"modern anti tank guns" Topic

I did know about the guns but not about the one with radar on it.

from article: link

picture: link

for your interest

YouTube link

They seem more likely to blow their heads off than they are to actually hit anything.

They seemed surprised that it fired at all…………..

I rather liked the one scene of the putz aiming the gun by looking down the barrel through the open breech. Real professionals, these…. NOT!!!

And their ready ammunition wasn't very ready. Certainly a long way behind the gun itself.

Here's one being fired by professionals:
youtu.be/jdJP9wZe2v4
It's all in Russian, but it doesn't matter. You get the idea

Coastal2, that's called boresighting.

The way the seperatists were all arguing in the first video could have been a sitcom.

I also like how they just casually cleared a dud round. Personally I wouldn't be messing with decades old Soviet cannon rounds like that.

WW2 soviet AT unofficial motto " our barrels are long, our lives are short" – I just noticed the other day that there is a ground mount for the Russian 125mm tank gun – it has a very long barrel!

So looking at these morons and then seeing the "separatists" that are whipping the Ukrainian Army; which ones do you suppose are regular Russian troops minus national insignia?

Well, it depends. It looks like the guys from the first video hardly had any drills even on similar guns before. If you put me there, in a day or two I'll be able to operate the gun as I was doing that in my service time…even that it was plenty of years ago.
There's a lot of videos on the conflict where you see surprising lack of gun operators – like one servicing a whole battery with a help of several loaders.
Aiming system of the gun is easy, if you know what you're doing. Direct fire optics of D-30 howitzer has lots in common with AT gun.
If you have a look at all these shelling of civilian buildings by Ukrainian army and their claims that they're not doing that intentionally, it seems that both sides have lack of professionals. That's why we see training and drilling on both sides of the front now, and I hope it doesn't come to another testing of skills…

Yes, let's hope everyone can soon stop honing their skills. Thanks for the insight Barin

There's actually a short wooden dowel-type rammer that's usually used on the MT-12. The breach block pushes it out of the way in the same way as your fist, Tango 2 3. You can see it in this video of an MT-12 training exercise with sub-caliber rounds:

youtu.be/15v0_mvi66A

I've got a book on the Australians in Vietnam and there are a lot of photos of the artillery and you can see them using the fist to load them.

Not something I'd ever thought about being RAF.

The handling of the misfire in the first was definitely unnerving. I know from my experience (tanks), immediately flinging the round out was NOT done (unless you wanted your butt chewed off.. IF you were lucky).

HistoryPhD, yes, that's correct. Mt-12 has a single cartridge, that is pushed by rammer, never a fist. Our D-30/M-30 howitzers had shell and powder cartridge separate, so the loader was using the rammer to have everything in place.
However, if you were trained on small caliber guns, like WWII ZIS-3 old gun we had for fire correction training, there you actually trying to push single cartridge in the gun as far as you can, so it will trigger an automatic closure of the chamber….

Thank you Barin for the information. :-)

YouTube link
D-30 operation…you can see loader used twice.
YouTube link
Mt-12, you can see how autoclosure is working even without a need of rammer – of course, if you do it right ;)

Tim – Leo and Cougar – Canadian?

Normally, me, as gun operator, is aiming the gun. Unlike with indirect fire, where gun commander is transferring to you battery commander orders and suitable corrections, for direct fire gun operator is using the sights to aim the gun himself. Both direct fire optics and indirect fire "panorama" have soft rubber for eye protection, and D-30 is pinned to the ground by 3 stakes, so it is not really jumping a lot…Still you may get a black eye if you keep looking…I wasn't firing on moving targets, and if you fire on smth that doesn't move, and you see it through the optics, you'll see the result of your shot, too – after smoke clears.
A whole unit of guns firing with indirect fire – and it is much more typical for howitzers, for sure – is helped by a recon unit (been there second part of my army service), it uses advanced optics, laser distance measuring devices, etc, and reports correcting commands for the respective batteries/divisions.Battery commander is transferring commands to gun commanders, and they're in turn bark the corrections for gun operators.

And…you need to be very careful around the gun. You have to mind recoil that can smash you to tiny bits, used cartridge that is hot a hell (a typical cruel joke for recruits that thye need to take them from the gun, as soon as they're thrown out), shell itself is over 20 kg, and old versions of D-30 had a very dangerous lifting system with two handles that need to be turned at once by two loaders…if one slips from your hand your certain very private parts are in danger…;) I suppose you don't have enough wood in Canada for all the rammers you need ;)