Military Photo of the Day

MILPOD ^ | 2 Dec 2013 | MILPOD

[frankenMonkey]

Marines with Lima Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, fire M777A2 Lightweight Howitzers aboard Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms during Exercise Steel Knight, a combined arms exercise conducted by 1st Marine Division Marines. Dec. 2012.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl Jason Morrison.

Larger image is viewable at www.MILPOD.com

[frankenMonkey]

I will post of few of these as time allows...

[G Larry]

Those rounds in the foreground don’t seem to be “lightweight”......

[frankenMonkey]

I was never around artillery, couldn’t tell ya!

[Abathar]

Hey, I built the mold for the rubber ring breach seal on that gun!

Great photo!

[left that other site]

Wow! Thank You for posting this. If you are starting a ping list, I would love to be on it.

:-)

[Chainmail]

155mm HE rounds weigh 96 pounds each - so, you're right, they aren't "lightweight". The term refers to the M777 howitzer which weighs about 10,000 pounds - which is lighter weight than its predecessor the M198 which weighs 15,600 plus pounds. Everything is relative, I guess.

I commanded a M198 battalion a while ago and I was always struck by the incredible size/weight/bulk of the 155mm and its required crews, trucks, support. It just didn't seem "Marine-like" or expeditionary. Really hard to pack the things into ships or transport them and their huge footprint ashore and then to carry them any distance. Also found that emplacement required huge areas of flat ground and it took a while to get in and get ready to fire. I fought a mostly single-handed fight to get the Corps to look at smaller, faster-moving fire support which resulted in a few batteries of 120mm rifled mortars but we still have the behemoths as our main direct support system.

We have several generations of artillery leaders who stubbornly insist on mirroring the army in all things. They still can't figure out why artillery is being used less and less and that planners have difficulty accommodating the bulk and slow speed of movement associated with the 155..

[frankenMonkey]

I never thought about a ping list, but I’ll do it (once I figure out how to..!)

[Robert A Cook PE]

I have never understood how a supposed accuracy could be maintained between shots (requiring an accuracy of a few hundredths of an inch between successive barrel positions between successive shots at 6 - 12 miles range) when the whole barrel and mount and recoil bases are being jammed backwards inches every time.

[left that other site]

I keep two of them in my FReepmail File. List the names with semi-colons in between. Then, when you post your (terrific, BTW!) Thread, just copy and paste the list into the “To:” Box.

I do one every day (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem) and one weekly (Pray for our American heroes) and it works well for me.

When somebody asks to be added or removed, I copy and paste the list to a FReepmail to MYSELF, and make whatever changes need to be made. Then I delete the old list. This has worked well for me for over 3 years, even with server changes and glitches.

Thanks again for posting this beautiful picture! :-)

[warsaw44]

same here - add my name to the ping list. I collect vintage photography, many of those are military but I would be interested in seeing these contemporary photos.

This one is a real beauty as I am quite partial to night photography.

[Chainmail]

Accuracy (really "precision") is maintained because the weapon is re-aimed for each shot. The displacement - the movement of the carriage because of recoil - does not affect the shot-to-shot precision because the aiming system -either the panoramic telescope to an infinity collimator or, more recently the ring laser gyro pointing system - allows precise realignment of the weapon's direction and elevation.

It's just like when you're firing your rifle at the range. After you've fired and accommodated the recoil, you re-aim the weapon and begin the firing sequence again.

Displacement isn't very much either: once the recoil spades are fully seated into the ground, the weapon doesn't move much anymore.

[Chainmail]

This is obviously a time lapse photo - getting all four howitzers to fire at precisely the same time ain’t gonna happen - but I am intrigued by the stray glowing particles streaking from the muzzle brake and the evidence of leakage at the breech (?!) from the howitzer in the foreground.

[ErnBatavia]

Back in the 80’s when we bought our home here in the Coachella Valley (The Little San Bernardino mountains separate us from Twentynine Palms MCB), “The Stumps” was strictly an artillery base - often during nighttime exercises, we could see flashes and hear rumbles....from at least forty miles as the crow flies.

[Moltke]

Very Christmas-y mood to that pic!

[G Larry]

I worked nuke weapons, specifically the Mk 12 Re-Entry System on the MMIII ICBM, so, logistics weren't usually an issue.....

[doorgunner69]

If you get a list going, add me in too please.