Fire
Mission The 1/92nd Field
Artillery |
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Fire Mission by the Numbers |
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The tables below illustrate the title/number of the howitzer crewmembers and their functions before and during a fire mission and, as was common in Vietnam, who did what, while you were short of personnel | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Howitzer Section Crewmembers (table 1)
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Crewmembers Duties (table 2) |
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Title/Number | Basic Functions |
Chief of Section | In charge of making sure everything is set properly |
Gunner | Lay howitzer, set quadrant and deflection, adjust for displacement |
Assistant Gunner | Opens/closes breech, sets and changes primer, fires the howitzer |
Cannoneer #1 | Assembles swab, pail, rammer staff, rams Projo w/#4, swabs powder chamber |
Cannoneer #2 | Prep ammo, fuze ammo |
Cannoneer #3 | Jack up howitzer, carry Projo w/#6, loads powder |
Cannoneer #4 | Jack up howitzer, ram Projo w/#1 |
Cannoneer #5 | Sets out Aiming Posts and Collimator, assemble powder charge & pass to #3 |
Cannoneer #6 | Strings Commo wire to XO Post, preps ammo, carriers Projo w/#3 |
Driver | Drives prime mover |
Of course in Vietnam we got rid of the numbers and gave people really cool titles like RTO, Swabber, Rammer, Projo-man, Fuse-man and Powder-man. If you had a driver that did nothing but drive (as shown in tables 1&2) then he was basically worthless as everyone could drive the prime mover. Everyone in a howitzer section in Vietnam had a primary duty, but they knew everyone's duty as well so that when the need arose (and it always did) they could perform any and all of them without being taught or asked. In this picture you see a 9 man gun section and if this is truly "by the numbers" the #2 man is probably in the Ammo Bunker preparing and fusing the Projos that you see at the bottom right of the photo. From left to right across the photo we see:
In table 1 above, it shows the AG swabbing the powder chamber when the section is short handed… actually in Vietnam we not only threw out the book, we rewrote the book. Most gun sections though shorthanded, were so streamlined and efficient that the AG would have the Primer Lock/Firing Mechanism backed out (unlocking the breech) by the time the tube stopped it's rearward movement and used the movement of the tube as it went back into battery as the momentum for opening the breechblock. The Swabber was right there cleaning out the chamber and the Projo-man was right there stuffing the Projo into the chamber and he and the Rammer would seat it into the lans and grooves. The Swabber would then insert the powder; the AG would close the breechblock, lock the firing mechanism and fire. The Powder-man and the Fuze-man were responsible for making sure the correct Projos, Fuze, Fuze setting and Powder charges were assembled and staged to the rear of the howitzer recoil area. The Gunner set quadrant and deflection and corrected for movement of the howitzer during firing. The RTO yelled out (repeated back) the fire commands and wrote down the data for the record and the Section Chief made sure that everything was correct. When I asked some of my brothers from Charlie Battery for input on this piece I was reminded by my Section Chief, Reg Karg (who, by the way, is the Gunner in the above photo), that conditions in a combat situation are so different from training and we did whatever was required when someone needed HIGH EXPLOSIVE NOW! A couple of other things worth mentioning were also pointed out to me by Reg. After receiving our initial lay from the aiming circle we always shot our howitzers into the ground (to dig the trail spades in for recoil) and depending on the conditions of the ground in your gun pit the gunners were lucky to find enough collimator to adjust for displacement, sometimes having to rely on the aiming stakes to carry out the mission. Fire missions during the monsoon season were always both scary and funny. Scary, when you have a 6 ½ ton howitzer firing charge 6 or 7 with wet slippery ground, the assistant gunners would always have to guess just how long a lanyard (4-6' were common) to use, to stay out of the howitzers way on that first round. Funny, when the fire mission was over, all you could hear were the 5-ton trucks starting up all over the battery area and we would use 5-tons and cargo straps to pull the Pigs back into the gun pits. It was also very dangerous to be the Projo-man during the monsoons… trying to keep your footing while cradling a 97-pound Projo took a big and agile man. The Powder-man had to be fast and careful, waiting until the last second to rush out and insert the powder charge to keep it from being drenched. I think Reg said it best when he said "I am sure the Army brass would have had kittens if they saw how we really shot some of the fire missions we fired." "The Book" also said the maximum rate of fire for the 155mm Howitzer was 4 rounds a minute and the sustained rate was 1 per minute. If you were required to fire a mission by the book, it was easy to see why… everybody was in each other's way. Our gun could easily do close to 8 a minute if needed and sustain 4 per minute without a full crew. Of course there were those occasions when we had a visiting dignitary or when there was a special milestone achieved (5 Hundred Thousandth or 1 Millionth round) when they would make sure your section was up to strength so that the section could perform a "Fire Mission by the Numbers".
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