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Quoted: The U.S. Army also had a 240mm (9.4") SPH for a time as well. These went away well before the 175s, though. Railway pieces went away not long after WWII, but those included 203mm/8" guns (guns, not howitzers), 240mm howitzers (may have been guns; I'd have to look it up at this point), and 12"/305mm mortars. Anything bigger post-war were fixed pieces and not field or mobile siege/coastal pieces, and all major-caliber fixed guns, howitzers, and mortars were taken out of service before the end of the 1950s, IIRC. I think the railways stuff was done away by the same time. Most pieces of either type were decommissioned before the 1950s. We used to have some big stuff, up to 16", as far as land-based pieces went. Most of those units were converted to ADA, I believe. View Quote We use air dropped bombs for that target set now. |
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No, they went away years ago.
If I recall correctly, the 175mm was a gun, while the 8 inch was a howitzer. There is a distinct difference. Guns are relatively high velocity with a flat trajectory. This means that a tiny change in velocity or elevation adjustment would cause a potential error in range. I forget the correct terminology, but rounds could land very long or very short. Therefore the 175mm gun was not suitable for providing indirect fire over friendly troops, the risk of a short round was way too high. There were also problems with the gun exploding. The 8 inch howitzer, on the other hand, was a very accurate weapon. They look similar because they use the same chassis. In Artillery world, the 8 inch guns were general support while the 155 and 105 mms were direct support. When MLRS same along it replaced the 8 inch as the GS weapon.. |
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Quoted: You young whippersnappers have no idea... Spearhead Special Weapons baby! https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOOpaIAWoAUN5AL.jpg:large View Quote is that hillaries snuke? |
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Quoted: No, they went away years ago. If I recall correctly, the 175mm was a gun, while the 8 inch was a howitzer. There is a distinct difference. Guns are relatively high velocity with a flat trajectory. This means that a tiny change in velocity or elevation adjustment would cause a potential error in range. I forget the correct terminology, but rounds could land very long or very short. Therefore the 175mm gun was not suitable for providing indirect fire over friendly troops, the risk of a short round was way too high. There were also problems with the gun exploding. The 8 inch howitzer, on the other hand, was a very accurate weapon. They look similar because they use the same chassis. In Artillery world, the 8 inch guns were general support while the 155 and 105 mms were direct support. When MLRS same along it replaced the 8 inch as the GS weapon.. View Quote The 175mm had the same issue as naval guns did. They were very accurate in deflection, but not so much at range. You had to use them for close support of ground troops only when they were parallel with the front lines. The 8inch could put multiple rounds in the same crater, so were used a lot for point targets. |
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Kentucky, in addition to a Brigade of 109s, also had a Brigade of M110s. Those 8" were some big ass shells, that Brigade was more south Central KY.....they traded for the MLRS.
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![]() Weapons Of The US Army Field Artillery - circa 1960 - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage |
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As I recall, the USMC had phased out the 175s mid-to late 1980s. During my first trip to 29 Palms in 1987, there was a 175 in the maintenance yard missing most of its barrel. A round detonated in the barrel when it was fired, killing one of the crew.
