105mm ice road truckin'

[dano1917]

Here in the U.S. what it means to have cable TV is that instead of 4 channels with nothing on you get 100 channels with nothing on! Anyway this afternoon I was watching Ice Road Truckers on the history channel and it was about truckers delivering supplies to the North Alaska Oil Fields on the "Kamikaze Highway", and the dangers faced by these truckers. Well one of the big dangers faced was avalanches, and many truckers were stranded, injured or killed due to them. About 5 years ago they came up with the idea to mount a 105mm recoilless gun to a semi trailer right before trucking season and spot out potential avalanches and fire a 105mm reciolless shell at the problem area to create a controlled avalanche before trucking season. Well they were interviewing one of the crew and he said all the shells are Korean War surplus, with all of them being dated 1952, and in his 5 years at the job not one shell has failed to explode. They showed the shells and they are nice with the "swiss cheese" shell case and all. Anyway I thought it to be a little interesting....Dano

 

[HAZORD]

Dano,

I haven't seen the episode you mentioned, but a lot of the ski resorts have WWII surplus recoilless rifles that are operated by the Forest Service, for preventing avalanches. The 75mm recoilless is the one you hear about the most, and I know they have one at Park City in Utah. These recoilless rifles are the source for a lot of the fired cases that show up in collections for the past 20 years.

 

[dano1917]

Thanks John, That was interesting information. Until this show I saw today I had no idea the recoilless guns were used for this purpose, and found it really interesting that in 5 years of firing 50+ year old shells, not one dud...Dano

 

[ammocat]

106mm recoilless rifle - avalanche control

Here is an article about the 106mm recoilless rifle being used for avalanche control. When I first heard about this article we were asked about 106mm ammunition being fitted with a Point Detonating Fuze, something I had never heard of. The Canadian military had only used three types of ammunition for the 106mm, HEAT, TP, and HESH, none of which have the PD fuze.

I you zoom in on the photo in the article the projectile appears to be marked with 105H, indicating 105mm Howitzer ammunition and the projectile has the three mass weight zone symbols, that would typically only be found on artillery ammunition. It appears that this is a modified 105mm howitzer projectile with the driving band pre-engraved to fit the recoilless rifle.

Since the 106mm recoilless rifle is actually 105mm this would work, but I wonder if this is the most efficient way to make this type of ammunition.

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/us/20alta.html?_r=1&hp

Hope the link works, using computers is not one of my strenghts.

 

[ammocat]

Avalanche control link

I just tested my link and it didn't work for me, so here goes another try, sorry for the inconvenience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/us/20alta.html?_r=1&hp

 

[HAZORD]

Ammocat,

Thanks for posting the web site for the Alta 105RR Avalanche control. Photos of 105mm Recoilless ammo are super rare.

To answer your question about the ammo, here's the deal:

The 75mm and 105mm Recoilless rifles were developed very near the end of WWII. The design was to utilize the existing 75mm and 105mm projectiles, after engraving rifling into the rotating bands, most likely with a broaching process similar to the way rifling is broached into gun barrels. So, for the 75mm recoilless, there are WP, HE, and TP projectiles. They added the HEP-T/HESH later in the 50s. These projectiles were rifled, and also had the diameter reduced and a crimping groove added below the rotating band, so they woud fit into the thick steel cases. Later on one new projectile was developed without a rotating band, a long tailed HEAT projectile which they also copied and downsized and used as a loading in the 90mm tank gun.

The same process of modifying howitzer projectiles was done for the 105mm Recoilless, using 105 Howitzer M1 HE Projectiles, M60 WP projectiles, and M67 HEAT projectiles. In all of the manuals and books over the years, I have never seen a single drawing or photo of a 105mm recoilless round or projectile. They are only verbally described.

A few years later, the 106mm Recoilless was developed with a whole new technology of projectiles, the HEAT, HEP-T/HESH, and the Flechette. These were all new technology, using thin walled projectiles to carry more cargo or explosives and give a better velocity and range. There was also an experimental WP projectile shown in the photo below, that was never adopted for service. The U.S. HEP-T/HESH projectiles are marked (stamped in the metal) for use in 105mm or 106mm Recoilless rifles.

 

[US-Subs]

The bit about no duds is total crap, however. If anything, due to the snow impact the dud rate is greater. When I was stationed in Colorado we used to have to walk the ski areas every spring/summer with Forest Service people, searching for duds in the areas where they fired their pieces a few months earlier. There were always plenty to be found. It was my understanding that Forest Service requested this support throughout the US, at least in public access areas.

 

[HAZORD]

I heard about duds in Utah too!