Thursday, December 3, 2009

Fun with the king of battle



Infantry has always been considered to be the queen of battle. Artillery is known as the King of battle because they place their balls where the queen wants them. My experience with all this dates from the very early 1960s where Uncle Sam assigned me to protect Europe from the red plague. I don't have pictures of the M-109 155 howitzer that I later served with, but here are the two towed howitzers we had: To the left is A battery firing 105mm towed howitzer. The shell is separate (not separate loading, which means you screw in the fuse, pull the projo off the shell and cut and remove powder to the amount you need, stick it back together, hand it to the loader and shoot.







Next is B battery in the snow with 155mm howitzers. Notice tha A battery is in a tree line with camoflauge nets. B battery is in a staggered formation with the howitzers one bursting radius apart. That means when they fire a "fire for effect" the whole target area will be filled with no gaps in coverage.





This is what one of these howitzers looks like up close. It throws a 94 pound projo (give or take a few squares (artillery talk). The ammunition is separate loading, which means you screw in the fuse and load the projo, then the powder after you take out what you don't need.







Here is the money picture. Not a handful of people in a million have ever seen this. When you see this, get ready to go deaf. When you can see this, you know somebody out there is in a heap of trouble.








Lest you forget what we are here for, here is what you see when the tumult and the fighting dies:

















Artillerymen are driven creatures. The most important things in their lives are the guns and the mission. Their job is to put metal on target, even if they have to carry it out there on their back.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow, neighbor, those are great photos! Thank you for your service to our country, especially when you were freezing over there!

PiccoloKate in Texas