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Quoted: Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I was recently reading about them in a book about Vietnam, and the author was commenting on how they were apparently much less accurate than the 155mm howitzers, but pretty devastating when they could get them on target. Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. There was an 8" SP gun back in the late 80's. Same chassis as a M578 recovery vehicle. |
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Quoted: Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. View Quote Replaced by rocket artillery. |
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Quoted: Atomic Annie: Hold my beer https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/61458/Nuclear_artillery_test_Grable_Event_-_Pa-2629750.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon View Quote Now, that will fix any accuracy complaints and it's not even a PGM! |
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Quoted: You sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this gun. 203mm is a monster. Wear hearing protection! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/203mm_Self-Propelled_Howitzer_M110A2.JPG View Quote My dad who was in 1/1 usmc in vietnam had a story, when he came back to base in da nang from being in the field they gave his squad some tents to sleep in that were next to the m110s and he said he was asleep when they started firing and he said he levitated 4 feet off the cot, said it was the loudest thing he ever heard and was like an earthquake |
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Quoted: My dad who was in 1/1 usmc in vietnam had a story, when he came back to base in da nang from being in the field they gave his squad some tents to sleep in that were next to the m110s and he said he was asleep when they started firing and he said he levitated 4 feet off the cot, said it was the loudest thing he ever heard and was like an earthquake View Quote That's one hell of an alarm clock. I can only imagine all the cursing going on from the soldiers who woke up to that. |
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Quoted: The U.S. Army also had a 240mm (9.4") SPH for a time as well. These went away well before the 175s, though. Railway pieces went away not long after WWII, but those included 203mm/8" guns (guns, not howitzers), 240mm howitzers (may have been guns; I'd have to look it up at this point), and 12"/305mm mortars. Anything bigger post-war were fixed pieces and not field or mobile siege/coastal pieces, and all major-caliber fixed guns, howitzers, and mortars were taken out of service before the end of the 1950s, IIRC. I think the railways stuff was done away by the same time. Most pieces of either type were decommissioned before the 1950s. We used to have some big stuff, up to 16", as far as land-based pieces went. Most of those units were converted to ADA, I believe. View Quote Some of you are distinguishing between "guns" and "howitzers". What is the difference in what you mean? ETA, the nomenclature I am used to is, cannons are direct fire only, mortars are indirect fire only and howitzers can do both. |
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Quoted: Some of you are distinguishing between "guns" and "howitzers". What is the difference in what you mean? ETA, the nomenclature I am used to is, cannons are direct fire only, mortars are indirect fire only and howitzers can do both. View Quote Guns tend to have longer caliber barrels and correspondingly higher velocities. Historically, guns often could withstand heavier propelling charges as well (going back to the muzzle loading era, howitzers had a subcaliber chamber for the propellant which meant a significantly lighter charge, plus the barrels were usually only rated for shells and not solid projectiles like ML guns could use). Historically, howitzers were capable of higher elevations than guns which was good for indirect fire, but high-angle guns became a thing before WWII (the equivalent in ML days were "gun-howitzers" like the Napoleon gun and also columbiads). Guns were better for direct-fire and longer-range fire while howitzers were better for indirect fire. A modern gun will typically have a 45-caliber or longer barrel (before WWII, guns were often shorter, but howitzers shorter still). Some guns (especially minor-caliber) can go to 70 calibers of length or more. Howitzers tend to have shorter barrels. I don't think there is much if a distinction anymore with regards to elevation, although I suspect that on average howitzers are designed for higher angles than guns. Mortars are designed exclusively for high-angle fire and have low velocities (an exception to the former are the few gun-mortar designs that are breech-loading as well). They are often muzzle-loading because of this (most of the old major-caliber mortars, largely gone now worldwide, were necessarily breech-loading) and muzzle-loaders tend to be smooth-bore as well. Some smooth-bore guns exist, like some tank guns and recoilless guns, but most are rifles. Modern howitzers are pretty versatile. |
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Putting a guiding system on a 203mm shell would be impressive.
