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#21
12-29-2003, 04:41 AM
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Re: James
Quote:
Have a good one, bro James
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When you can't think what to do, throw a grenade 
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#22
12-29-2003, 10:23 AM
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At MAX charge (Charge 7) the 175 had a "Tube Life" of only 90 rounds. That means the gasses eroded the bore so badly, that after only 90 full charge shots were fired, the barrel had to be replaced. Charge 6 was around 2/3 as damaging as Charge 7 and if you fired Charge 3 you could shoot aroune 6 times at that charge level to equal one at Charge 7. I used to watch them fly the old tubes out over the beach near the Combat Center at Chu-Lai slung under one of the CH-54 "Flying Cranes" and dump them in the South China Sea instead of sending them back to Watervliet Arsenal to be re-lined. What a waste of taxpayer money! I think just the tube was worth around $225,000.00.
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#24
12-30-2003, 07:07 AM
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Been gone for a few days
Today is the first time I have been on the net in a while, Been busy with some house repairs and in-laws. I only dealt with Arty on my last tour but shot a shit load of it during that year. 175's were the only thing I never shot, they were an area engagement weapon and we were close in kind of guys. about 80% of the time I used our 105's then the 155's and only a few times the 8 inchers. The best arty mission I ever fired was an 8 battery time on target with a subsequent shifting of targets for different size howitzers on the targets for 45 minutes at max sustained rate of fire and a battalion sized insertion as the last shell hit the ground. It was somewhere west southwest of blackhorse past a banana and rubber plantation. I found out how to set bamboo on fire by calling in an illumination mission with a 100 meter height of burst (HOB) then when the flares burned out I would dump a battery of WP in, Up in the Trapezoids I fired in 8 inchers with the cluster bomb shells (CBU) at a low HOB hoping to get the CBU's to hang up and become booby traps. But mostly I shot 105's, The VN knew that the way to get to the US forces was to close and do close battle because we would lift our arty and air. I was very experienced at using close air and Arty and would engage with gun ships Tac Air and arty to with in 50 meters several times when with the 25th. I think the rules of engagement for arty were 600 meters was danger close procedures, I normally started the mission with a full battery in adjustment danger close within 300 meters and would work it in and then reduce to two guns within a 100 meters. You got to trust your guns and I had some of the best there ever were. Cpt John Mitchell was the battery commander of D battery 2/77th later the 1/8th FA who was our direct support battery. Those boys could trim your nose hair at 3000 meters.
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#25
12-30-2003, 08:02 AM
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Good thread. Some questions...
Why do the sizes go 105, 155, 175, etc...and then have 8 inch ?? ... if 8 inch was called the same as the others where would it fit in ? Colmurph....thanks for the info about the 175 barrels. I didn't realize that. I would imagine there was a lot of stuff dumped in the South China Sea over 15+ years....The Vietnamese are good at recycling all the metal products from the War, so they have probably salvaged them by now...How did the other artillery pieces compare as far as wearing out barrels went ? What is the upper limit of the biggest of these guns.... in miles ( approximate ) ( sorry, still hard for me to get "clicks" straight... LOL ) Sid : Were you an FO with the Wolfhounds in 1970 ? Were you in Cambodia from May - June 1970 ? I always wondered if H & I 's really worked. How were the targets plotted ? with intel or randomly ? Was there a way to tell if a crater was caused by a bomb or artillery ? I suppose most of the bombs dropped were 1,000 lb. or 2,000 lb ...There were some big craters full of water near the Filhol..and as I recall altho some were filled with water, nearby there was one that was dry and had an APC or something like that at the bottom of it...sorry for the rambling.... Thanks for your help. Larry
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#26
12-30-2003, 08:52 AM
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Was with 1/27
I was not an FO but the Battalion Arty LNO (Liason Officer), I was what you would call the arty boss, this did not happen very often in Infantry units but I guess that is why this LTC retired a *** General. I was in charge of all external fire support for the infantry, All fire planning, defensive fires, H&Is, pre-planned, ETC came thru me. I also controlled all of the infantry mortars and planned and executed all base camp defensive fires. My normal station was beside the infantry Battalion Commander but I also rotated thru each of the rifle companys to make sure that the FO teams knew how I wanted them to work. I flew all air insertions and fired all LZ prep fires, When one of the units got in contact with charles I would get above them in a LOACH when I could and direct all fire support from the air. This included gunships, Arty, TAC Air, Close Air and Naval guns. Sometimes I would go in with a company on the ground if we figured it was going to get bad. I also flew first light and last light low level VR's on our AO 3 or 4 times a week. You could catch a whisp of smoke from a cooking fire easier at dawn or dusk, and the VN were good (or bad) about hanging wash to dry, a couple of whisps of smoke and a flash of white and we would join them for breakfast. It can get real hectic when you are controlling gunships, close air and Arty all at the same time.
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#28
01-04-2004, 03:05 AM
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Ron,
If those guns at ChuLai were on a hill, there was an engineer bn. to the north. When they went off, if they were the same ones (sounds like it) I swear the bunkers jumped. Always wondered what they were and was damned glad I wasn't on the other end. Didn't appreciate the spotlights up there when we pulled security patrols to their front and down to the river, tho.
__________________
tk
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#29
01-05-2004, 11:53 AM
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Of all the different artillery tubes, only the 175 had such short tube-life. As I recall from OCS the 105 had a tube life of around 15,000 rounds and the 155 around 9,000 rounds at charge 7.
Don't know too much about the 8" but I know the tube life was much greater than the 175mm because the chamber pressures were much lower. 8" = 204mm.
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#30
01-05-2004, 01:50 PM
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Want to make an artillerymen sweat ? Call your fire within 25 meters of your own position. All we could do was level the bubbles and shoot. The times I had to do this were times I'd pray and pray hard. You can do every thing correctly, get all the data set but once it leaves the tube, it's in the hands of the God of war.
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