previous post next post  

Coast Artillery moment.

By The Armorer on March 12, 2006 | | Comments (5)

Okay.

16 inch howitzer at Fort Story, Virginia, 1942

Now *those* were the days. This guy is guarding a 16 inch howitzer at Fort Story, Virginia. Fort Story's guns lasted longer than many, not being removed until 1949. Still, chances are by the end of the war this guy was manning a anti-aircraft gun somewhere as the Coast Artillery was essentially morphed into the Air Defense Artillery during WWII.

This particular gun is almost certainly a US Army M1920 16in Howitzer of Battery Pennington-Walke.

Higher res just for a better sense of the size of that muzzle!

Here's another pic of what is quite probably this gun (note the missing paint at the muzzle in the pics) - with an interesting credit.

M1920 16 inch Howitzer - Franklin D. Roosevelt

It was taken by some guy named Franklin. As in Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Not to be confused with the 16 inch GUN. Much longer barrel. Shot farther and the projectile went faster, intended for direct fire combat, however. The howitzer was intended for plunging fire.

Aside from the mount, you can see the difference in tube length and shape in this picture of the gun at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Hosting provided by FotoTime

Barrel length difference even more obvious here.

Share This Article:

Categories:

5 Comments

By Russ on March 12, 2006 12:44 PM
Whenever I see an old old old Coast Artillery picture, I wonder if my grandfather is one of the troops in the picture.
 
By SezaGeoff on March 12, 2006 5:35 PM
Plunging fire being much more effective against maritime targets. Providing you could do a good job of hiding till someone with longer range got close enough, even a dud would leave a 16 inch hole to let the water in. At some of the coastal batteries in Western Australia (Oliver Hill) they used to camouflage the real guns and construct dummies for the dummies to shoot at.
 
By Fred on March 13, 2006 10:08 AM
Geez. Those things look like some primodial dinosaurs. The old casemates/bunkers are pretty scary to visit sometimes too, if you drop by one of abandoned ones. Suddenly this huge concrete emplacement looms out of the brush... They look like they've been there since the last ice age...and will there until the next one.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on March 13, 2006 10:23 AM
Jersey's full of coast-gun emplacements--Sandy Hook, the Atlantic Highlands, Cape May. A lot of them were reborn as Nike-Hercules sites when the lads became unhappy with their Skysweepers. Of course, Cape May is even flatter than Kansas, so the coasties came up with this solution.
 
By Chuck Simmins on March 13, 2006 8:40 PM
Daddy was in the Coast Arty in Panama before WW II. I recall him talking about their worries about the Japs, and the way they kept an eye on Jap ships coming through the canal. He kept iguanas and boas for pets, and played a lot of golf. Got transferred coast to coast for being "nice" to an officer's lonely wife. He was a radio man and someplace I have a pic he took from the top of one of the great antennas at either end of the CZ.
 
© 2008 John Donovan
All rights reserved.