Gotta be cheaper than MLRS. |
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Quoted: There was an 8" SP gun back in the late 80's. Same chassis as a M578 recovery vehicle. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I was recently reading about them in a book about Vietnam, and the author was commenting on how they were apparently much less accurate than the 155mm howitzers, but pretty devastating when they could get them on target. Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. There was an 8" SP gun back in the late 80's. Same chassis as a M578 recovery vehicle. The 8” M110A2 was used as late as Desert Storm. They were employed alongside MLRS to maintain continuity of fire while the launchers reloaded. |
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Quoted: Atomic Annie: Hold my beer https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/61458/Nuclear_artillery_test_Grable_Event_-_Pa-2629750.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon View Quote That cannon is still out at the Nevada test site, I saw it out there while doing some work there. |
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Quoted: Putting a guiding system on a 203mm shell would be impressive. Gotta be cheaper than MLRS. View Quote M110s had a larger crew than an M270, shorter range, were more expensive and fired a shell with a vastly smaller payload. Cheaper individual rounds isn't much of a good tradeoff for all that. Also, sustainable rate of fire for a 203 is, I'm guessing, quite a bit lower than for a 155. |
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Quoted: You sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this gun. 203mm is a monster. Wear hearing protection! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/203mm_Self-Propelled_Howitzer_M110A2.JPG View Quote Put an auto-loader on that sucker, and design an ammo rack that's easy to feed. Then connect it to some wiz-bang drone/GPS/counter-battery radar, and drive around blasting big ass warship sized shells, and landing direct hits. It would be glorious for the motherland! |
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Quoted: Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: I was recently reading about them in a book about Vietnam, and the author was commenting on how they were apparently much less accurate than the 155mm howitzers, but pretty devastating when they could get them on target. Pretty sure the army doesn't use artillery bigger than 155mm anymore. During the cold war years, mainly the 60s and 70s, the army had artillery up to 203mm. That's pretty damn big for an artillery piece on land. That's the same size gun that most heavy cruisers used during WWII. Some might still exist in storage somewhere and might be part of some other's country army. You can't blame them for phasing them out though. Something that big is hard to maintain and difficult to crew due to the size of the shells and equipment. Not to mention that is is cumbersome in a SPG role and probably difficult to tow. It seems that smaller caliber guns, rockets, and air power can do the just as well or better. All the retired big guns are outside of the VA centers, atleast The one here it has 2 M107 175mm in front of it |
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Quoted: Quoted: Also in recent decades - as the current war is extensively demonstrating - militaries have figured out that it is almost always better to trade boom for precision. You have that…backwards. ![]() I have no idea how you came up with that. Yes russia is using mass-artillery like its WW1 but Ukraine is using precision fires and kicking ass with it. |
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Quoted: NATO is funny, they wanted everyone to have a 30+ km Corps artillery piece, so they all bought RAP for their longest ranged systems. Now, they all use 52 caliber barrels to shoot long range. And length keeps going up, 54-60 is now a thing. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: What the 175mm brought to the fight in its day was range. It was the only artillery system we had in Vietnam that could out range every Soviet piece used by the NVA. The Israelis used them extensively against SAM sites in the Sinai in 1973. MLRS ultimately filled that role, but back in the day the range of the 175 was invaluable. NATO is funny, they wanted everyone to have a 30+ km Corps artillery piece, so they all bought RAP for their longest ranged systems. Now, they all use 52 caliber barrels to shoot long range. And length keeps going up, 54-60 is now a thing. It’s interesting - the M107’s 175mm was an L60, and the M109’s 155mm started out as a measly L23 - giving it a much shorter range - those two guns entered service at about the same time. So if you needed arty with long range, 175mm L60 was a good answer. Many armies later went to 155mm L39 in the ‘70’s and then 155mm L52 (e.g. PzH2000). And yeah now it has come full circle to look at L58 or L60 for the next howitzer… |
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Quoted: Quoted: The video posted today of the Russians getting trashed, what MM are Ukes using? They are using 155,152, and 122mm They also have 203mm, although I'm not sure they are being used wherever the video was shot. Also 105s. Not sure if they have 100s, 130s, or any other sizes (the Russians are using 130s, though, and for mortars even have 240s). |
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Quoted: As I recall, the USMC had phased out the 175s mid-to late 1980s. During my first trip to 29 Palms in 1987, there was a 175 in the maintenance yard missing most of its barrel. A round detonated in the barrel when it was fired, killing one of the crew. View Quote I initially thought the 175mm was retired after the first Gulf War, but I never saw a single 175mm SP gun in SWA that I can recall; all M198 towed howitzers. |
