I visited what remains of a Battery Gunnery Range at Islandmagee in County Antrim yesterday and was very pleased with what I found. As well as the usual pieces of concrete there are 4 metal bases/mountings for the large guns. I suspect they would have fired at targets towed by aircraft over the sea. I have been unable to download the pictures onto this site and would appeal to all you knowledgeable folks to go to Home - Second World War in Northern Ireland and click on County Antrim Park 2. Scroll down till you find them. Its quite an impressive setup and I am interested to know what types of guns would have been used? Do the 2 types of mounting relate to 2 types of guns? Would the targets be air-tow or in the sea? Thanks.
This is a complete guess but I don't think they are for anti-aircraft mounts. The seem to be bases for some type of a pedestal mount, which might be hard to operate at a high angle at least for a large gun. Here is a non anti-aircraft 155mm on a pedestal.
Well, I probably should have found a better picture I always think of a naval pedestal mount when I see the pedestal in the M-12.
Worry not, your M12 carried a French design artillery piece, which had also been captured in numbers and used in the Atlantic Wall, so they're all related
I have now got this information - The "Defending the North" book by Bill Clements says its a Royal Navy Gun Range to be used by Merchant Navy, soldiers and Marines from Armed Merchant Ships who carried out practice fiting with 4.7 (120mm) QF and 12-pdr QF guns. So now we know!
