Posted on 06/12/2004 7:52:58 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
Ceremonial artillery is a precise endeavor
I think that at every arrival and departure points of Ronald Reagan's remains during his funeral week there was a 21-gun salute fired by either Army or Marine gunners.
When I was a battery commander in 3d Armored Division in Germany, my battery was the division's salute battery. We did a number of salutes for V Corps Headquarters, so we might have been the salute battery for the whole corps, too.
My battalion was equipped with M109A3, self-propelled, 155mm howitzers.
Because salutes fire blank rounds (duh!) separate loading ammunition - the propellant and the projectile are separate - cannot be used. With no projectile, all firing bags of propellant in the M109-series guns would do is shoot a mass of flame out the muzzle. Not only is this dangerous to everyone around, it endangers the crew and wreaks havoc on the interior of the barrel.
Salute rounds are brass cannisters with a special charge inside designed to make a loud noise, a bright flash and produce lots of white smoke (tactical artillery ammunition is practically flashless and smokeless).
In Germany, my battery was assigned four 75mm pack howitzers to fire salutes. These date from 1927. Pack artillery, designed to be broken down and carried on muleback, was first used by the US Army in the 1830s. In WW II the 75mm pack was used by Army mountain and airborne units and Marines. It was towed by a jeep.
These guns haven't been manufactured in decades, so getting spare parts for them was always a challenge! My mechanics were very creative in keeping them ready.
Accurate counting is everything in firing salutes properly. Different persons being honored take different numbers of rounds fired. Heads of state get 21 rounds, lesser lights get fewer, according to a protocol worked out over about 200 years.
Of course, salute firing was an extra duty for my battery. We always had to perform our regular mission. Although my battery was the salute battery, manning the four pack howitzers required only a fraction of the soldiers under my command:
On each gun:
– a chief of section who was overall responsible for the gun and his gun's firing. [chief of the piece on a Napoleon]
– a gunner, whose job was the fire the cannon by pulling the lanyard, which released the firing pin to set off the round. This was his only duty once the salute began. [hey, that's MY job]
– a number one cannoneer, who job was to load each round into the cannon's breech. He also had no other duties when the firing began.
Other personnel:
– a chief of battery, a staff sergeant or a sergeant first class, who supervised the firing line and ensured the equipment and soldiers were ready for each salute. He also trained the whole team.
– an officer in charge (my XO, not me) who exercised actual command of the salute battery when performing ceremonies. (Although the artillery battery I commanded had salute battery duties, I assigned the salute sections to be commanded by my XO.)
– a smart NCO to count the rounds fired. For a 21-gun salute (which we never fired) the counter would signal the end is near by about-facing at round 19 and loudly announcing,"Nineteen!" to the chief of battery. On the next round the chief of battery faces about and announces, "Twenty!" This signals the XO to order one more round fired.
– a timer, equipped with a stopwatch, whose job was to ensure the correct interval between rounds was maintained - five seconds for funerals (we never did a funeral) and three seconds for all other occasions. After each round, the timer called, "One, two, three!" and on the word, "three," the XO signaled the next gun to fire.
We also took along several artillery and automotive mechanics who hopefully would have nothing to do. Alas, they were always employed.
Before the salute began, each chief ensured his gun and crew were ready, then faced the XO and raised his right hand straight up. When all guns signaled ready the XO raised his arm likewise. This signaled the ceremony commander (aka, "commander of troops", COT) that the battery was ready.
During the ceremony, the COT would present the ceremony's troops to the honoree by rendering a hand salute. When the XO saw the COT's hand approach his headgear, he would drop his arm at gun number one, which was the gun farthest to the XO's right. The section chief would drop his arm and the gunner would fire the gun. (In actuality, we just had the gunner fire when he saw the XO drop his arm.) Once the gun was reloaded and ready, the section chief would assume the raised-arm position, signaling the XO the gun was again ready.
With three-second intervals, each section had 12 seconds to reload, recock and assume the ready position that visually informed the XO gun in action. For a well-trained crew, 12 seconds is plenty of time to do that and for the section chief ensure all is proper. But when something on the gun broke during the firing sequence, which happened with distressing frequency, the pucker factor went up real fast. The section chief's race against the clock was relentless because the precision of the interval had to be kept!
If the chief decided the gun was out of action, he instantly would order all the crew, including himself, to kneel on one knee, facing the XO, and fold their arms across their chests. The chief of battery, who continually scanned the line, would notice and announce to the XO, "Gun One [or two, three, four] out of action!" the XO would know to skip it and proceed immediately to the next gun.
So each section knew he didn't really have 12 seconds to get ready to fire, they really had only nine. So the crews were very busy. There was one salute we fired with four guns beginning and two guns ending! It was, shall we say, exciting!
Occasionally the gunner would pull the lanyard and the round would not fire. Rare, but it did happen. (The ammo was as old as the guns.) When that happened we told the gunner, who would realize the misfire first, instantly to announce loudly, "Misfire!" The gunner of the next gun would hear and immediately fire with no further command. Three seconds between rounds was all we had!
A misfire always put a gun out of action because misfire procedures required 10 minutes to elapse before the breech could be opened to minimize the chance of a "cookoff" in which the propellant might be burning but not yet exploded. Extracting a misfired round was always very dicey but fortunately they were rare and caused no injuries.
I was especially proud of my salute crews because not one of them was an artilleryman. I assigned mechanics, cooks, supply clerks and other support soldiers to salute-gun duties. They performed magnificently, and at ceremonies the commander of troops and the honoree were always amazed that the salute was not fired by real artillerymen! The only actual artillerymen there were the XO, the chief of battery and the counter.