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Quoted: Put an auto-loader on that sucker, and design an ammo rack that's easy to feed. Then connect it to some wiz-bang drone/GPS/counter-battery radar, and drive around blasting big ass warship sized shells, and landing direct hits. It would be glorious for the motherland! View Quote Not quite. While both ground and ship mounted 8-inch are the same diameter, the ship shells are considerably larger in length and capacity. |
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Quoted: Put an auto-loader on that sucker, and design an ammo rack that's easy to feed. Then connect it to some wiz-bang drone/GPS/counter-battery radar, and drive around blasting big ass warship sized shells, and landing direct hits. It would be glorious for the motherland! View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: You sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of this gun. 203mm is a monster. Wear hearing protection! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/203mm_Self-Propelled_Howitzer_M110A2.JPG Put an auto-loader on that sucker, and design an ammo rack that's easy to feed. Then connect it to some wiz-bang drone/GPS/counter-battery radar, and drive around blasting big ass warship sized shells, and landing direct hits. It would be glorious for the motherland! Would be a waste of effort and money. Sustained rate of fire on it was 1-2 rounds per minute. |
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Quoted: M110s had a larger crew than an M270, shorter range, were more expensive and fired a shell with a vastly smaller payload. Cheaper individual rounds isn't much of a good tradeoff for all that. Also, sustainable rate of fire for a 203 is, I'm guessing, quite a bit lower than for a 155. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Putting a guiding system on a 203mm shell would be impressive. Gotta be cheaper than MLRS. M110s had a larger crew than an M270, shorter range, were more expensive and fired a shell with a vastly smaller payload. Cheaper individual rounds isn't much of a good tradeoff for all that. Also, sustainable rate of fire for a 203 is, I'm guessing, quite a bit lower than for a 155. All the 8 inch units that I know of converted either to MLRS or Paladins (M109A6). The 8 inch did have some interesting shells though. DPICM was a thing with it and the RAP rounds shooing 9 red bag was pretty awesome. Then throw in the nuke rounds and nerve gas rounds. The special rounds all had a lot of things you had to do with them, so it made the fire direction even more "fun". ![]() |
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Quoted: M110s had a larger crew than an M270, shorter range, were more expensive and fired a shell with a vastly smaller payload. Cheaper individual rounds isn't much of a good tradeoff for all that. Also, sustainable rate of fire for a 203 is, I'm guessing, quite a bit lower than for a 155. View Quote Yeah, but it’s still MLRS. They say the hardest part of being a 13M is telling your parents that you’re gay. |
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Quoted: That's how all artillery is, and unfortunately, when the guns are behind your troops and the enemy in front that makes it a lot more dangerous if you use it to support troops. Not as big a deal for deep fires. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: In the book I'm reading, the author makes the point many times that its deviations laterally were almost nonexistent, but its deviations longitudinally were really bad. I'm sure I'm stating this incorrectly - I don't know the tech nomenclature - but in sum the author pretty much said side-to-side accuracy in the trajectory it was super solid, but it sucked really bad at calculated target distance. That's how all artillery is, and unfortunately, when the guns are behind your troops and the enemy in front that makes it a lot more dangerous if you use it to support troops. Not as big a deal for deep fires. Nothing really dangerous with overhead fires by cannons. Other than rocket malfunction for RAP, fuze malfunction(doubtful closer to the tgt), and human errors, it is easy to isolate & account for potential range errors. Looks like the 175 definitely struggled with tube wear which obviously affects MVs and thus exacerbates range errors. 300 EFC tube life. oof ![]() from here: https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-12/index.html |
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In Vietnam - if you wanted range, then the 175 fit the bill, but dispersion was bad and accuracy suffered. If you wanted accuracy, the 8 in. fit the bill, but had around 1/3 to 1/2 the range of the 175, but probably one of the most accurate artillery pieces we ever had. Pick your poison. The barrels were interchangeable on the carriages, though, so you could swap them if you needed to and had the time.
jd1 |
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Quoted: I initially thought the 175mm was retired after the first Gulf War, but I never saw a single 175mm SP gun in SWA that I can recall; all M198 towed howitzers. View Quote I concur. The arty unit at Pendleton I visited still had 105 and 155 howitzers (with WW2 dates on their breeches!) But in the field and deployed it was all 198s. |
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I got to drive an 8” gun at Eglin. I’m not sure why there was a functioning one on base but as I had to “wait for EOD training to begin” I got lent out to a Ballistics lab sand blasting old big gun parts.
