By any means necessary, swing the 6½-ton gun around to the proper direction and one of you use the wheelie things on the left side of the cannon back-end to fine tune the direction (up and down, left and right). Then one of you opens up the back-end of the cannon using the handle thingy attached to the barrel plug. Somebody else by now should have a big bullet all put together with one of the right (as opposed to wrong) nose cone things screwed onto the end of it. Stuff it up into the opening so that the brass ring on the big bullet is stuffed up good and tight with those groove things inside the barrel. Be careful of your fingers the big bullets are heavy. Someone else should now have the gunpowder bags ready to toss into the opening. Note; use all of them if you want it to shoot real far and not all of them if you want to shoot closer. The person who opened the barrel end then closes it and puts one of those smaller bullet looking things into the metal clapper thing and screws it into the hole on the back of the barrel plug. You are now ready to fire your first round. Flip a coin to see who gets to pull the pull rope to fire it. Authors Note: As you can see by the above illustration, it's not as easy as it may seem. And though there are many within the Army today as well as within our own organization that may argue the "pure" meaning to the term "Professional Soldier." The young men I served with in Vietnam were all professionals in their own right. So out of respect for all of the Redlegs of the 1/92nd Field Artillery Association, Vietnam and our brothers who have gone to the big Ft. Sill in the sky we are going to do this right. We will try not to bore the reader with too much technical stuff and we will try to explain what we mean and write, if no where else than in the glossary. |
|
|
|
Cannon M1A1 (weights & specs):
|
Howitzer M114A1 (weights):
|
Misc. information and data: The external surface of the cannon tube is machined to form a bearing surface, which slides in the recoil mechanism cradle and cylinder yoke during recoil and counterrecoil. Recoil mechanism is of the Hydropneumatic, variable-recoil type, utilizing a floating piston to separate the fluid from the nitrogen. Initial nitrogen pressure at 70° F is 1,650 psi. The recoil cylinder controls the movement of the cannon during recoil and counterrecoil and the recuperator cylinders return the weapon to battery after firing. Recoil varies by elevation. The M1A1 carriage is equipped with a rack and pinion type-firing jack and the M1A2 carriage is equipped with a screw type-firing jack. |
|
The Parts to a Howitzer |
|
|
|
The M1A2 Firing Jack |
The major parts of the Howitzer when viewed from the left front. |