175mm cannon

[BLUEHAWK]

Any among us here ever been close by or actually pulled the string or crewed on firing a 175mm cannon?

Lordy, that's a large weapon...

How long and big around (in layman's terms, say, relative to a basketball) is the "bullet" :D?

What is its size and effectiveness/explosive-destructive power compared with the Naval sixteen inchers?

How far will it travel (maximum)?

What purpose does it serve in an arsenal? i.e. what would be its most ideal function and how many of them would a battery need?

How it the world do ya haul it around, up mountainsides and sandbox dunes or whatnot?

[Bill Farnie]

Lost my hearing for a few days while at FSB Bastogne when I walked by a self-propelled 175 when it had a fire mission.

[82Rigger]

Mike,

I've never been around artillery except to rig it for air drop, but Col Murph or a couple of arty folks in here should be able to answer some of your questions.

In the meantime, your questions aroused my curiosity so I looked up some of the specs.
The following are my conversions from metric:

Diameter of HE round: 175mm or 6.9 inches (a dollar bill is 6 inches long)

Range of HE round: 30+ Km or 18.6 + miles

Weight of HE round: 66.6 Kg or 146.8 pounds

Muzzle velocity: 914 meters per second or 2998 feet per second.

Couldn't find any info on the length of the projectile, but in the last pic below it looks to be around 3 feet long.

Here is a picture of an M107 self propelled vehicle as used in Vietnam:

[82Rigger]

Here is a pic of an Israeli soldier humping a 175 HE round:

[BLUEHAWK]

Jeez Rigger!

No man could be sitting IN that vehicle when it fired could they possibly!!!

Also, it looks to have outriggers at the back to help with recoil?

[Tamaroa]

WOW!!!!

As a deck ape on the Tam, I served as the hotshell man of a 3"/50. Each shell (fixed ammo) weighed about 33 pounds and I'd guess it was about 30 inches long.

Blue I'm guessing that that thing was probably designed something like ours. the 3 inchers were recoiless rifles. In other words, when the shell was fired, the breech block dropped emitting a huge sheet of flame out the rear of the barrel off setting the explosive force that propelled the projectile. We had no springs, or hydraulics. We had nothing to stop a recoil. The gun was just bolted to the deck and the breech block dropping was enough to counteract the force, hence no recoil.

Somebody jump in here if i'm wrong, please.

Bill

[catman]

The thing you call an outrigger is known as a spade. Used to hold the piece in place. Even with the large springs, recoil is a bitch. Usually there are at least three people on the vehicle when it fires.

Never trained with the .175's they were all given to the middle eastern countries before I entered service. Have read much about them but can't remember now. Seems they packed a hell of a lot of propellant.

Pho127, Col Murph or some of those guys could tell you more.

Trav

[Desdichado]

Are they a cannon or a gun? Or is there a difference; I forget.

I heard a bunch of railway trains pass overhead one time. Turned out to be 16 inchers from offshore. Holy mother of God but I'm glad I wasn't on the other end of that - or the front end either! I wonder what the hearing loss rate is for Battleship men.

[catman]

The 175 is a gun. A gun shoots a flatter trajectory than a howitzer. Think of a gun in relation to a pitcher throwing a fast ball and a howitzer as throwing a pumpkin. Although a howitzer can fire "straight" for most missions the round goes almost as high as is does far. A tank is a gun (read rifle, flat shooting).

For you sports fans, think of taking a 3-point shot in basketball, sure you can hit the rim if you throw it hard, but you are much more accurate if you loft it.

This is not "scripture" but it is the basic idea of how artillery works.

Trav

[Desdichado]

Yeah, I know about guns and howitzers; I was just trying to remember where "cannon" fit in. I guess all artillery are cannon.

