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I finally made contact with someone at Fort Sill, a Mr Dustin Roderigas, - actually the contact is all due to Pierre-Olivier.

Mr Roderigas sent me this pictures & permission to post them.

M107 "Proud American," the barrel used to be at the Ordnance Museum - notice the M56 Scorpion and T162 GMC in the background


XM2001 Crusader firing SPH1


M667 Lancer TEL - the RN seems to be bogus? Museum designation system perhaps?




XM104 - Test Rig 4 I assume...




Of course the only problem is this new contact - who I have of course invited to the board - has distracted me from working on Pierre-Olivier's France AFV Register

Neil

Mr Roderigas also sent me some pics of this M39 outside an Army surplus store in Colorado Springs - there's only like 6 of these in the US:







Neil

- Neil_Baumgardner

I finally made contact with someone at Fort Sill, a Mr Dustin Roderigas, - actually the contact is all due to Pierre-Olivier.

Mr Roderigas sent me this pictures & permission to post them.

M107 "Proud American," the barrel used to be at the Ordnance Museum - notice the M56 Scorpion and T162 GMC in the background


Neil

Neil,

I've seen/heard of 2-3 M107's called "Proud American", one of which was at the Ordnance Museum, I believe, and I think I recall some struggle about trying to obtain that piece for Ft. Sill, so I guess that's finally it. There was some discussion about it over at the "Landscaper" site re: The Ord. Museum's attitude concerning this...I'd been in touch with them because I was trying to identify the pic below that I took and trying to establish if it was related. We never determined it it was or not. You'll notice that it's titled "Proud Americans, so there is some doubt about this. This was on a move we escorted in Northern "I" Corps in late '71, I believe. The firebase might be Birmingham, which had M107's and I definitely operated there, but I can't be sure now.

All the Ordnance Museum ever had AFAIK was the barrel. Here's some info on it:
www.proudamericans.hom...dject.html

Neil

- Neil_Baumgardner

All the Ordnance Museum ever had AFAIK was the barrel. Here's some info on it:
www.proudamericans.hom...dject.html

Neil

If the markings on the barrel as it was at the Ordnance museum were "original", it's pretty clearly a different tube. Interesting coincidence, though. The Landscapers guys had no idea whose "mine" might have been, and the bumper markings are all covered with dust.

- Neil_Baumgardner

Mr Roderigas also sent me some pics of this M39 outside an Army surplus store in Colorado Springs - there's only like 6 of these in the US:

Neil

You've got pictures of the one at Aberdeen don't you?

Yep...

Neil

Any more pics of the T162 GMC? I can't find a reference for that vehicle anywhere...

Dustin has promised more T162 pics.

Here's what I was able to find elsewhere, I hadnt noticed this page before:


www.cannonartillery.co...488,17997,

Self-Propelled Howitzer, 175-mm
T-162
USA

This artillery piece was envisioned to combine mobility with a high powered, long range gun. In 1950, the Army Equipment Development Committee recommended a gun of about 170-mm be developed, to replace the 155-mm M-2 “Long Tom�.

In response, the 175-mm gun T181 was designated the appropriate weapon and a self-propelled chassis was prepared. Benefiting from experience with the models T97-T108, the T162 differed in some respects. It possessed a longer tube, wider hull and tracks (28 inch), and a steering bar (in place of wobble stick or steering wheel). Despite some advanced features, air mobility became a critical requirement. The T-162 was determined to be too large and heavy. Consequently, the project was discarded. This was the last of the three produced.

Caliber: 175-mm 6.9 in
Weight: 44,545 kg 98,000 lbs
Shell Weight: 66.8 kg 147 lbs
Range: 32,800 m 35,850 yds
Elevation: -40 to 1,160 mils -2 degrees + 65 degrees

Another pic from Dustin, the XM2002 Crusader re-supply vehicle. I hadnt realized it had made it to Fort Sill as well... Now I just wonder what happened to XM2001 SPH2, the mobility prototype...



Neil

- Doug_Kibbey

I've seen/heard of 2-3 M107's called "Proud American", one of which was at the Ordnance Museum, I believe, and I think I recall some struggle about trying to obtain that piece for Ft. Sill, so I guess that's finally it. There was some discussion about it over at the "Landscaper" site re: The Ord. Museum's attitude concerning this...I'd been in touch with them because I was trying to identify the pic below that I took and trying to establish if it was related. We never determined it it was or not. You'll notice that it's titled "Proud Americans, so there is some doubt about this. This was on a move we escorted in Northern "I" Corps in late '71, I believe. The firebase might be Birmingham, which had M107's and I definitely operated there, but I can't be sure now.

Doug

Here is a little info for you....