Fun fact the GBU-28 had a run of them made from old 8” gun barrels in the beginning of their development. That was one long ass bomb. |
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Quoted: Nothing really dangerous with overhead fires by cannons. Other than rocket malfunction for RAP, fuze malfunction(doubtful closer to the tgt), and human errors, it is easy to isolate & account for potential range errors. Looks like the 175 definitely struggled with tube wear which obviously affects MVs and thus exacerbates range errors. 300 EFC tube life. oof https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/99516/Capture_JPG-2630233.JPG from here: https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-12/index.html View Quote Depends on the system for close support. Naval gun fire always had range errors due to wave action, so you had to factor that in to the fire support plan and make sure to use it only when they were parallel to the front lines. CAS was a shit show most of the time, so you never used it for any danger close missions unless things were fucked and you didn't have any other choice. This has probably changed in the last 30 years due to precision laser guided bombs. Most towed/tracked artillery was great for range (except for the 175mm which if I remember correctly was still taught in OBC back in the early 90s), so you could use it for danger close mission as long as you were behind the front lines. If you were at an angle approaching perpendicular, then you had to account for the deflection errors. |
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Quoted: "203mm"... ![]() Nobody ever called it a 203mm howitzer. 8-inch, people! WTF? 50 tons...? An M110A2 (the howitzer I crewed in Germany) didn't weigh anywhere near 50 fucking tons. A 4-square HE 'jo weighed just a bit over 200lbs, with a fuze installed. 250lbs... ![]() The average section was 6-8 guys. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: "203mm"... ![]() Nobody ever called it a 203mm howitzer. 8-inch, people! A 50 ton vehicle with a giant barrel that fires a 250lb shell that requires a large crew (wiki says 14 men) can't be that easy, can it? WTF? 50 tons...? An M110A2 (the howitzer I crewed in Germany) didn't weigh anywhere near 50 fucking tons. A 4-square HE 'jo weighed just a bit over 200lbs, with a fuze installed. 250lbs... ![]() The average section was 6-8 guys. Thank you. 8 inch all the way! |
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Quoted: Depends on the system for close support. Naval gun fire always had range errors due to wave action, so you had to factor that in to the fire support plan and make sure to use it only when they were parallel to the front lines. CAS was a shit show most of the time, so you never used it for any danger close missions unless things were fucked and you didn't have any other choice. This has probably changed in the last 30 years due to precision laser guided bombs. Most towed/tracked artillery was great for range (except for the 175mm which if I remember correctly was still taught in OBC back in the early 90s), so you could use it for danger close mission as long as you were behind the front lines. If you were at an angle approaching perpendicular, then you had to account for the deflection errors. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: Nothing really dangerous with overhead fires by cannons. Other than rocket malfunction for RAP, fuze malfunction(doubtful closer to the tgt), and human errors, it is easy to isolate & account for potential range errors. Looks like the 175 definitely struggled with tube wear which obviously affects MVs and thus exacerbates range errors. 300 EFC tube life. oof https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/99516/Capture_JPG-2630233.JPG from here: https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-12/index.html Depends on the system for close support. Naval gun fire always had range errors due to wave action, so you had to factor that in to the fire support plan and make sure to use it only when they were parallel to the front lines. CAS was a shit show most of the time, so you never used it for any danger close missions unless things were fucked and you didn't have any other choice. This has probably changed in the last 30 years due to precision laser guided bombs. Most towed/tracked artillery was great for range (except for the 175mm which if I remember correctly was still taught in OBC back in the early 90s), so you could use it for danger close mission as long as you were behind the front lines. If you were at an angle approaching perpendicular, then you had to account for the deflection errors. We're talking howitzers in this thread, but yep-agreed, CCA, CAS, and NSFS can be problematic. |
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Quoted: You have that backwards. View Quote I think he has it, precisely. |
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