Who'd have thought, 20 years ago, one of us would be publishing some pictures with this caption...
Dutch Artillerymen, training on their German howitzers, in Poland - for deployment to Afghanistan on a NATO mission.
Heh. It would have another completely different meaning, if things hadn't gone as they did 64 years ago.
Pictures copyright Ralph Zwilling, no reuse without permission.
Dutch Artillerymen, training on their German howitzers, in Poland - for deployment to Afghanistan on a NATO mission.
Heh. It would have another completely different meaning, if things hadn't gone as they did 64 years ago.
Pictures copyright Ralph Zwilling, no reuse without permission.
Just asking...
Oh well, I suppose if the French and English can collaborate on things, this can happen too.
Just so long as we don't have Polish artillerymen firing French howitzers in Germany!
Next up? Afghan artillerymen training on Russian/Chinese howitzers at Graf?
Our German partnership unit put on a demo for us at Graf in 2001. Prefused rounds are loaded into the howitzer on a conveyor which reads the type of round and fuse, then stores it in the magazine. The computer pulls the rounds from the magazine and sends them to the autoloader based on the fire mission order. Fuses are electronically set and the system is fired electronically. They pulled into position and fired a 3 round mission in about 15 seconds. Total time in the firing position was less than a minute. The system also has optical sites for direct fire unlike the Paladin which has optical sites for direct fire deflection, but range is set by inputting the quadrant for the target range. In 2001 they did not have the software to conduct Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact (MRSI) missions, but they said they were working on it. Nice piece of equipment, but this thing is BIG!