Not long before my command tour was over, the division-artillery commander reassigned salute duties to another unit on his own kaserne in Hanau. Since we were stationed near Giessen, 55 kilometers away from division headquarters in Frankfurt, the move made a lot of sense, and frankly, we shed no tears to give the salute duties away.
(Excerpt) Read more at donaldsensing.com ...
:-))
Very informative thread. Thanks for posting this info.
A friend recently commented that my last ex would have taken my sense of humor
if it had been worth anything.
Some info here about the school of music, which is located at the Little Creek Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach, VA.
As to choral groups, I believe that is more voluntary because I am not aware of a specific MOS designation. I am, however, willing to be corrected by superior knowledge.
Good article, thanks for posting it. The only incident I have heard of while firing blanks was the M4 tank at Ft Knox having a roll of pink TP stuffed down the barrel. I guess it was quite spectacular for retreat that evening.
I had to audition for the Fifth Army band to be assigned there. Upon completion of basic training, I was sent to the U.S.Navy School of Music at little Creek Virgirnia which is the equivilent of a three year colledge level music school condensed into six months. I came in with the highest incoming audition score for a tuba player with a 3.29 out of a possible 4.0.
An assignment to a military band is a permanent assignment. However, Army protocol at that time, mid 60's, was to rotate personnel every three years to prevent stagnation in any location. Transfers were always to other band units.
If a person was assigned to one of the 'special' bands, ie The Army Band, West point Band, the assignment was considered more permanent and transfers were less frequent.
Each 'Army' 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc had what was considered to be the 'headquarters' band where the band master also had oversight for any other bands in that 'army'. The Fifth Army band was a headquarters band. The headquarters band usually was able to get the 'pick of the crop' from each band within it's area and had a higher authorized strength than the smaller bands within it's area.
Being assigned to a band is easy duty, but still no guarantee of not being in combat. I am aware of at least 8 bands being in Viet Nam during that war and of several band members being killed there. Often when a band is transferred into a combat zone, they assume routine patrol and other duties like any other infantry unit.
When bands are playing outdoors in a live performance, it is hard to record and pick up all voices. Even indoors such as the Natonal Cathedral, where there is a lot of echo present, a clear recording is difficult to obtain. When I was with the fifth, we used several microphones and amplified speakers to distribute the sound while playing outdoors concerts.
Having said that, I was most impressed by the Air Force band that played the Hymns at the gravesite. They were playing continously for a very long time and still possessed a very nice rounded sound. They sounded extremely good for an outdoors performance.
Owned by a 5th Co. member, the bronze heavy 12-pounder shown in this sepia-tinted photograph was originally a Confederate artillery piece. At the end of the War, it was surrendered to the Federal Army and sent to Washington, D.C. as one of the "spoils of war", where it went into storage. The Federal Army stored it in the basement of Ford's Theater, the same theater in which John Wilkes Booth assassinated Federal President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. It sat in storage there for more than 120 years before finally being sold as surplus.
The photograph records the first time since the end of the War Between the States that this specific Confederate piece had been fired. The last man to pull the lanyard on that cannon prior to Private Cangelosi is unknown to us by name; but it was a Confederate private who last stood at that position with that cannon.
When the bronze heavy 12-pounder fires, it rings like an old plantation bell. The resemblance to the sound of the deep, resonant tones of a plantation bell is even more striking when a live round is fired from the cannon.
I was always in awe of the British gun competitions, where
the teams have to dismantle the gun(I don't remember what kind, small maybe 3 pounder?), cross a ditch, go over a wall, through a door way, set up and fire, then go back and set up and fire. Archaic and a good way to lose a finger or two, generally appeared to be something in the way of casualties no matter how well it went.
I have seen the one in the picture at several reenactments and we even pulled it a couple of times. The cannon I owned is now in a massive collection of cannon located in Clear Lake, Wisconsin.
I am limited in my knowledge of artillery but my area of expertise is the horse drawn equipment of 1840-1865. I have horse artillery equipment that I donated in museums at Ft. Leavenworth (Ringgold's equipment), Fort Sill, and Savannah, Tennessee.
Ironically, years ago horse drawn artillery equipment was in barns all over the country and recognizing this, I traded my vet fees for the old equipment if the farmer would trade. It was a gold mine for about ten years until I exhausted the "mines".
A real close friend of mine, Doug Ray Kidd, just recently redesigned the saddles and tack for the Old Guard. The old McClellans were too vertical and did not fit well upon the backs of the modern horses and pathology was developing in the lumbar regions of the horses. He refitted the horses with McClellan looking saddles with the bars wider and better suited for the modern horses. Also, over the years the Old Guard had lost some knowledge about all of the equipment necessary to effectively pull a caisson. Straps from the hames to limber pole had been "lost" and several other Mordecai safety features had been left out resulting in a couple of funeral runaways....(Can one imagine at a funeral the caisson with the casket running away out of control...talk about a cluster...)They have fixed the problems at the Old Guard...it was nice to see reenactors and the current Old Guard get together to make the funeral caissons look and perform well.
Robertson's (Dent's) Artillery Battery
The nature of the ground over which the battle was fought did not admit of the free use of artillery, but Dent's battery, which was attached to my brigade, followed it closely during the morning attack, firing, however, only a few shots, but in the afternoon rendered signal service, fighting at the time with other commands on my right. But the officers deserve special mention for their conduct.
FIELD GUNNERS: The annual competition at the Royal Tournament gained a reputation as the hardest team sport in the world.
Royal Navy's Field Gun Competition
Thanks, I had seen this on cable a few years ago, just
the most amazing athletics and spirit I've ever seen.
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