A GUNNER LOOKS BACK

Observation Post, Volume 1, Issue 22, 16 October 1942, Page 1

A GUNNER LOOKS BACK

(By W.O. II L. Winks). . In the year of the Spanish Armada Cyprian Lucan translated and dedicate; to Henry VIII, a famous Italian wor] called "Three Bookes of Colloquie: Covering the Arte of Shooting in Grea and Small Pieces of Artilleire, ” am he added thereto an appendix whicl dealt with "The Properties, Office am Duteie of. a Gunner, ’ ’ from which w; may cull quite a lot of useful advice. “A Gunner ought to be a sober wakeful, lustie, hardie, patient, pru dent and quick spirited man. He ough also to have a good eyesight, a goo; judgement, and perfect knowledge t< select a convenient place in the day ol service, to plant his Ordnance where he may doe most hurt unto his enemies and be least annoyed by them, am: where his Ordnance may not be sur prised by the enemie. A Gunner ough! to be skilfull in Arithmeticke and Geo metric, to . the end he may be able by his knowledge in these artes to measure heights, depthes,' breadthes, ami lengthes, and to draw the plat of any piece of ground, rand to make mines countermines, artificial! fireworks, rampiers, gabbions or baskets of earth and such like things, which are used in times of warre to be made for offensive and defensive service. A -Gunner ought also to procure with all his power the : friendship and love of every person, and to be careful for his own safetie, and for the preservation of all those that shall be about him. Also he ought to be no surfeter, nor a great or sluggish sleeper, but he must governe him self in all times as a wise, modest, honest and a skilful man ought to doe, that through want of understanding he may never leese his credite, nor an universal! victorie which oftentimes by the means of good Gunners well managing their pieces is gotten.” The gun and its carriage passed through numerous stages before they reached their present state of perfection. The earliest cannon was laid along the ground for firing, being supported merely in' a frame of timber, and were given elevation by the insertion of wedges under the muzzle. The next development was a high cannon with a .calibre of 36 inches, which was used at the seige of Constantinople in 1453, and, for its transport, required 30 waggons, linked together and drawn by a team of 60 oxen. "Mons-Meg” now in 1 Edinburgh Castle, is of this type, but its calibre is only 20 inches. Up to the end of . the 16th Century,' guns were use almost exclusively in fortress' warfare, and were consequently of large . calibre and borne on cumbrous carriages. Gustavus - Adolphus, the great leader of the 17th Century, was the first to render the gun mobile and to use it in the field. He adopted a weapon mounted on a carriage drawn by two men, and another on a carriage drawn by .two horses. Then the limber was invented, giving four wheels to the carriage and shortening the time of coming into action. ■. . During Marlborough’s wars our light artillery was drawn by four horses, and was’ distinguished, according to a continental writer, “by its lightness, its elegence and the good quality of its materials.” The drivers were civilian carters, and marched on foot. At the end of the 18th Century, drivers were enlisted and rode, gunners were mounted on the carriages, and the pace could therefore be increased beyond that of the walk. Improvement was, however, a slow process. When a field-gun fired, it recoiled 24 feet or thereabouts— defeet which entailed great labour in running up, and a great, delay between, rounds. At Waterloo, for instance, the gunners, after a time, became too exhausted to run up ■ their guns. The carriages, -therefore, kept receding from the line, and finally got so much bunched together that they could hardly be fired. Then came a great advance in the invention of the recoil-buffer. The carriage was further steadied through being anchored to the ground by the

■ brakes, and by a spade fixed to th .end of the trail. To complete the sys ’ tern, which was introduced in 1890 an gradually developed into the present (, . F. equipment, a recuperator was de ’ signed wich returned the gun after re i coil to its original position. I Heavy Artillery was employed in th i field in Spain by Wellington, and in th I Indian Mutiny and Crimea. In genera it was neglected or even abandoned i: peacetime. Gunners, since the day 1 when they first tasted speed, have al ways liked to move rapidly. Horse ' gunners had been accused of saying:— "If it wasn’t for these ruddy guns how we could gallop! : So the cry, in peace time had beei for mobility. But in war there was a once a demand for greater fire-powei only to be obtained through heavy guns In the South African war there was a: early cry for them, for our field artil lery, .though numerous, was out-gunne< both in weight and in range by some o: the Boar ordnance. Four-point seven: obsolete naval guns were towed t( Ladysmith on cumbrous carriages im pro vised on board ship; and so good : “press” did they have that the Gov ernment ordered 200 new ones to b< made, which were completed about th; time the war ended. "Nobody then 'Wanted them, and st they remained until 1914 rusting in the arsenal, out of which, on the usual call for more “heavies,” they were ther dug, to be regarded, in the scarcity oi other weapons, as great treasures. They were given second-rate carriages,', on which, havingj a high velocity, they recoiled violently. It used to be said of them that if their shells created as much alarm and- despondency in the hostile ranks as the guns, on firing, did in the-battery position, they were worth all the pains suffered by the detachments on their account. Actually, at the beginning of the war we posessed a first-class heavy gun —the 60-pounder— the best in Europe. . But we had only one battery (4 guns) to each division total of 24. In addition to these, there were a number-' of old 6-inch howitzers which were kept in coast defences and, though occasionally allowed to let off a round or two, were never taken seriously. The Germans at this time were known to possess nearly 800 heavy" guns and howitzers. Our deficiencies in this respect were realised in the first battle and • orders were placed for many modern 6-inch and 9.2-inch howitzers. IV .design for the latter had been approved just before the war, so it was possible to go at once into ■ production with it. The first specimen appeared at the front in November, 1914. It was known as "Mother,” and was in great demand from one end of the line to the other. Two years later there were 233 of these weapons in France. They were ‘true "weapons of position” with a holdfast kept in place on recoil by a box under the muzzle, which had to be I filled with seven tons of earth, a bed, I a live roller-ring, and other ponderous I properties. It was an impressive and • effective weapon with a range of 10,000 yards and a shell weighing 3001bs. The new 6-inch howitzer which ap- ■ peared about the same time, was a firstclass weapon. It weighed less than five tons behind the teams, it possessed a 'non-recoil carriage and it did not, as its predecessor had done, require a platform. When drawn by lorry it was quite a mobile piece, and was often in the forefront of the battle in both advance and retreat. As there was no serious danger from the sea, it was found possible to withdraw a number of 6-inch guns from coast defences for service in the field, Some of these continued to be used as guns, others were shortened at the muzzle, had their bores enlarged, and reappeared as 8-inch howitzers. Nine-point-two inch guns were also taken from coast fortresses and were used on railway mountings. Twelve-inch howitzers were constructed and used both on positions and

railway mountings, and an 18-inch howitzer, weighing no less than 86 tons or, with its mounting, 356 tons, was under construction when the war came to an end. ’ A 15-inch, known as "Granny,” and designed, like “Mother,” before the war, was in action, manned by naval detachments, towards the end of 1914, but proved unsatisfactory. Finally 12-inch and 14-inch gunsvery powerful and longranging weapons, mounted on railway carriagescame on the scene, the one late in 1916, the other in 1918. . (To be continued.)