M110A2 8” SP ping! I was in the 7/9 FA for 5 yrs, a reserve unit headquartered in Pompano Bch, FL, now deactivated. Our gunners and FDCs were as good as anybody’s on active duty. We shot every other month, about 5 times a year, with 2 weeks at Camp Blanding every summer.
Our Bde, the 227 FA Bde, had 5 bns; 2 of Puerto Rico NG 105s, 2 bns of FLANG 155 SP (the Gator Guns, 1/116 and 2/116, good ole boys almost to a man) and us, 7/9 FA.
A kid coming off active duty in ‘86 told me he thought the Guard and Reserves shot more often than the Regulars. We had lots of money for training and ammo then too, the Reagan years and all, plus we were a nuke capable unit. I knew two captains in that unit that that both went on to make general over the years.
I always loved to watch a Bde TOT mission, specially at night, pop, pop, pop from the 105s, boom, boom, boom from the 155s and WHAM, WHAM, WHAM from the 8”s, better’n fireworks any day!
Nothing like an 8" howitzer. When I was in R&D at Sill, working on the cannon launched guided projectile (copperhead) and the designators for it, the motivating idea was said originally to have been combine the accuracy of a well-registered 8" howitzer with a moving target.... I have actually seen demonstration batteries put an 8" inert round in a 1 m by 1 m window at 10k (admittedly with a fresh met, 1st order survey, absolutely accurate powder lot information and temperature and a fresh registration, but still....). An old brownshoe guy told me that in the '40s they put them into the blockhouse on Signal Mtn.