Com-Central.net

Went out yesterday to catch one of the last artillery pieces in Columbus I hadn't caught yet. I was more than a little surprised to see NATO camo, I was expecting another 3 inch M5. However, the data stamp has confused my identification. It looks like an M102, it quacks like an M102, but the breech stamp ID's it as an M137E1. Anyone got any ideas?






Markings on the side, can anyone translate?


Breech stamp, uploaded at full size


view 2


recoil mechanism dataplate


carriage dataplate

Any help would be appreciated!

All I can figure out from this one are the line's 2 and 3



B-battery, gun number 2

Sherman, have you been to the old Fort Hayes downtown Columbus?? is it open to teh public? Do you know if that is the same place as Columbus Barracks??

- Michel_Krauss

All I can figure out from this one are the line's 2 and 3



B-battery, gun number 2

As I read the First line

66 BDE [Brigade] 2/122 FA [2nd Battalion of the 122 Field Artillery Regiment]

- armyjunk2

Sherman, have you been to the old Fort Hayes downtown Columbus?? is it open to teh public? Do you know if that is the same place as Columbus Barracks??

I've driven past it a few times, but I have not been there personally. I don't know if it's open to the public right now, but I can say that it's the same thing as the Columbus Barracks, if the Wiki article can be trusted. Here's another link that might help:
forgottenoh.com/FortHa...hayes.html

I realize that this is completely off-topic, but is there an historian for the 122 FA? I have several photographs from what appears to be the early 1940's that I would willingly donate to the unit. My father was a member with the Illinois National Guard from 1928 to 1941.

Fred

M102


Photographs taken from forum.valka.cz/viewtop...e/t/106348

- ShermanWasRight

Went out yesterday to catch one of the last artillery pieces in Columbus I hadn't caught yet. I was more than a little surprised to see NATO camo, I was expecting another 3 inch M5. However, the data stamp has confused my identification. It looks like an M102, it quacks like an M102, but the breech stamp ID's it as an M137E1. Anyone got any ideas?



carriage dataplate

Any help would be appreciated!

Hi,

US artillery is considered to be made up of several parts that combine to make the whole. Each part (carriage, gun...the tube and breech, and the recoil mechanism, usually) has it's own M- number, which is normally completely different from the M- number of the combined system. I think that they do it to allow different components to be usable in other systems, should that be desirable. It also allows each component to be upgraded/improved on it's own, then brought together with the other components to create an improved system.

As pointed out in a later post with the extract from the TM, the M137 is the gun tube assembly itself. Your own pictures show the data plates from several of the different components, along with the system data plate calling it an M102 howitzer.

This used to mystify me when I photographed different artillery pieces, since it's not unusual for more than one of the data plates to be obscured or (more often) missing. For some reason related to magic and evil, the system data plate seems to go missing more often than the others.

Chuck

- bsmart

- Michel_Krauss

All I can figure out from this one are the line's 2 and 3



B-battery, gun number 2

As I read the First line

66 BDE [Brigade] 2/122 FA [2nd Battalion of the 122 Field Artillery Regiment]

That's what I get out of it, too.

Thanks for the instructive responses guys, have renamed the folder accordingly