Arty-Mortar

[39mto39g]

So--- when I called and asked for smoke or WP at What-ever grid. How did you get the round there, what was your proceedure. I helped put sone square things on the ends of mortars a couple times but I didn't ask what they were for and one time on a fire base I put bags of powder in some empty 105 rounds, Had no projectile .
I guess I should have asked what I was doing?

Ron

[splummer]

I watched a guy with a head set thing, dropping shells into a mortar tube type thing at night once. What was the range and what type mortar etc. [It was so long ago, it sticks in my head kind of like a dream.] I think he was by himself and he kept lobing those shells for a long time ????? [It also was at a fire base.] Like Ron, I never thought to ask what was going on.
Thanks Steve

[ArtySgt]

When you call for smoke or W.P. the procedure is the same as with H.E. Fire Direction Control takes your request and position, works out the data and gives the information to the guns as deflection and quadrent, I. E. elavation and direction. We set that on the sights and then turn our attention to the fuze and powder charge. Again all the info comes from F.D.C. and we fire the mission. I realize this is a bit raw but this is basically what happens.

[colmurph]

The "Squares" on the base of the 4.2" mortar round are pieces of nitrocellulose. They are just very large powder grains. As far as putting bags in empty shells, it;s the other way around. The only artillery round that used a casing since the first world war is the 105mm. It's what they call Semi-Fixed ammunition. That means you can remove the projectile and adjust the powder charge to get the proper range. For a charge-7 you just leave the bags in the "Can" for a charge -6 you pull the top bag out (they are all connected by a string) and put the projectile back in the shell with the last charge hanging outside the casing. Once the "Safety" has come around to each tube, you break the string and discard the unused charge. After a days work on the guns, a big pit would be dug behind the guns and all the excess powder charges would be thrown in and some opened to pour the contents on the ground to make a powder trail into the charges. You'd lite off the powder trail and it would burn into the pile of bags in the hole slowly enough for you to get far away enough so you wouldn't lose your eyebrows. A lot of times you's also have a lot of left over "Supplimental Charges" which are cans of TNT that fill the fuze well when you use conventional fuzes but have to be removed when you fire VT Fuze (fuze is longer because it houses batteries and a miniature radar set for proximity bursts) These are usually turned over to the ASP (ammo supply point) for disposal by EOD. During Vietnam FDC computed the Azimuth, Deflection, Powder Charge and Fuze Setting for the target and transmitted that data to the guns after making their computations. Now, each battery has a hand held Texas Instruments Calculator that contains the Firing Tables for the particular howitzer (105mm or 155mm) the co-ordinates of the individual tubes emplacement (up to 8 tubes) for all the tubes in the battery is entered, then the co-ordinates of the target are entered and within about 10 seconds it calculates azmuth, deflection, powder charge and fuze setting for eash tube (gun) to hit the target. There is also a provision to enter the coordinates of the FO (if known) which makes adjustment of fire that much more precise. During the Gulf War and this current war, Artillery has been able to achieve first round hits. With the old FDC and the "Slide Rules" and tabular firing tables it took about 3 or four minutes for the FDC to compute fire for a battery. The rounds would impact the target area (ideally) in the same pattern that the battery had been laid in. A "Good" FDC could adjust fire in about 3 minutes as long as you were using PD Fuze (Point Detonating) and not Time or VT.

[ArtySgt]

Just a few more points, in Vietnam we cut the charges ourselfs, we had no safety, the Chief of Section was responsible for every thing that took place during every fire mission on his gun. Unused powder charges were layed out in a double row and burned by the Chief of Section. We didnot use pits. This is how it was done in my battery, I'm sure evry Unit had it's own procedure.

[39mto39g]

Col. I understand what your saying, but I was putting these sacks in the 105 shells not taking them out, They were empty when I got them and a pile of these bags. It would make more sence to have them full and take out what you don't need.

The square things were powder? charges.

Ron

[bandito]

I try to remember some of that stuff Colmurph and Artysgt are talking about from my days at FT.Sill-but everytime I start trying to remember ,all that comes to mind are the girls in Lawton

[ArtySgt]

While I was at Fort Sill for three years I met and married a girl from Lawton, that itch was crazy as hell. Petting Buffalo and climbing mount " holshercloser ". Hell I was just a kid of 17 when I got there and we had fun, as soon as we both grew up we found the only thing in common was sex, not a match in heaven for sure.

[colmurph]

The "Natives" in Lawton were certainly friendly. I heard of one enterprising lady who had gotten married/widowed several times by getting hitched to guys on their way to Vietnam. She probably did pretty well for herself with the insurance and VA benefits for dependent kids. Only "Mountains" I remember from my Sill days was Mount Scott north of Ft. Sill and of course "Signal Mountain" on the west range.

[ArtySgt]

Mount " holdhercloser " was not on Ft. Sill and was more of a good sized hill, it was some where near the lake where the bision ran loose. You could drive to the top and get a good view of the area around Ft. Sill. Memory is a little fuzzy but we had fun, just kids ourselfs.