One of the most intriguing aspects of the 155mm construction is the weight reduction - everything that's not necessary is removed, they even made the walls of the equilibrators exactly as thick as they need to be to be sturdy enough for the battlefield, not a millimeter more. Mechanical elegance through omission. I call that beauty. Great video btw.
Excellent video. Most auto mechanics exposed to this; and to the: "How to Load, Aim, and Fire" would understand the basics of setting up and firing a Howitzer immediately. Most truck drivers and farmers are pretty fair mechanics.
@Mscope I asked myself today how to aim artillery and I stumbled upon this video. This video is one of the best I have watched lately or for that fact ever. Very informative and well-animated. Just thought I would let you know your hard work is being noticed. Cheers from Canada
Artillery is indirect fire you don't normally aim at the target you site's are aimed at a different aiming point though the site's and barrel is calibrated so what ever corrections you do the barrel moves in cecounes
That was an amazing overview of this weapon. Literally, the best I have seen. The detail was great but was presented in such a way as it was not confusing. Thank you.
KH-179는 국군포병의 실력을 키우는데 큰 역할을 한 장비입니다. 평형기 부터 주퇴장치에 대한 설명 방아끈에서 뇌관까지 그래픽도 좋고 잘 만든 영상입니다. 이 대포로 인하여 K 9이라는 자주포가 나왔습니다. 프라모델의 설명서를 이용한 것도 있고 M101 105mm 와 M102 105mm 곡사포에 대한 것도 있군요. 아쉬운 점이 있다면 가신의 끝 부분과 발톱이 정확하지 못한 것 같습니다.
Excellent video! I always wondered how the breech was sealed just by pulling a lever. Good use of graphics and animation with further detail by use of "exploded" views (pun intended). I also liked the the little tweeks like the squeaky sound effects whenever something would be moved.
It's been more than 40 years since I have and loaded the howitzer on the tank I was in but I remember hiding from that Canon recoil so it didn't pinch me and I remember keep my fingers out of the breech. It was 155mm in M60 Combat Engineer tank
My 1965 , 155 HOW was self propelled. It looked much like a tank. It carried a 6 man team inside. The vehicle was powered by two Chrysler V8 engines under carriage. The total weight was 25 tons. The top speed was 50 Mph. I think it had a 30 mile target range..
With some of the pill boxes in WW2’s Siegfried Line the American artillery would drop a 150mm shell on the roof, shortly after the Germans would come out holding their heads.
What makes it a howitzer is the breach. I was F.D.C. station with a 8 inch artillery battalion. in my training all were referred to as guns except morters. Mortar's do not have rifling or a breach. A howitzer has an angle of fire from 0 degree's to about 48 degree's
I was with the only 198HOW AIRBORNE Battalion in the world. 1/321 FAR (ABN). They did some amazing work in Afghanistan. You can read up on all the rounds shot and enemy annihilated by searching the unit in Google. They dissolved the unit a few years back and moved them to the 82nd Airborne. I loved the 198 HOW; it was devastating firepower and fun to fire and watch rounds coming in. Thank you for the video! I've always felt that artillery doesn't get much love, but they deserve recognition. Especially the unit 1/321 FAR (ABN), jumping out of planes and sling loads with Chinook helicopters is fantastic.
Yeah, physics doesn't change, but those engineers keep pluggin' away with improvements in weight, reliability, and payload. Will we see a change from combustion-propelled payloads to something like electrical pulses or heat generators? Engineers!
A very thorough breakdown and explanation. Well done! My only minor complaint with many of these types of videos is that the computer voice doesn't know how to pronounce many common English words. But, oh well.. still a good video.
Excellent material. May be you could do a video explaining the basics of arming, aiming and firing of these howitzers. When I make models, I'm always fascinated with the red and white striped stick attached to the trail of the gun. I think it's meant to assist with aiming of gun, but I don't know how.
I think they are either aiming posts or surveying sticks. Since artillery is a non-line-of-sight weapon, you have to know where the howitzer is located and where it is pointing. You locate a aiming posts away from your weapon and use it a reference point for direction and distance. For example, you place the posts 30 meters away, 45 degree to the right and left of your gun tube. Your cannon is now pointed toward your target. After firing a few rounds, your whole howitzer moves from the recoil and now the tube is actually pointing 43 degrees to the right and 47 degrees to the left of the posts. You look thru the aiming device to see the posts and move the cannon until it 45 degrees left & right of the aiming posts. You are now back on target and keep on firing. It is a little bit more complicated than that but I hope you get the basic idea.