The 175s were all assigned to Field Force (IFFV, IIFFV) level as general support artillery. IFFV had no operational-level artillery headquarters (no FDC) at that time, so their battalions were attached directly to the divisions. At the time I was there, 1st Cav Divarty had a composite 8-in/175mm battalion which had weapons such as that shown, but I don’t recognize either the unit markings (2/32 FA) or the label “Proud American� (assuming those are all original) on that particular track. 23d Gp is also unknown to me, unless that’s a Ft. Sill unit. The 8-in/175 battalion was a very useful unit because of the inherent accuracy and striking power of the 8-in weapons and because of the reach of the 175s. When firing high angle, we had to issue a NOTAM (notice to airmen) in effect establishing a no-fly zone over the 175s. The shell went up more than 10,000 feet.

During operations in Binh Dinh Province in 1967, we had an LZ Hammond which had a couple of 175s. The NVA assaulted the wire one night when the 175s were firing H&I fires. When firing high angle, the tube had to be lowered to re-load. That’s when the NVA came over the wire in front of these two tubes. The guns fired out at zero elevation and charge 3 (the max charge, which happened to be in the tube at the time). The attack was halted in its tracks. The next morning, over 50 shattered bodies were found in the wire. All appeared to have been killed by shock and concussion. The equilibrators of the recoil mechanism were completely shattered and hydraulic oil was everywhere. The “175mm anti-personnel device� earned its spurs that night. From then on, if there was a threat to an LZ, all one had to do was send out a 175 gun, operational or not, and park it in the LZ. The threat always went away immediately; the NVA didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

Sorry I can’t give you more specific information.

Just a little background info on the 175mm in Vietnam...
Don

Hi Don! Hi Folks!

- Dontos

The 175s were all assigned to Field Force (IFFV, IIFFV) level as general support artillery. IFFV had no operational-level artillery headquarters (no FDC) at that time, so their battalions were attached directly to the divisions. At the time I was there, 1st Cav Divarty had a composite 8-in/175mm battalion which had weapons such as that shown, but I don’t recognize either the unit markings (2/32 FA) or the label “Proud American� (assuming those are all original) on that particular track. 23d Gp is also unknown to me, unless that’s a Ft. Sill unit.

The 23rd Artillery (Steel On Target) Group was the II FFV's Artillery Headquarters during 1970 thru final stand down. I don't know any of it's history prior to 1970. It had administrtive control and support functions for all the non-divisional artillery battalions in the II FFV Area of Operations. HHB was based at Long Bin. There was something like five 8-in/175 battalions plus D Btry which was a 5 ton truck/quad 50 AAA battery.

During my gap between C Trp 1st Sqdn, 11th ACR and G Trp 2nd Sqdn,(Sep) 11th ACR, I was assigned to HHB 23rd Arty Gp. They didn't know what to do with a 11D Scout, so they put me in charge of herding replacements thru in-processsing stations and movement out to their assigned battalion HHBs.

Those bumper markings on that Ft. Sill M107 look correct for later war years.
Sgt, Scouts Out!

Update: I knew I should have did an internet search before I posted this.
Check out the following site for more information about the 23rd's total service in Vietnam.

www.landscaper.net/23group.htm

Sgt, Scouts Out!

I dunno,

shouldn't the bumper number read more like IIFFV 2F32 on the left (looking at the vehicle) and battery letter-vehicle number (e.g.B-23) on the right? Seems like all photographical evidence of other M107s and M110s in Viet Nam points toward that pattern, including some shots on the landscaper website linked to by Roy.

"A" for Artillery is rather unusual, I've seen "F" and "FA" for Field Artillery, "FAD" for FA Detachment, "AD", "ADA", and "AAA" for Anti-Aircraft resp. Air Defense Artillery, but "A" alone is IIRC unknown... Writing this, I'm aware that photographical evidence is right around the corner and the photo is probably somewhere in my archives as well.

Cheers,

Jens O.

On this page, there is a page of "Proud American" at "Camp Eagle", 1965, but as it's next to a shot from Ft. Sill and it doesn't look right for Vietnam to me (the trees are all wrong, naked from autumn) and I don't think the VN version of Camp Eagle (the 101st Div. Base Camp that I operated from) even existed yet west of Phu Bai (Camp Hochmuth) I think that's like the Ft. Sill photo. It's just on the page to illustrate the "Guns".

www.landscaper.net/the...n%20(M107)

I got in and out of several of those I Corps Tactical Zone firebases and more than one had M107's, Birmingham for sure, and I have a shot of impacts from those landing a couple of miles away on a short range fire mission. They are mucho impressive when they let rip.

- Neil_Baumgardner

Mr Roderigas also sent me some pics of this M39 outside an Army surplus store in Colorado Springs - there's only like 6 of these in the US:

OK,

any chance of interior shots of any of the 6? Those are hard to come by for some reason...

Thanks,

Jens O.