3.7" Vickers QF HAA gun, gun crew

Does any one have knowledge of the roles undertaken by each member of the 3.7" Vickers QF gun? I know that there could be 7-9 members of the team, and have possibly identified the following five:

No 1 - any idea what his detailed role was?
Gun layers - 2No? one for traverse, one for elevation, perhaps?
Rammer
Loaders - 2No?

 

My grandfather served with the 101st HAA in the UK and Burma with the 3.7 and I have some of his original text books in which he wrote his training notes whilst at Oswestry. Relating to the 3.7" his course notes quote:

" The gun detachment is composed of 10 men. The service of the gun is divided between them as follows:

No.1 Is in command*
No.2 Is layer for the line
No.3 Is layer for elevation
No.4 Is fuze dial number
No.5 Is breech operator
No.6 Is ramming number
No.7 Is loader
No.8 Is loader
No.9 Is fuze setter operator
No.10 Is ammunition supplier.

*No.1 Is the commander and is responsible for the overall service of the gun" - Unquote.

This is the official gun team structure but no doubt it was not always possible to man it to a full compliment. That said, in the rather interesting video link below it is stated that this unit, the 8th HAA, were using a 10 man crew (See video titled "Part Two").

http://www.lennonwylie.co.uk/8th_belfast_haa_regt.Videos.htm

BTW the home page of the 8th HAA has a great deal of interesting information for anyone interested in HAA ops, especially in Burma.

I hope this is of use.

John

 

Thanks John, that's brilliant news, and extremely helpful! Just a thought, but any idea if the fuze members (No 4 and No 9) operated on the Predictor rather than the gun?

kind regards

Nick

 

Predictors, radars, heightfinders, etc, did not belong to a gun, they were troop or battery equipments and manned that way. A predictor aimed a troop not an individual gun.

 

Gun teams are horses, the men (and women) are the Gun Detachment

 

Thanks for the correction - much appreciated, as I want to be technically correct!

 

Yes, thank you, and what I had previously understood. Any idea what the roles of No 4 and No 9 were, as defined above?

 

The fze setting changed continuously, and the setter was a mechanical device, I'd assume that just as the two layers operated by pointer matching No 4 did something similar for the fze setter. Presumably the No 9 actually put the shell nose into the setter, and probably turned the shell until the fze was set. I assume once the MFS entered service then the No 9 job disappeared.

 

Thank you - that would seem to explain things!

I've posted an image of a No 199 fuze, less its time ring, at http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/48981-37-vickers-qf-haa-gun-no-199-fuze/ if this is of interest. It was picked up as a piece of shrapnel during the war.

 

Thought you might be interested in the War Diary entry attached - see box item 1 'action at gun'

 

always helps if you add the attachment!