Hi guys I have already made a model of a Gun Position Officer complete with his 8cwt FFW and megaphone. I am minded to add to this by showing a gun tractor arriving at the (presumably new) gun position, but, with a view to the title of such a vignette or diorama, I (as a mere infantryman) need some advice on what the GPO (or whoever it was that did the recce) would be shouting out to the driver or detachment commander. It seems to me that the guy will need to tell the detachment roughly where he wants the gun to be positioned and, more crucially, in what direction he wants the gun to point. To describe where the gun is to go is fairly straightforward, like 'the other side of the thicket/stable/cowshed etc' but I would think that the direction that the gun should point, which will affect a number of factors, is so crucial that the RA had a precise word to decribe what is wanted without possibility of misunderstanding. It might be 'pointing', 'direction', 'bearing' or something similar, together with a figure indicatig the bearing that the gun should point (wartime, so in degrees I think rather than mils). Perhaps something like this: 'The other side of the cowshed, bearing 120'. Does this sound authentic, or is there a gunner out there who can put me strainght? Chris
Chris, Anything is possible of course but if doing things by the book the megaphone is really for passing fire orders to the guns. The guns should not be called forward until everything is ready and they can be ready to fire immediately on arrival. The location of each gun should be marked by a stake and the route to the position marked by personnel. In emergency things would be different. Mike
Thanks Mike. Yes I quite see your point, which why I didn't insist on my guy really being the GPO (in this incarnation). Though the markings I have already applied to the 8cwt FFW would tend to suggest that the scene took place back in UK shortly after Dunkirk, I was thinking that maybe people were practising a rather more ad hoc technique, just in case the events across in France and Belgium , were repeated om this side of the channel. Certainly from my reading of Gun Buster, it was by no means certain that the guns would all turn up at the right place, in the right order and already know the direction that the guns should be pointing. I was going to put a gunner at the gate to make sure ths guns didn't zoom straight past the new gun position - the driver being perhaps asleep! I thought that maybe the gunners had a unique phrase for it, rather like the Navy's insistence on saying 'Shoot' rather that the possibly ambiguous 'Fire'. Chris
Chris, You should, maybe, consider the works of Spike Milligan. He was trained as a Gunner and eventually as a Signaller (OWL?) He is quite detailed with his duties and what was happening around him. A really good read too. Lawrence
The guns of each troop were led by the Troop Leader (what a surprise), a WO 3. The Troop GPO's vehicle was the basis for the Troop CP and should have beenin action by the time the gun group arrived. The org for manoeuvre is at http://nigelef.tripod.com/fdregt40
Hi guys Having spent the afternoon checking through two of Gun Buster's books (not a hardship as I have the mother and father of all colds and have no wish to brave the cold wind), I think the expression I am after is 'Zero Lines'. Sort of thing that might be repeated to a det comdr on arrival. I think I might also need to provide another soldier as a guide for the gun. Chris
You might like to consider including a Director in your vignette. There is a lot of shouting when guns arrive at a position. This is to pass the angle to the aiming point so the guns can record this angle to a known aiming point as a bearing to North. In my post WW2 era the command was "Aiming point director". The Ack would set up the director, checked by the GPO with a compass and then take angles to each gun. (If you wanted to look slick you just concentrated on one gun, but this was cheating). This was passed by megaphone as the director could not be within 50{?}m of the nearest gun. At night this involved a lot of running around and chinagraph on the hands of gun numbers, or more properly note pads.
Yes the troop director, used to orient the guns of the troop in their Zero Line. But more like 90m from the nearest gun post WW2, not sure about during. The director passed angles, the guns took them. CPAs were a post war thing, basically during the war they were all surveyors.
Details and pictures of a Director here http://nigelef.tripod.com/fc_laying.htm You can see line being passed in this WW1 training film at about 2min 14 secs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0X7CfNBsq4&list=PLB64817C1C30A0BCC&index=9 Mounted survey drills not performed by the Kings Troop!
This little snippet from my Fathers Journals in the desert campaign empathizes the importance of a GPO getting it right. . We dropped into a position recently vacated by the New Zealanders (Smashing chaps) to our extreme right were the Australians. We were shelled before we uncoupled our limbers and my friend Butch Revel was killed in two minutes of being in action. Our CO. Bill Norman went crackers, our GPO. Had put us in an observed position, we quickly moved to another area.
