I crewed and chiefed the M101A1 for many years, until I went to an armored division and M109s… Great little gun that I loved to hate…
Just a little observation on my part regarding the kit: The donkey-dick (the pipe-lookin’ thing on the left trail) goes into the trail clips (That is, if you want to lose it going down the road. The clips are always breaking) or the the back of the prime mover when your not shifting trails and digging them in. It’ll bust your shins open when you’re moving around the gun if you don’t. Especially at night… We also stuck an aiming post section in the lunette (the round-thing on the right trail) for the same reason. Stretch a piece of sprue to about shoulder-hight on a figure and paint it with red/white stripes. The lunette did make a great place to set your steel pot full of shaving water on though…
I was only on 105’s while at Sill, and they were 101’s. But just can’t remember the handwheel on the gunners side for elevation. The one’s we shot had the AG doing that. (remember this quite well as they had a sargent right next to the AG as well as the gunner). When I was on Gator we had a 105 unit setting right below us, and used to pass time watching them shoot (way way too many rounds for me). One of the things I noticed was the constant fighting of displacement from all those charge sevens (guess they hated to burn powder).
Up north a normal parapit used 10" x 10" oak logs embedded into the ground usually backed up by vertically spaced 6" x 6" logs. Then they’d put PSP (not the WWII stuff) on the face of the ten inch logs. A 155mm would use a minimum of 12" logs, and we would seek out 16" ones. These would be backed up with ten inch logs or later we started using 55 gallon fuel drums filled with rocks and sand when the soil was soft. Have tobe solid, as displacement kills people.
We always kept the tow bar on the trail, but never used one on the other. Usually wrapped it with a towl as it was pretty nasty on your shin bones! Plus the thing this time of year could put blisters on your hands from the heat.
Squeakie - If yo look at the picture you can see the elevating handwheel on the gunners side. But closing the breeh would be a bit$&.
Hans - Also see that fine trail locking pin on the gunners trail which breaks your shin
Lastly…if you are setting up in the firing position, don’t forget the favorite high angle pit. This is a pit under the breech block. When firing high angle the weapon had a fixed recoil and would slam into the ground. You needed a 9 - 12 inch pit to give the breech room.
I give up trying to post a picture, so send me an email and I’ll send you of photo of then ones we shot at Sill. It’s slightly different than the one in the picture. Plus you’ll see all the bare metal surfaces that are painted over in the photo posted. I was wrong about the handwheel on the gunner’s side as the ones we shot also had it, but if you look closely you’ll also see the sighting device on the AG’s side. Only been about 41 years in Sepetember.
All my 105 shooting ended with shooting for the kids going thru OCS (you probably did that as well). At the end they took about half the guys who were headed to Asia and sent thm to track school, and after about ten days they split that group in half again. Most stayed on M109’s while the rest of us went to the 8" / 175 arena of fun. When I left Sill that was the last time I was ever on a 175 / 8"!! What a complete waste of money. Even as late as Cam Rhon Bay I was headed way up North on a 175 unit. But when the C130’s landed in Chu Lai everybody (and I do mean everybody no matter what you thought your MOS was) was promptly put in 155 outfits. Better than half the guys in my company didn’t have a 13A10 MOS!! And to add insult I’d maybe shot a two dozen rounds thru anykind of 155, but at least I knew what was going on. Then to add insult to injury my unit was often placed right next to SP’s, and it was almost a common thing to shoot cover for 175 guns.
105’s seem to shoot a lot of “high angle” fire, but you almost never see the pit when they aren’t. Must use somekind of cover over it as it’s right in the path of the guy loading the piece. Also 12" seem a bit shallow. On a 155 we only dug pits a couple times and they had tobe pretty deep (60" of recoil), and then there was the chore of cranking the barrel back down just to load the thing. (remember that a 155 unit almost never used the loading trays and even if they had them laying around there were never enough men to use them in a crew)The crews that were tagged with high angle would actually rotate the job of raising and lowering the barrel!! What we later came up with was to build spacers under the jack plate and tires (alternating till we got the hight we were after). Out of six guns we never had more than two set up for “high angle” fire at once, and those guns were exempt from H&I’s of course. By mid year 1968 we had a four duce squad on call for the whole battalion, and it was a breeze for them!
I took about 2 months off from model building to move and enjoy busy summer weekends. It seems like there was a party or BBQ every weekend, and always on the other side of the state. Anyway, this is how the 105 looks right now.
I’ve been working on the ranging stakes and their latches on the rails, but then I thought, “Would they even be there.” All the pictures I’ve seen of a 105 in battery has the stakes removed, either to actually serve as ranging stakes or stowed out of the way. Should I just install the latches for the ranging stakes and not worry about the stakes themselves?
I plan on displaying the model on a nice piece of hardwood, like a trophy or plaque base, with a little brass label with the certain officer’s name, unit, and service dates. I framed out the rough dimesions with the white paper. It’ll be at 7" by 7." What do you guys think? Oh yeah, light or little weathering will be used.
When the gun is in a firing position, your “ranging stakes” (Aiming Posts is the correct term) are placed out at the left front of the gun at 50 and 100 meters… They’re your primary back-up aiming point if the collimator goes Tango Uniform… In march order, I made my crew throw them in the truck because the latches are notorious for popping open and making me buy them back (case of beer) from the gun chief behind me that found them…
I always put one post in the lunette as well, so you could see it in the dark and not smack it with the shins…
Also, the gunner’s pantel (panoramic telescope) on your gun’s left side needs to be straight up and down regardless of the tube’s elevation. That’s the tall thing you got leaning backwards… It should be the last thing you glue in place after you get the tube where you want it.
OK, so in that case, I should just omit the aiming posts. Of coarse, the latches would still be there.
The Pantel should be perpendicular to the ground. That shouldn’t be hard to fix.
Thanks for the info. A whole case of beer for a aiming post. That’s a pricey post. It’s too bad I can’t email you a beer for helping me out with this build.
just a note for all you guys planning on setting a gun up in the shooting position. Those aiming stakes will normally have a light attached to the top of them. One with a red lense and the other being green. And if your doing a parapit; plan on having four pairs of stakes if I remember right. “near far line!”
That’s a hell of a big dio if they are out the right distance!!!
As for carrying them, on the M101 they were always on the back of the truck. Each section wanted to keep all their beer!
Besides the lunette (God…my leg hurts just remembering it), we would use one to mark the powder pit/box/can behind the gun for the extra powder increments. It made it easy to find in the dark!!
I always sent a guy out to put the lights on at dusk, then take 'em back off at dawn… That way the batteries wouldn’t give out in the middle of a fire mission…
Between telephones, squak boxes, flashlights, aiming post lights and other misc.,…you almost needed a duce full of BA30s for a couple of weeks in the field!!
Ya… That Angry 39 would eat 6 of 'em a day… The BA30-30s lasted a bit longer but still…
You’d find dead batteries all over the truck and in the section chest during recovery… Then a month later, find 'em still in the phones, lights, collimator power supply, and -39… Gawdd**ed gunbunnies…[banghead]
boy you guys were rather sophisticated! The Section Chief (when we had one) would gather up the cut powder and toss it well behind the gun and outta the way (well he had to have something to do!) We shot mostly charge sevens white bag, but every now and then they’d throw a wrench in the works. When we did reduced charges we normally shot green bag. The H&I guns normally shot several dozen charge ones every night just to keep the neighbors honest (kinda nice to be able to see the results out in front of you). I’ve seen left over powder bags in a pile big enough to fill the whole bed of a pickup truck after an interesting evening.
