"Howitzers fired from landing craft" Topic

I was watching the Nat Geo channel last night and they had some brief footage of howitzers firing from landing craft in support of the D-Day landings, which I was not aware of.

I found this article on artillery support from landing craft, which includes Vietnam, as well as a practice run in 2019.

link

I watched that last night too ! Pretty darn good show ! But yes, I have seen photos and read about FA on LCs firing in support of landings. Just that much more firepower available for the Grunts on the ground.

they did fire from landing craft on beach assualts, sextons ect.

WWII, well established that SP guns eg Priest and Sextons would fire from landing craft…firing howitzers. Then there was the Centaur which had a turret to aim its 95mm howitzer, in close support of RMs (not to mention LCGs of various types)

However the link above is to firing towed artillery off a landing craft. Not come across that before.

I have seen a photo of British army in the Far East mounting 25 pounder guns on some sort of a barge to provide off-shore artillery support. I think that was a bit larger than a typical D-Day landing craft, though.

You have to wonder how accurate the fire would be from a moving landing craft. Navy ships have all sorts of mechanisms to allow for the moving platforms, but it's hard to believe that the field artillery would.

As long as it keeps the enemy's heads down…

the firing would have been from an lct not an lcm, too small a craft.

I would think mortars would have been a better weapon for indirect fire support. For direct fire over the sites, the 105 or smaller might be of use as an infantry gun, but accuracy while moving would be weak, perhaps laying smoke might be viable. Anytime spent firing in a craft on the beach for stability as the pic shows would be a waste of transport time. Better to unload and head back for more stuff. I gotta believe that tower howitzers were not in the first wave or even the second and third waves. Probably not until the beachhead perimeter was moved a good mile inland.

Shaun, my father was a crew man aboard a LCM MKI and they had a 25pdr firing from it while crossing the Straits Of Messina from Sicily to invade southern Italy.

gregg1
great story, it does seem a small boat to fire from, but at least you know it was done, mind you a 25pdr is far lighter than a sexton or priest.
mind you the messina straights are far narrower than the channel!

Needs to be done with caution, landing craft decks were often not designed to cope with recoil loads, prolonged fire could result in deck cracking and (in extreme cases) the craft flooding and sinking. One of my early jobs was looking at howitzer recoil load transmission into the deck of an amphibious assault ship

Yes, of course, as David points out most LCs are not designed for that. But as we see throughout modern history in this case starting in WWII. It was done as an expedient to get more support to the landing forces. But was never meant to be SOP.

For that type of continuous fire support there are craft designed just for that. E.g. even going back to a the ACW. I.e. Grant's use of gunboat support along the Mississippi River during the siege of Vicksburg.

Yes, UK and Canada practice for assault landings was the ability to fire mobile field guns (Priests and Sextons) from Landing Craft and to land with the gun pointing at the enemy*.

* source: CMHQ Report 141, "Situation of the Canadian Military Forces Overseas," p.24.

And they could roll right off the LC once on shore and start firing.

As it happens I've just seen some film of this in a D-Day news item on a news app. It showed 105s and Priests firing from LCTs. The footage was taken from above and behind the LCT deck. What's not clear is whether this was actual D-Day footage or something recorded before or afterwards.