Landships II

CharlieC · Legend

Thirty ton caterpillar gun mount

James H · Legend

Hello Charles. Happy New Year. Had a look in Crismon, but can't see anything in there. That's the best I can do, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately, I haven't got time to discuss the Ashes. Goodbye.

CharlieC · Legend

The idea of a universal motor gun carriage is a theme in US development in the early 20s. The Holt Mark IX and X were both designed

to carry either a gun or howitzer. I think it would be possible to sketch what the text is talking about if you merged the gun vehicle from

a Saint-Chamond SPG and a Mark VIII tank. The idea of supporting the infantry with a battery of mobile 8 or 12inch howitzers would have been too much for

the horse fanatics of US Army Field Artillery.

I think the English team fell into a climate trap - expected rock hard pitches - but Australia has had a very wet year or so

and the pitches were nothing like they expected.

Charlie

James H · Legend

As Winston Churchill said: "In victory, magnanimous."

Tonys · Field Marshal

Fascinating!

That's a lot of different artillery pieces - does anyone know the dimensions of their wheel tracks?

Tonys · Field Marshal

The book - which apparently mentions this vehicle 3 times - is available as a FREE ebook from Amazon.

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=vc4qAAAAYAAJ&rdid=book-vc4qAAAAYAAJ&rdot=1

Very interesting book from the first cursory glance.

Have clicked on the book to see more titles - about 170!! Looks like several might be repeats or maybe later issues.

Lots of interesting stuff, but annoyingly, it doesn't seem as if you can download and save - perhaps some experts out there know of a way to do it?

-- Edited by Tonys on Tuesday 4th of January 2022 10:30:26 AM

CharlieC · Legend

Tonys wrote:
Fascinating!
That's a lot of different artillery pieces - does anyone know the dimensions of their wheel tracks?

I think the idea may have been to have the same base vehicle with different installations for each gun type. This seems to have been

a concept in US SPG design. Both the Holt Mark IX and Mark X could be fitted with two types of gun, the M1918 (GPF) and 8inch Mark VIII howitzer

for the Mark IX and 4.7inch M1920 and 6inch (Schneider) howitzer for the Mark X. It wouldn't have been too difficult to do if the top deck was reasonably

well supported and the vehicle was used for traverse. For example, the GPF gun and receiver sits in a tub which contains the elevation and traverse.

It's fairly easy to bolt this tub to a vehicle deck rather than a carriage. This was done in the Holt Mark II, Christie M1919/1920, Mark IX (modified GPF)

and the WW2 M12 SPG.

The US Army Ordnance Dept seemed to be thinking on the lines of a tracked vehicle that carried a gun rather than the modern concept of an SPG of

an armoured vehicle which carried a gun, crew and ammunition. The offical term used "motor gun carriage" implies that I think.

The attached video clip is of a Mark IX firing.

Charlie

-- Edited by CharlieC on Tuesday 4th of January 2022 08:06:12 PM

CharlieC · Legend

Don't bother about Google - it's just awful.

Try: https://radionerds.com/images/7/74/1861_HANDBOOK_OF_ORDNANCE_DATA.pdf

There is a sort of joke about Google - Chinese nuclear targeting committee has arrived at the conclusion that the southern part of san Francisco (Silicon Valley) should not be targeted since Facebook and Google do much more damage to American society than even airburst ICBM warheads could.

Charlie

-- Edited by CharlieC on Tuesday 4th of January 2022 10:34:19 PM

Tonys · Field Marshal

Thanks, Charlie, the PDF version is far better. A fascinating report in many aspects and can be downloaded for detailed and repeated study.

Tony