@@g43654 no. Aiming stakes are for direction only. They are the fallback for firing azimuth. The primary is the scope on a tripod located to the left front of the piece. It looks like a 1.5’x3” tube and is called a collimater. The gunners sight on the piece has elevation scales, and often the right side has an elevation only sight. Finally, there is a gunners quadrant to final check elevation. Think protractor with a level. I’m not going to get into the details of “laying a Battery”- that’s a long video in of itself. This is old school, non GPS aiming.
The key point about a modern mortar is that it transfers the recoil into the ground via its base plate. This means that you don’t need the recuperators and recoil mechanism which reduces the weight, which allows medium mortars to be broken down and be ‘man portable’
@@marcos0055101 I'm not a specialist, but on the diagram at 7:00 there is no explanation how it is possible for recoil cylinder to change it's overall internal volume during operation
An excellent explanation, however a couple of minor points. 1. Your explanation of the recoil distance being reduced to stop the breech hitting the ground at high elevation gets the issue the wrong way round.. The problem is with recoil at low elevations where the recoil is trying to push the carriage back across the ground. To allow the use of a relatively light carriage, you need to let the barrel recoil a considerable distance at low elevations to spread the shock over a longer period and reduce the peak loading of the carriage. At high elevation most of the shock goes down into the ground and you do not need the barrel to recoil so much as well as there being less space for the breech to move. 2. Equilibrators are needed if the trunnions are not at the centre of gravity. Most guns with limited elevation keep the trunnions forward at the centre of mass, or use barrel weights to balance the barrel. In high elevation guns it is better to have the trunnions to the rear as it reduces the swing of the breech. You could use breech weights as well, but they add to the carriage weight and really only have been used on anti aircraft guns such as the WW2 UK 3.5" AA gun. The old US M1 105 and the British 25pdr had balanced trunnions.
Yeah, no, we missed the most important part. How to calculate the angle. How they know what angle to push the howitzer to. Or is it just lobbing shells and there's sort of a prayer that the shells hit their intended target?
The number one killer on a battlefield is artillery! Love the fact you pointed out that a primer was asserted…..as a civil war history buff….history is again repeated!!👍
The 155mm howitzer shown in this video is what we in the Marine Corps called the "Pig". But they did not have a muzzle brakes on them. They were a pain in the ass to setup due to the very heavy square plate used to support the howitzer when the wheels were lifted into the firing position..
I thought the fancy new self propelled guns could shoot at some pretty high angles so they can do fancy things like fire multiple rounds timed to impact at the same time.
Great video except for the loud distracting music. My question is not part of the material of this video, but it is interesting all the same. A shell fired from a high angle howitzer is spinning due to the rifling. The spin causes the shell to keep pointing in the same direction. What then causes it to change orientation during the trajectory so that it hits the ground nose first? Or does it hit the ground tail first?
Alas, this channel is not the only one with this super annoying and totally unnecessary background noise. If it really must be there, reduce the volume by at least 6 dB! Even more baffling is why it "must" be there in the first place.
If I were to guess, aerodynamic drag, which would act more on the base of the shell than the pointed tip. The spinning minimizes the effects of air resistance, to prevent tumbling, but not all of it.
Easy: Same as 203mm, 105mm and any other piece of artillery. Point gun at the enemy. Insert shell in the big end (the breech). Pull rope. A loud bang with smoke and flame and shell will come out of the other end (the barrel). Repeat. After 10 reps, have a cup of tea. Please ensure you wear your ear defenders and keep the barrel pointing in a safe direct at all times. Well safe for you, not so much the enemy. There we go, easy. Artillery 101.
This is by far the most well made explanatory video
Agree
10/10. I wonder how long it took to make?
Yes
As it starts of with a total non-sequiteur the others must be truly appalling eh?
@@Farweasel ?
One of the most intriguing aspects of the 155mm construction is the weight reduction - everything that's not necessary is removed, they even made the walls of the equilibrators exactly as thick as they need to be to be sturdy enough for the battlefield, not a millimeter more. Mechanical elegance through omission. I call that beauty. Great video btw.
I wonder what is considered "not necessary". because honestly almost all modern artillery pieces have onboard electronics (ballistics computer).
00:08 Gun vs Howitzer vs Mortar
01:03 Structure
02:43 Muzzle Brake
03:17 Breech Mechanism
03:58 Obturator
04:36 Breech Block
04:58 Firing Mechanism
05:24 Counterbalance Mechanism
06:53 Recoil Mechanism
08:14 Recoil Distance
08:31 Sleigh & Cradle
09:55 Equilibrator
10:47 Elevating Mechanism
11:04 Traversing Mechanism
11:19 Firing Support
11:51 Trail
At the time of making this, timestamps are already present.
