View Single Post
 
Old 11-08-2019, 03:53 AM
CharlieC's Avatar
CharlieC CharlieC is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Brisbane
Posts: 2,225
Total Downloaded: 16.12 MB
Quote:
Originally Posted by PacificWind View Post
Interesting analysis, Karol.
Here're are two great photos. Many details can be seen. Looks like the gun is on rails so it can be moved forward & backward.
For sure, I'll gather as many informations as possible before I start the "Koksan" part.

That's exactly what it looks like. My guess is that for transport the gun is moved forward closer to the centre of gravity of the vehicle and the spades are swung up over the rear of the hull. The problem of moving a heavy gun on a tracked chassis has been around ever since 1918 when the first SPGs were built with heavy guns - images are of the first Saint-Chamond heavy SPG of 1918 with a 220mm howitzer.

Towed artillery has a list of problems which became all to apparent in WW1. Towing over bad ground can be very problematic and great care has to be taken to avoid damaging the gun. Towed guns take a certain time to come into action (usually minutes) when they arrive at the battery location and the guns are vulnerable to counter-battery fire. SPGs are very fast to come into action and are fairly immune to counter-battery fire - most modern SPGs can have 3 - 5 rounds in the air and the vehicle moving before the first round lands.

The M1978 traverse doesn't seem to be recorded anywhere but the somewhat similar Russian 203mm 2S7 Pion has a 30 degree traverse. Looking at the angle of the spades I'd estimate the gun can traverse at least 10 degrees each side.


Regards,


Charlie
Attached Thumbnails
M-1978 Koksan (scratch project)-st_chamond_spg_gun_forward.jpg   M-1978 Koksan (scratch project)-st_chamond_spg_23.jpg  

Last edited by CharlieC; 11-08-2019 at 04:27 AM.
Reply With Quote