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Remembered Today:

Procurement of Artillery equipment


Old Tom

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A recent thread in this forum described some of the changes to the 18 pounder field gun. At first glance these seem to be steps towards the 25 pounder, the common field gun of WW2. This train of thought leads to the question; were these changes offered by the manufacturer or were they requested by the military i.e. by a chain of reqeusts from BEF to MGO to Ministry of Munitions. I used to be familiar with the MoD procurement system in the 60s and 70s with the preparation of staff requirements, specifications and so on and have a very shallow appreciation of the relations between the War Office, Ministry of Munitions and Llyod George in WW1. Can anyone describe the process of change of the 18 pounder, or point me towards anything published?

Old Tom

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An interesting question. In some cases, notably heavier arty, it was fairly straightforward becasue the manufacturer was the 'design authority' so the War Office asked them what they could do, or said roughly what they wanted, eg 'more range'. Often the manufacturer had seen it coming and had the design work underway. Some requesats originated in GHQ, the extent to which there was discussion with the MGO and Woolwich design dept/Director of Artillery is unclear.

However, 18-pr was a bit of a composite solution IIRC, originally it had been competed but army insisted on a bit of 'mix and match' (system engineering was a lot simpler then!) as a result of the competitive assessment so I'm not clear who the design owner was. And 18-pr was produced by several companies.

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An interesting question. In some cases, notably heavier arty, it was fairly straightforward becasue the manufacturer was the 'design authority' so the War Office asked them what they could do, or said roughly what they wanted, eg 'more range'. Often the manufacturer had seen it coming and had the design work underway. Some requesats originated in GHQ, the extent to which there was discussion with the MGO and Woolwich design dept/Director of Artillery is unclear.

However, 18-pr was a bit of a composite solution IIRC, originally it had been competed but army insisted on a bit of 'mix and match' (system engineering was a lot simpler then!) as a result of the competitive assessment so I'm not clear who the design owner was. And 18-pr was produced by several companies.

From what I've read it seems to have been very much a give and take process - ie WO requests improvements, manufacturers produce prototype maybe adding a few bells and whistles that they thought of in the process, prototype evaluated and extra features requested others asked to be taken off etc etc.

I too have experience of procurement (mainly from the manufacturer's side but with a 2 year Civil Service secondment as well) in the 1960s and 70s plus did some extensive research into WW2 procurement - but in the aerospace sector. It all got much more bureaucratic with the ministry making constant design modifications some of them quite irrelevant. Thus the production of the Fairy Albacore and Barricuda bombers was held up for months whilst the Whitehall warriors fretted over the placement of the elsan lavatory (Once in operational service this device was ditched by the crews anyway as it tended to spill in violent maneuvers). When the military version of the RR Spey was under development there was considerable respecification of quite minor details (but they missed the fact that the afterburners didn't work properly and could cause a flame out and explosive restart so that the 1st 50 RAF Phantoms so fitted were unsuitable for combat). Don't get me started!

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Thanks for those comments, much as I expected. However, can you look back to 1904 when the 13 and 18 pounders and 4.5 howitzer came into service and say if these were as a result of a War Office appreciation of future operations or did manufacturers, who were looking for orders*, simply offer a new range of equipments. In either case were they influenced by German and French equipment of the period. I do not know if German field pieces, which were broadly similar to the incoming British pieces predated or followed. The French with their 75mm seem to have made a different appreciation.

* I am vaguely aware of an effort by the steel industry in the early 1900s to provoke orders by pressing for increased armaments. A member of my wife's family was an early trade unionist in the Middlesborough area and there is some record (not in my possesion) of him being part of some sort of study involving visting Germany to support the industry view. I have failed to track this down in any detail although their is a brief mention in Hansard.

For Centurion - I don't think our paths would have crossed in PE, I was a cog in the Anglo/French helicopter machine.

Old Tom

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18-pr was the subject of a formal requirement statement, a 'Precis of Conditions to be fulfilled by Proposed New Equipments'. I'd call it a 'Cardinal Point Specification'. It started with a Horse Artillery Gun and then provided exceptions for a Field Artillery Gun. Interestingly a new Precis was issued in 1913, key points were 8000 yds at 23 degs Elev, shield to protect against .276 bullets at 850 yds, key points for indirect fire laying (not addressed in the 1901 version), max 24 cwt on gun wheels and 36 cwt behind team, shell weight 18 lbs desrable, but at least 16.5 lbs.

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In the U.S. DoD systems development programs since World War II have generally been initiated with "requirements documents" that define the performance capabilities of desired systems. Starting during the 1950s and 1960s logistic supportability goals have been added to system requirements as well because the support infrastructures needed to keep complex systems in an operational status can be like the submerged parts of icebergs that are not always apparent to the naked eye. Defining requirements up front is intended to prevent the government from moving the goal posts performance- and concept-wise during the course of development. Some development programs have been thoroughly knocked off the tracks by frivilous (and costly) design changes that have completely altered the original concepts of systems.

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Nigelfe,

Just the sort of thing I was after! Do you know when that document was issued and if the use of the equipments it required was related to any foreseen type of operation. I assume it was written before the Anglo French staff talks which, I understand, lead to the plan to deploy the BEF in France and hence might have been based on colonial operations. It would be interesting to see if it is available.