Clear, concise and well illustrated. Now all we need is good ear protection.
and hundreds of thousands of dollars in artillery shells and the howitzer itself XD
and some projectiles.
In the sixties there was no ear protection. We were instructed at Ft. Sill to turn our back to the blast. Gushed what- Doesn’t work.
@@jimarcher5255 i was a red leg during the 90s, we had foam orange plugs. guess what, didnt work either. cant hear shit brother
Very detailed and very well explained, there are few contents with this quality, great work!
Wish my school lessons were this interactive
Excellent video. Most auto mechanics exposed to this; and to the: "How to Load, Aim, and Fire" would understand the basics of setting up and firing a Howitzer immediately. Most truck drivers and farmers are pretty fair mechanics.
BRILLIANT presentation that depicts how these howitzers work. Simply amazing but easily understood with your video. Thanks.
@Mscope I asked myself today how to aim artillery and I stumbled upon this video. This video is one of the best I have watched lately or for that fact ever. Very informative and well-animated. Just thought I would let you know your hard work is being noticed. Cheers from Canada
PS I subscribed...
Artillery is indirect fire you don't normally aim at the target you site's are aimed at a different aiming point though the site's and barrel is calibrated so what ever corrections you do the barrel moves in cecounes
That was an amazing overview of this weapon. Literally, the best I have seen. The detail was great but was presented in such a way as it was not confusing. Thank you.
This is very professional explanation. Thanks for showing the mechanism.
KH-179는 국군포병의 실력을 키우는데 큰 역할을 한 장비입니다.
평형기 부터 주퇴장치에 대한 설명 방아끈에서 뇌관까지 그래픽도 좋고 잘 만든 영상입니다. 이 대포로 인하여 K 9이라는 자주포가 나왔습니다.
프라모델의 설명서를 이용한 것도 있고 M101 105mm 와 M102 105mm 곡사포에 대한 것도 있군요. 아쉬운 점이 있다면 가신의 끝 부분과 발톱이 정확하지 못한 것 같습니다.
Dude, i'm so happy to have tooken the time to learn english just to find and understand goldmine channel like yours. Keep it up !
Awesome explanatory amimation!
This is one of the best technical breakdown video I've ever seen, especially since you stopped using cartoon sounds
This is beautiful the best 155mm howitzer explanatory video ever😊😊
Excellent video! I always wondered how the breech was sealed just by pulling a lever. Good use of graphics and animation with further detail by use of "exploded" views (pun intended). I also liked the the little tweeks like the squeaky sound effects whenever something would be moved.
This video is phenomenal and accurate. Something rare now adays!
Holy smokes...this video is awesome! Stuff that only military colleges would teach.
Thank you.
Best video ever I've seen about how artillery works! Well done!
This is an absolute beauty of a video explanation made easy!
Very interesting. I've always wondered about some of the mechanisms.
Bravo! 13 Bravos! Well done!
Thanks to your videos, i finally understand how cannon work
Extraordinaire simplification, la meilleure explication que j’ai vue. Merciiiiiiii 🎉
all this fancy high tech innovations and its still set off with a good old fashioned string
Best explanatory video
It's been more than 40 years since I have and loaded the howitzer on the tank I was in but I remember hiding from that Canon recoil so it didn't pinch me and I remember keep my fingers out of the breech. It was 155mm in M60 Combat Engineer tank
Wow! This video far exceeded my expectations. Well done.
Oh this the video that kingdom-building Isekai protagonists watched
really, guy deserves the praise for the effort and quality of the presentation
My 1965 , 155 HOW was self propelled. It looked much like a tank. It carried a 6 man team inside. The vehicle was powered by two Chrysler V8 engines under carriage. The total weight was 25 tons. The top speed was 50 Mph. I think it had a 30 mile target range..
M109? I served on an M109A6 Paladin in the late 80s. The M109 still serves today with 1,000 in US Army service.
I thought range was 30 kilometers not 30 miles. It has been years since I was in my reserve artillery unit so I may be wrong.
@@chuckbuckbobuck you are correct. Our 155 only have a range of 30 km, not 30 miles. The Excalibur round can reach about 30 km max.
Good to carry around, when confronted by police, you can legally tell them its medicinal, best home defense and conceal carry
Always carry a tsar bomba in your left pocket for good measure
With some of the pill boxes in WW2’s Siegfried Line the American artillery would drop a 150mm shell on the roof, shortly after the Germans would come out holding their heads.
Now this is an impressive visualization and explanation!
