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5.5inch Gun

S

StielGr

Well-Known Member
This area does look very neglected with such a lack of threads :( .
Maybe it is because so many of you live on the mainland and are spoilt with the abundance of shows.

My point is all the vehicle Forums have loads of pictures of privately owned vehicles so where are all the privately owned large calibre guns hiding.

I will make a start from the Ulster Military Vehicle Club summer show in Portrush.
A very nice 1943 5.5inch Medium Gun with a 1943 Matador Tractor.

Regards
PC
5-d9288f19342fcebfb04f328cfb7ad118.JPG
 
Lovely gun, spent a day with the RA manning the gun that shot the last official round. Was quite sad in a way, but a great day and by god did we get through some ammo :)
 
Hi Charlie
Sounds like you had a fun day. How long ago was that?
The other thing is have you any pictures?
 
It was at Larkhill with 34 Seringapatam battery on 5th January 1995. There was six guns and alot of top brass with the last roung being fired at 12:25. I have pictures of the day somewhere, will have a look around.

Have just found the fuse tin and fues plug from the last round, will post pics when i have a chance.

C.
 
I was fortunate enough to be at the last firing of the 25 pdr in Australian service in 2004. We used the 25pdr as a proof gun for proofing fuzes. We would machine out the threads on inert projectiles, weight them with sand, put in modern fuzes and fire them directly into the air so they would land base first. The projetcile would be located via radar and ground sensor and dug up and the fuze examined. Its called virtical recovery and we stopped doing it in the mid 1990's. Anyway we used the guns after that for radar training and a few other things until our stocks of propellant and projectiles got low so we stopped using the guns and they were donated to some Army museums.

The projectiles were rammed by an old rammer that had been last used in the last divisional fire mission of the 25 pdr in the early 1970's and had been handed down to the Corps Master Gunner. I was fortunate enough to fire the 3rd last round (well I was the boss at the time - privilege of rank).

As a young officer I had actually taken part in the last vertical recovery activity as well. A little tense when you are down a hole digging for the projectile nose up and your mattock goes clunk on something!

We were still using the 25 pdr mount with a 105mm barrel on it as well. We also use a 2pdr carriage for testing RCL and rockets. Unfortunately our engineers are macking it difficult to use the old systems so we are gradually making or modifying mounts to meet modern tecnical standards so a lot of history is being palmed off to museums and displays.

Leo
 
fire them directly into the air so they would land base first

You mean as in straight up? How exciting for the bystanders.:D
 
Philip Reinders said:
whooo very nice pictures indeed
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Thanks Philip. It is good to hear that you liked them.

Birdseye said:
Question on that lovely cannon.

Is it demilled? What had to be done to make it legal?
Click to expand...

Sorry Harry but I'm not up to speed on the UK legal requirements for deactivated guns. Some of the older obsolete calibres can be keep live on a normal firearms certificate.
For example at that same show there was a demonstration from a private owner of the firing of a 25pdr. Blanks of course :tinysmile_shy_t:.

PC
 
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