. We didn't even know what a theodolite was until that weekend, much less how to work the bearings on the gun relative to the theodolite. The first day was spent trying to nail that down, and the basic function of the gun itself. By the end of the first day we were firing those guns. Each gun fired 76 rounds over the course of the weekend. The Ratel was used to get us to the bus to inspect the damage. Believe it or not, despite our best efforts, we only scored one direct hit and two partials. It is not like the movies where you can just wind some wheels a little and then smack that bus with your next shot. At that distance you can't see diddly, you are relying on advice from the command tent.
Unfortunately for me (and this a big regret and a lesson for all of us) I did not attach much urgency to the acquisition of copies of photographs taken on the day. I didn't have a camera but others did, and I didn't pursue copies or negatives because we were nearing the end of the year and had exams to worry about. I really wish I had pictures of myself with those guns. It is almost 18 years on now, and the chances of getting those pictures are much reduced. However I did manage to track down one of my classmates and he had two pictures from that day:
Three embarrassing moments that must be documented:
1) Whilst unloading a trailer (the ammunition was packed in two-round tins) one of the tins came open and a round fell out and landed on its nose at my feet. I will not describe in detail how I felt, but it was almost an inappropriate evacuation of my bowels right there. Of course I didn't know at the time that the projectile must do several rotations in the barrel before it is armed.
2) Our group got into a fair amount of trouble for transporting a gun to its towing vehicle while the sighting mechanism was still attached to the gun. That was under my direction as the number 1
3) We got caught out by one of the bombardiers who was a bit of a joker. While transporting us to the bus in the Ratel APC, he suggested that we look out of the top hatches so we could survey the range better. They roared with laughter when we got whipped by the antenna which was not secured for that particular trip
Not a bad day out for a bunch of final year school boys, eh? I am actively trying to get more pictures from that weekend. This is one of those things where you realise a few years down the line that you should have got the pictures back then.
We were fortunate to have a cadet program at the school with a rifle range on the premises. We had .22 bolt action rifles and we had teachers who were ex military teaching us how to shoot and also teaching some of the academic subjects.
One weekend we were given the opportunity to spend the weekend with the bombardiers at the Potchefstroom artillery range. There were various items of interest there, including an R4 rifle (a Galil clone), the Ratel APC (6x6) and about six or seven 25 pounder howitzers. Here is a detailed image of a 25 pounder:
http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/howitzer.htm
The primary focus of the weekend was artillery, and the target was a double-decker bus a few kilometres away. Now you might think that hitting something as big as a bus should be fairly easy with all that ordnance. Well it was much more complicated than any of us teenagers ever imagined.
Firstly, there was mathematics involved. We didn't even know what a theodolite was until that weekend, much less how to work the bearings on the gun relative to the theodolite. The first day was spent trying to nail that down, and the basic function of the gun itself. By the end of the first day we were firing those guns. Each gun fired 76 rounds over the course of the weekend. The Ratel was used to get us to the bus to inspect the damage. Believe it or not, despite our best efforts, we only scored one direct hit and two partials. It is not like the movies where you can just wind some wheels a little and then smack that bus with your next shot. At that distance you can't see diddly, you are relying on advice from the command tent.
Unfortunately for me (and this a big regret and a lesson for all of us) I did not attach much urgency to the acquisition of copies of photographs taken on the day. I didn't have a camera but others did, and I didn't pursue copies or negatives because we were nearing the end of the year and had exams to worry about. I really wish I had pictures of myself with those guns. It is almost 18 years on now, and the chances of getting those pictures are much reduced. However I did manage to track down one of my classmates and he had two pictures from that day:
Three embarrassing moments that must be documented:
1) Whilst unloading a trailer (the ammunition was packed in two-round tins) one of the tins came open and a round fell out and landed on its nose at my feet. I will not describe in detail how I felt, but it was almost an inappropriate evacuation of my bowels right there. Of course I didn't know at the time that the projectile must do several rotations in the barrel before it is armed.
2) Our group got into a fair amount of trouble for transporting a gun to its towing vehicle while the sighting mechanism was still attached to the gun. That was under my direction as the number 1
3) We got caught out by one of the bombardiers who was a bit of a joker. While transporting us to the bus in the Ratel APC, he suggested that we look out of the top hatches so we could survey the range better. They roared with laughter when we got whipped by the antenna which was not secured for that particular trip
Not a bad day out for a bunch of final year school boys, eh? I am actively trying to get more pictures from that weekend. This is one of those things where you realise a few years down the line that you should have got the pictures back then.
