[Poohbah]

Exactly.

Nuclear artillery operated under the same release constraints as strategic and theater weapons. Those release constraints were completely incompatible with the timeline for an artillery fire mission.

BTW, there is supposedly a film of a Davy Crockett being fired to maximum ballistic range from a jeep...which then gets blown a$$ over teakettle by the blast. Yeah, that was pretty stupid.

[Hunble]

Nuclear artillery operated under the same release constraints as strategic and theater weapons.

At that time, the American Army was trained to retreat. Fire your artillery and retreat 10 km. Your one and only mission was to delay the Russian Army for three days!

By the third day, we expected Frankfurt to be captured by the Russians.

Once Frankfurt was occupied by the Russian, we were authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons.

[archy]

BTW, there is supposedly a film of a Davy Crockett being fired to maximum ballistic range from a jeep...which then gets blown a$$ over teakettle by the blast. Yeah, that was pretty stupid.,p> That was the *Little Feller* shots in 1962, I believe. Shortly thereafter, they came up with the Davy Crockett launcher mount on a modified M113 armored personnel carrier [M116] instead. By the way, don't miss the following *training film* which had the Military Intelligence spooks all in a snit at the time [1962] too.

I wonder how close it would have had to have been to the NukeDet for the M113s aluminum armor to melt. Neither does the thought of the fuel tank of the early gasoline-engined M113s, a large plastic bag behind the driver hung between the exterior armor and interior crew compartment walls, seem a real desirable feature for such activities. Range was supposed to be 2.5 miles, barring headwings affecting the 155mm projectile, which could cut the maximum range by almost half.

Incidentally, the little 37mm spotting rifle hung under the muzzle of the M29 Davy Crockett launcher was great fun to shoot....