Excellent video
Perfect for my backyard.
This is both extraordinary, and excellent! Thank you very much for the outstanding presentation.
Very nice. keep going.
Wow this literally answered every question I had about Howitzers lol
What makes it a howitzer is the breach. I was F.D.C. station with a 8 inch artillery battalion. in my training all were referred to as guns except morters. Mortar's do not have rifling or a breach. A howitzer has an angle of fire from 0 degree's to about 48 degree's
Good explanation, thanks so much!
I was with the only 198HOW AIRBORNE Battalion in the world. 1/321 FAR (ABN). They did some amazing work in Afghanistan. You can read up on all the rounds shot and enemy annihilated by searching the unit in Google.
They dissolved the unit a few years back and moved them to the 82nd Airborne.
I loved the 198 HOW; it was devastating firepower and fun to fire and watch rounds coming in.
Thank you for the video! I've always felt that artillery doesn't get much love, but they deserve recognition. Especially the unit 1/321 FAR (ABN), jumping out of planes and sling loads with Chinook helicopters is fantastic.
Would've been nice to have the aiming of the Howitzer explained.
Interesting to see that the recoil mechanism is the same as more than 120 years ago.
Yeah, physics doesn't change, but those engineers keep pluggin' away with improvements in weight, reliability, and payload. Will we see a change from combustion-propelled payloads to something like electrical pulses or heat generators? Engineers!
A very thorough breakdown and explanation. Well done! My only minor complaint with many of these types of videos is that the computer voice doesn't know how to pronounce many common English words. But, oh well.. still a good video.
Excellent material. May be you could do a video explaining the basics of arming, aiming and firing of these howitzers.
When I make models, I'm always fascinated with the red and white striped stick attached to the trail of the gun. I think it's meant to assist with aiming of gun, but I don't know how.
I think they are either aiming posts or surveying sticks. Since artillery is a non-line-of-sight weapon, you have to know where the howitzer is located and where it is pointing. You locate a aiming posts away from your weapon and use it a reference point for direction and distance. For example, you place the posts 30 meters away, 45 degree to the right and left of your gun tube. Your cannon is now pointed toward your target. After firing a few rounds, your whole howitzer moves from the recoil and now the tube is actually pointing 43 degrees to the right and 47 degrees to the left of the posts. You look thru the aiming device to see the posts and move the cannon until it 45 degrees left & right of the aiming posts. You are now back on target and keep on firing. It is a little bit more complicated than that but I hope you get the basic idea.
@@slimjimnyc270 thanks. That makes sense. I think they can also check gun elevation with these sticks as well, right?
@@g43654 I seem to remember that it can use to check elevation.
@@g43654 no. Aiming stakes are for direction only. They are the fallback for firing azimuth. The primary is the scope on a tripod located to the left front of the piece. It looks like a 1.5’x3” tube and is called a collimater. The gunners sight on the piece has elevation scales, and often the right side has an elevation only sight. Finally, there is a gunners quadrant to final check elevation. Think protractor with a level.
I’m not going to get into the details of “laying a Battery”- that’s a long video in of itself.
This is old school, non GPS aiming.
Excellent subject in an artillery 101 course. I've learned a great deal.
I make scale cannons and muskets and this video is by far the best
I came here to learn how artillery is aimed. Still a great video, though. Thanks!
The 3d model in the video is the KH-179, which I used when I was an artilleryman in the Republic of Korea Army. Nice to see it on video
Awesome video. Thanks
I have learned a lot, but nothing about the aiming system?
the monkey model doesnt come with the gps targeting
Thanks for an excellent presentation 😁👌👌👏👏👏
Very instructive video!!! Can you make video how counter artillery fire works?
the man who designed it is a genius
Well, all things British are always good.
The South African G5 155mm was very effective in Angola during the 80s.
very good work, please keep continue your videos.
The key point about a modern mortar is that it transfers the recoil into the ground via its base plate. This means that you don’t need the recuperators and recoil mechanism which reduces the weight, which allows medium mortars to be broken down and be ‘man portable’
try that on an 155mm artillery piece...
@@meixo9083I was talking about mortars mate
@@bob_the_bomb4508 its a howitzer vid, wtf you talking about?
@@meixo9083it mentions mortars too. But it doesn’t fully explain the difference. Or was that too complicated for you?
Not too bad. A little different then the ones I used to work on, but close enough for the average Joe to understand.
Tell me what's missing specialist? the basic principle is all there, do you want him to make a 3D model of every screw and spring?
@@marcos0055101 I'm not a specialist, but on the diagram at 7:00 there is no explanation how it is possible for recoil cylinder to change it's overall internal volume during operation
An excellent explanation, however a couple of minor points.