As for recoilless weapons, they're designed to direct the same amount of energy backwards through clever venting as forwards, thus eliminating recoil. Pretty clever unless you're standing behind it. Apparently the very first one was mounted on airplane and accomplished the same thing by firing a shell forwards and a shell backwards at the same time. How'd ya like to be HIS wingman? :ek:

[colmurph]

The 175mm is a HOWITZER not a Gun. It is designed for High Angle Fire. Guns are designed for direct fire (Like the Gun Tube in a Tank Turret) It has a "Tube Life" of about 90 rounds at Maximum Charge, which means that the barrel has to be replaced after that many shots are fired because it isn't 175 mm any more. More like 178mm because the heat and pressure cause teriffic erosion in the barrel just in front of the powder chamber. After 90 rounds at max range the Howitzer is no longer accurate. At reduced charges the barrel lasts a little longer. I think that 5 charge 5 shots equal one charge 7 shot. So if you fired all your rounds at charge 5 you should be able to get 600 shots off before it's time for a tube change.

[catman]

Col...thanks for setting that straight. I was think the 175 was our last field gun. Like I said, I never trained on it, just read about it some.

Trav

[BLUEHAWK]

Trav - they were GIVEN to Middle East countries, fer cryin' out loud?

Murph - If a howitzer is intended for high angle fire, then what is the difference between it and a mortar, other than the obvious? And, what actually IS a cannon?

Bill - Did we have anything resembling the bore of a 175 back in them thar olden days of which you are expert?

[catman]

I think we "sold" many of them to the middle east. When was the last time Isreal or Iran paid for anything from us.

COL...seems like the range probable error was something like 1000 meters on the 175's? Tube had a droop of 3mils was it?

Trav

[Tamaroa]

Blue 11 ' Dalgren Cannon was about the largest naval cannon there was in the CW.You also had 11 inch seige cannon in use battering Confederate forts. As far as land light artillery the Napolean had a 4.5 inch bore. It was a smoothbore that when projectiles were scarce they would fire everything from broken glass and twisted bayonets, bolts you name it. There were some very large mortars during the Civil War.

The "Dictator" had a 13 inch projectile. It was perhaps the most famous mortar used during the war. "This weapon was a 13-inch Model 1861 seacoast mortar which was mounted on a specially reinforced railroad car to accommodate its weight of 17,000 pounds. Company G of the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery, served the "Dictator" at the siege of Petersburg, Virginia in 1864. The mortar could lob a 200-pound explosive shell about 2 ? miles."

Bill

[colmurph]

A Cannon is a muzzloading smooth bore gun. A mortar is usually not rifled (With the exception of the 4.2") and is designed to be loaded from the muzzle. They are usually "Drop Fire" meaning they have a fixed firing pin in the center of the base of the tube that strikes the primer on the round when it drops on it. The exception to the rule is the 60mm mortar which has a selector switch and can be either fired with a trigger or drop fired. Howitzers all load from the breech and have either an interrupted step-screw or sliding wedge type breech. I think the last US Howitzer with a sliding wedge was the 105 mm. The 155, 175 and the 8" all have an interrupted step-screw type breech and are "Separate Loading" meaning that the projectile and and the propellant are loaded separately. The Projectile is first rammed into the forcing cone and then powder bags are placed in behind it. (There is no cartridge case in Howitzers like there is in a 5" 38 Cal. Naval Gun) The breech is closed and a separate initiator holding a primer about the size of a 45-70 blank is screwed onto the breech. This item has an inertia type hammer that strikes the primer when the lanyard is pulled sharply. The flame from the primer goes through the breech and ignites a thick pad of black powder at the base of the first charge. This in turn ignites the cordite which is the main propellant.

[BLUEHAWK]

Dang Trav, now that you mention it...

Bill - Guess there wasn't any rifling on that Napoleon :D

[Tamaroa]

Nope, it was a favorite of both armies though. The standard guns were either the 3" Parrot rifle named after its designer from the Cold spring armory. He welded a reinforcing band around the breech to prevent it from splitting. Then there was the the light weight 3" U.S. rifle both the Parrot and the U.S. Rifle had range of just about a mile, they were both rifled. There were a few Whitworth rifles as well which were well made English tubes and were very accurate.