Old Tom

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The Royal Artillery Committee

Throughout the First World War, reports on the behaviour of all types of equipment were received from all fronts and considered by the War Office and the Ministry of Munitions. The criticisms made fell into mainly into five categories these being:

• Excessive wear of rifling with the result of lack of accuracy

• Insufficient range

• Insufficient shell power

• Inaccuracy of time fuzes

• Structural weakness

Particular attention was paid to the 18-pounder, this field gun was certainly not perfect, but its defects were only of secondary importance, and may be briefly classified as under:

1. Inefficient recuperator, continuous firing weakened the recuperator springs, making the runout slow and uncertain.

2. In sufficient range. The pole trail limited the elevation and so the range. The maximum range was 6,500 yards at 16 degrees elevation.

3. Insufficient traverse. Only 4 degrees left and right of centre line.

The recuperator question was taken in hand early on in the war, and by the end of 1918 all springs had been replaced by air recuperators. This defect had, however been responsible for a considerable loss of artillery power during the critical days, and especially during the prolonged operation on the Somme in 1916¹.

The ordnance itself was generally satisfactory but the carriage needed a radical redesign. The first development model was the Mk lll but for a variety of reason this was found to be unsuitable and was abandoned, .in favour of a design which eventually entered service as the Mk lV. By the time of the Armistice, the old pole trail was abandoned and a new Box Trail redesigned to replace it. This new trail permitted a range of elevations from 5°depression to 37.5° elevation. It also permitted an axle traverse of 4•5° right and left of the centre line.

The recoil system of the of the new equipment was made up of a hydraulic buffer and a hydro-pneumatic recuperator with the length of recoil varying with elevation, by the means of cut off gears fitted to the cradle, its function is to automatically control the length of recoil, so as to prevent the recoiling portion from either touching the trail or ground and thereby damaging the equipment.. The length of recoil varied between 48 inches, at low angle and 26 inches at maximum elevation. The cradle was lengthened and this provided full support to the barrel throughout recoil.. The barrel and jacket remained practically unchanged apart from modifications needed to accept the new recoil system and the provision of keys to form guides in the extended cradle. No attempt was made to alter the chamber or ammunition.

The Breech mechanism was redesigned. The new form was of a single motion type with a welin parallel breech screw operated on the right side. The mechanism was arranged for percussion firing by means if a firing gear on the carriage or by a lanyard.

This equipment was known as QF 18 pounder Mk lV gun; it was remarkably steady in action and was capable of firing up to 30 rounds per minute. Production started to late to influence the outcome of the war as only a battery of 18 pounder Mk lV on Mk lll carriages were sent to France in 1918 with a maximum range of 9,200 yards an almost 50% increase in range.

John

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Insufficient range. The pole trail limited the elevation and so the range.

That's the main reason the U.S. Army decided upon the split-trail design for the M101 105mm towed howitzer in the late 1930s. The split trails also made high-angle fire possible. That's the model of howitzer my Dad's battery had in 1944-45 and a modified version of it is what I was trained on 1977 and also what a battalion of mine had in 1982.

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The first precis was 1901. There's a copy of this and the 1913 one in Headlam's 'The History of the RA - from the Indian Mutiny to the Geat War, Vol 2 '1899-1914', Appx C and D. This volume deals extensively with equipment matters.

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The first precis was 1901.

Some years ago I read a copy of the requirements document for one of America's first military aircraft, circa 1905-1910, that was quoted in recent times by Armed Forces Journal. The desired airplane was way, way back, not long after the Wright Brothers flew the first one. It could be the practice of having requirements documents to guide the development of military systems was something we copied from Britain.

Some time ago I looked at a website for MOD systems development and found they were following the U.S. DoD model for product development nearly chapter and verse. Oh no, more BS people, wrting more piles and piles of BS documents, to be approved by more BS colonels, who in turn work for more or less equally BS organizations. It's enough to make a fighting man lose his faith. :o

(When I learned that it's when I realized that Western Civilization really is losing the war ... Given that life as we know it and all that we hold dear might soon be about to collapse, with dusky foreign chaps running around ravishng our women, it would behoove you Brits who want forgiveness in the next world to give consideration to switching back to being RC before it's too late ... There's not a moment to lose ... ) :innocent:

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Thanks all round. I will see if the Hampshire library can find that book. The first 'precis' was presumably based on the Boer War which, I believe, had lead to the view that artillery should be able to move quickly, engage troops in the open and mostly fire shrapnel. I suppose this view might have been modified by the Russo-Japenese war of 04/05. But noting the the BEF went to war with shrapnel only, perhaps not very much.

Old Tom

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Thanks all round. I will see if the Hampshire library can find that book. The first 'precis' was presumably based on the Boer War which, I believe, had lead to the view that artillery should be able to move quickly, engage troops in the open and mostly fire shrapnel. I suppose this view might have been modified by the Russo-Japenese war of 04/05. But noting the the BEF went to war with shrapnel only, perhaps not very much.

Old Tom

There is a paperback reprint.

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