Many thanks for all your help, guys. My (potential) vignette will depict the arrival of the first gun; the others being, maybe, delayed by hypothetical refugees en route. I would guess that the 'lot of shouting' probably took place when all the guns had arrived. My idea is to depict a harrassed recce officer trying to get the first gun into roughly the right place and pointing in roughly the right direction, before the rest of the troop/battery/regiment arrive and things can proceed in a more practised manner, with a lot more shouting!
If the harassed recce officer needed to align the gun roughly for line he would probably use a prismatic compass not a director. If there is a director ready to pass line, the guns will be parallel when they deploy. There is a great description of life on the gun position in George Blackburn's book, "Guns of Normandy", including a good piece about crash actions.
Depending on the date of this, the field battery had either two or three troops. Each troop deployed few very hundred yards from the other(s), guns were typically about 30 yards apart. If there had been sufficient preparation time then the troops would be in survey sympathy with each other, ie fix and orientation. If time was short then this would have to be done after the guns had deployed. Battery recce and preparation elements always moved some time before the gun group in order to minimise the time the guns were out of action, ie were ready ASAP after arriving at the new position. Deployment was a drill. If the directors were not ready to pass line when the guns arrived then it was a clear indication of a battery in disarray or disaster was pending. Not the sort of thing that would occur in training in UK at the suggested period.
Here is what George Blackburn wrote: Prose to quicken the blood of any field Gunner eh? George Blackburn describes activities still familiar in the 1980s, and probably still inflicted on light gun troops driving along "crash action valley at Larkhil, waitign for the call over the radio of "Action! Action! Action! fire mission troop! A demanding BC or IG can make the exercise harder by knocking out the command post and losing the dial sights. Laying the guns by compass and quadrant and picking an opening elevation from the OP using a firing table is an interesting exercise. PS chrisgrove: Have you considered including some4 Larkihill School of Artillery figures? Perhaps a white hatted WO2 Ack IG stalking the GPO with a grim expression or a red hat banded IG (Instructor in Gunnery with a pipe at the ready to suck loudly in response to "bold" corrections ;}
You forgot the safety Ack. Peacetime safety restrictions make crash actions one of the most unrealistic training activities on the planet. In WW2 most likely a hangover from the desert where more dodgy/inapplicable 'lessons' were learned than anywhere else.
Maybe. The safety party is another tableaux not displayed in Model Soldier shows or made by Britians: A "Safety Party set" including an ack using an authentic artillery board and another figure with h the white arm band and his hand in the air, and a very non tactical land rover, possibly with BATUS flourescent red canvas.... "Down Safety - Fire! Crash actions, are very good tests of competence and team work, as another unrealistic exercise the "fire mission direct laying using dial sight", which was/is a popular exercise in gun competitions. I don't remember safety getting in the way much more than other actions. Slick safety will know the safe left and rights of arc and max and min elevations. I can see where in WW2 mobile operations crash actions may been the norm, rather than a bad habit. The pursuit from the Seine could not have been supported by leap frogging batteries
Leapfrogging batteries has nothing to do with crash actions. Crash actions are only needed when batteries are scarce and/or very widely dispersed and none are in range to the target. Once decent regimental procedures had been sorted out in late 1942, there was no real need for them. Obviously in training areas such BATUS where there is usually only one battery then they are sometimes unavoidable.
It depends on the rate of advance and the level of enemy opposition. If an armoured division in going to move 50 miles in the day, not unknown in the desert or some of the pursuits after Normandy or the Rhine, then it is going to cover the best part of 90,000 yards. This would require at least nine gun positions during the advance to ensure that there was always a battery in action covering potential enemy positions. That is a lot of work for the recce parties and the guns. That may be fine as a training exercise, but pointless nugatory work for the guns if there is no identified threat. It might be better to allow the gunners to stay mounted and be rested when needed in action. The difference in response times for a call for fire for a crash action and a deployed battery should not be more than a few minutes. George Blackburn's description was of towed 25 Pdrs, and the time to first round is even less for an SP gun. Indeed, when the 105mm Priest was first introduced one idea was to use them for close support of armoured brigades. There was another way to support a formation on the move. In the advance from the River Seine on 31 Aug 1944, at 09.30, 64 Medium Regiment were ordered to move along Diamond axis with recce parties moving ahead, without being given any areas to recce. At 1315 the regiment was ordered to pull off the road, and half an hour later ordered to occupy a grid square. From these positions the regiment engaged 88mm AA guns that were holding up the advance north of the River Somme. The FOO Michael Bailey was awarded the MC for his part, which involved him crawling close enough to four 88s to be in danger from splinters from the on target rounds. Not as dramatic as a crash action, but a practical example of successfully using a regiment of medium guns to support armour in the advance.
