Unique M71 pic

dragonstar SG

Found an old funny pic of the M71 during my NS days. The pic was taken by the gun commander in Thailand (or is it Taiwan). Guaranteed that you have never seen anything like it Laughing

An agressive enemy ant bit his ass. He decided to blow the ant away. However, the barrel cannot be depressed enough so he got the gunners to lift the trail to lower the barrel. He didn't get to blast the ant - it was crushed by the barrel. Mission accomplised without a shot being fired Laughing

Just joking!

gemscorp1 SG

Hi, Yep that is what you get when you lose control and not have enough men to hold down the trails.

btw. the weapon in the picture is an M68 Neutral

dragonstar SG

Hi, you from arty?

Gun/Howitzers are designed so that the trails are relatively heavier and so no need holding down.

However, there was something wrong with the balance of this particular gun. When fired, the gun rocked (the barrel moves down, trail up, then barrel up , trail down) a few times. It is the only gun that I have seen that did this.

Just curious, but why do you say that it is an M68? By the short barrel length? This particular gun had characteristics of both M68 and M71. The short barrel length of the M68 and the pneumatic rammer of the M71. Anyway, the SAF called it the M71.

seachfun SG

It not the design fault. It caused by our man using non standard action front procedure as such it lost the balance of the gun c.g. which is very common during that time in order to obtain short timing & pass the timing, else it will be redo till you meet the official record.

wonderamazement SG

Looks pretty mangled... Could it be a faulty airdrop? Laughing

dragonstar SG

It is true that non standard procedures were used by some units, but it was mainly practised by reservists. What is not obvious here is that the incident was in an active unit .where such practices were not allowed. I can testify to the fact that standard textbook procedure taught in SOAY (School of Arty) was used - I was there. Anyway, a controller from SOAY was there to ensure that things were done properly.

dragonstar SG

Airdrop? Do you mean airlift? At that time, the heaviest chopper that we had was the Super Puma, which had capacity of about 5 tons - the M71 is 7 tons![/b]

gemscorp1 SG

Yep, I am from Arty.

Hv used them during live-firing. Even during my time, had the same type of rammer on the M68.

Observation was based on the short barrel; especially right in front of the fume extractor.

meant when "holding down"; is during deployment of the weapon. There is ample possibility of losing the balance.

M71 was far easier to handle than M68 although the later is lighter.