Thoughts on Field Artillery

[13 Bravo]

I served in the AZ ARNG '82-'90 In a 155 BN (M-109A2/3) I would like to hear any and all comments or thoughts about the Field Artillery before, during, or since this time period:avi:

 

[Rowan]

I was in a parallel universe about that time. I served in the Royal Australian Artillery as an Arty Section Commander (Lieutenant.. half battery) and FOO. I was in 2/15 Fld Regt (109s) and 10 Medium Regt (155s). ;-)

 

[brinktk]

I can give all sorts of insight into the US arsenal at least. I've been a Redleg as enlisted, NCO, and now Officer holding almost every concievable position from number one cannoneer section chief to platoon leader to Battalion Fire Support Officer for over a decade now. Just what would you like to know?

 

[MikeP]

What is involved in a "gunners error" of 32 degrees resulting in five rounds on 155mm HE landing inside a friendly perimeter st a range of 3 Ks?

This happened at my camp in 1969.

Did a lot of damage and injuries. We only got the above info regarding the error.

 

[brinktk]

Was it 5 rounds simultaneously or 5 rounds in succession? A 32 degree error is about a 566 mil error! That's huge. If 5 rounds impacted at the same time I'd say that whatever element fired was not layed properly onto an aiming reference. If it was 5 successive rounds that means the gunner likely put in the wrong number in the azimuth counter scale OR wasn't laid onto an aiming reference properly.

If they were only 3 klicks out, the discrepency would have been VERY noticable on the gunline. The only way it would not have been is if the Firebase had just a few guns at the apexes of the base and only one tube was responding to the fire mission.

Of course, the observer could have given a bad grid (usually either off by one grid square or called on their own position because they lost track of which grid they were using)

Whoever called it made it a fire for effect mission. Otherwise, the damage could have been nullified with the adjusting rounds where only 1 round would have impacted where it wasn't supposed to...instead of 5.

I would imagine these were the most likely scenerious for this type of mistake to happen.

 

[Rowan]

We had similar. 105 battery laid on an FPF according to fireplan were inadvertently moved by some douce to put up cam netting. 5 rounds fire for effect landed several kms out of area. Luckily no one hurt!