The Napoleon while a smooth bore was prized by both armies for close in fighting. It would fire rounds of canister which typically consisted of 10 to 12 iron balls about an inch in diameter. At about 700 yards the cannoneers would open up on advancing infantry and mow down the ranks with these giant shot guns. However, artillerymen also liked to fire solid shot from Napoleons at an angle on an approaching column because the iron balls would bounce through the ranks dismembering men until it rolled to a stop. When the infantry got real close sometimes the cannons were loaded with double canister. On a monument in gettysburg is inscribed the last command a cannoneer gave "Double canister at ten yards". The command was obeyed and the Confederates in front of tha battery (4th U.S. Light Artillery I believe) simply evaporated.

If you want to read about Civil war artillery I suggest biography's of Henry Hunt the premier Union artillerist and his pupil and antagonist E. Porter Alexander on the Confederate side. also John D. Billings Hard Tack and Coffee gives some good accounts of Artillery life as does Alfred Bellard's Gone for a Soldier (2nd New Jersey Light Artillery) or Carlton McArthy's Minutae of soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia also an artillerist. Sorry, I just realized I was running off at the mouth, but you get my drift. There are a lot of sources about American Artillery out there.

Bill

[BLUEHAWK]

Bill -

Guess that pretty well defines the meaning of "withering fire", eh?

[drone_pilot]

getting back to the weight

weigh= 66.7 kg or lb 147.22.

Top Speed
56 km/h or 34.8 Mph

[catman]

DP...what type of artillery where you in? I spent the majority of my time with rockets, MLRS but received a little cross training with tubes.

Trav

[drone_pilot]

Hi Catman i was with photo recon. using the anusd501(CL89) drone system.

[UWEBABY]

the 175mm is a howitzer not a gun. It is designed for high angle fire. Guns are designed for direct fire (like the gun tube in a tank turret) it has a "tube life" of about 90 rounds at maximum charge, which means that the barrel has to be replaced after that many shots are fired because it isn't 175 mm any more. More like 178mm because the heat and pressure cause teriffic erosion in the barrel just in front of the powder chamber. After 90 rounds at max range the howitzer is no longer accurate. At reduced charges the barrel lasts a little longer. I think that 5 charge 5 shots equal one charge 7 shot. So if you fired all your rounds at charge 5 you should be able to get 600 shots off before it's time for a tube change.

colonel, my m107 in nam was in fact a 175 gun. We could get 200 rounds at max three charge. Changing the tubes was a 2 hour job.

[colmurph]

The 175mm was designated as a Howitzer because it was not a "Direct Fire" weapon. It was "Separate Loading" which means that the shell was rammed into the forcing cone and then powder bags were put into the breech behind the shell. The charge was "Cut" in that the powder was adjusted to the correct range just like in a 105m or 155mm howitzer. After the breech was closed (interrupted step screw just like the 155mm) a separate primer was attached to the back of the breech and it was fired by pulling a lanyard that tripped a small hammer onto the primer which fired through a touch hole that went through the center of the breech. The "Base Charge" which was the powder bag closest to the breech, had a thin bag of black powder sewn to the bottom of the bag which was ignited by the primer and in turn set off the cordite which was in the main charge. The 175mm had a very short "Tube Life" of about 150 rounds at charge 7 equivalent. This means that if charge 5 were fired a lot, you could get possibly 250 rounds through the tube before erosion wiped out the rifling in front of the forcing ring and ruined the accuracy. We had them on one of our fire bases in Vietnam and as I recall, they didn't sound a whole lot louder than a 155. I used to see Chinooks carrying old shot out tubes out over the Soouth China Sea to drop into the water. Big waste of money as they could have been sent back to Watervliet Arsenal to be re-lined. But then we're talking about a military mindset that used slightly damaged main rotors from Chinooks as sidewalks. Those worked out to about $3 million for about 100 feet of sidewalk.