1. Your explanation of the recoil distance being reduced to stop the breech hitting the ground at high elevation gets the issue the wrong way round.. The problem is with recoil at low elevations where the recoil is trying to push the carriage back across the ground. To allow the use of a relatively light carriage, you need to let the barrel recoil a considerable distance at low elevations to spread the shock over a longer period and reduce the peak loading of the carriage. At high elevation most of the shock goes down into the ground and you do not need the barrel to recoil so much as well as there being less space for the breech to move.
2. Equilibrators are needed if the trunnions are not at the centre of gravity. Most guns with limited elevation keep the trunnions forward at the centre of mass, or use barrel weights to balance the barrel. In high elevation guns it is better to have the trunnions to the rear as it reduces the swing of the breech. You could use breech weights as well, but they add to the carriage weight and really only have been used on anti aircraft guns such as the WW2 UK 3.5" AA gun. The old US M1 105 and the British 25pdr had balanced trunnions.
Excellent video… Great job 👏🏼
'Private..ya' put tha' biscuit in da' basket..pull big string..she go BOOM!..'Roger tha' yer' Generalship, sir!
Great channel! Keep it up!
Great video! 👍🏻
Anyone else live near Fort Bragg and have to listen to your house vibrate every other minute cause of these
Bro what a video 👌
Yeah, no, we missed the most important part. How to calculate the angle. How they know what angle to push the howitzer to. Or is it just lobbing shells and there's sort of a prayer that the shells hit their intended target?
I believe that current NATO 155mm Howitzers use a laser to ignite the propellant charge instead of a primer
Naw bro you cappin
You might be correct for some countries but in the United States we do not use lasers. Is still simple primers
no country started using lasers yet
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 moron gamers
Useful and excellent
First time looking for a artillery video kinda interesting 🤔
The number one killer on a battlefield is artillery! Love the fact you pointed out that a primer was asserted…..as a civil war history buff….history is again repeated!!👍
The 155mm howitzer shown in this video is what we in the Marine Corps called the "Pig". But they did not have a muzzle brakes on them. They were a pain in the ass to setup due to the very heavy square plate used to support the howitzer when the wheels were lifted into the firing position..
Awesome. Thank You
Excellent presentation.
GOOD! IT WORKS GOOD!!!
Cool thing and not very complicated
Nice Job!
Those things are fukn awesome
Very nice explain
That was very interesting
Good Job Thanks
Cool
I had two of those and I just use the basic functions and ammunition that came with it
My dreams wrecked, I was looking for a true anti recoil system, seems this cannon still transmits some force into the ground
cool video. The only information that you left out was the dimensions , weight, and maximum elevation and traversal ranges.
Thank you we appreciate it
It goes boom, shell goes down range, blows up target.
Your videos are awsome. I wonder why you stopped.
Can you make a video and animation explaining in detail how the German flak36 88mm anti-aircraft gun works? thanks
Great work thank yoU
Very good!
I thought the fancy new self propelled guns could shoot at some pretty high angles so they can do fancy things like fire multiple rounds timed to impact at the same time.
It is excelently education in all movies! Congrartulatuion, that must bee.T
Outstanding content! Finally I know what all those "tubes" do xD
Ww2: 155mm on tanks
Now: 155mm on artillery
AND . . . they are excellent for home defense.
Gun goes BOOM, shell goes ZOOM, enemy meets DOOM. Any questions?
Great video except for the loud distracting music. My question is not part of the material of this video, but it is interesting all the same. A shell fired from a high angle howitzer is spinning due to the rifling. The spin causes the shell to keep pointing in the same direction. What then causes it to change orientation during the trajectory so that it hits the ground nose first? Or does it hit the ground tail first?
Alas, this channel is not the only one with this super annoying and totally unnecessary background noise. If it really must be there, reduce the volume by at least 6 dB! Even more baffling is why it "must" be there in the first place.
If I were to guess, aerodynamic drag, which would act more on the base of the shell than the pointed tip. The spinning minimizes the effects of air resistance, to prevent tumbling, but not all of it.
Heavy science iinvolved
Easy: Same as 203mm, 105mm and any other piece of artillery.
Point gun at the enemy. Insert shell in the big end (the breech). Pull rope. A loud bang with smoke and flame and shell will come out of the other end (the barrel). Repeat. After 10 reps, have a cup of tea.
Please ensure you wear your ear defenders and keep the barrel pointing in a safe direct at all times. Well safe for you, not so much the enemy.
There we go, easy. Artillery 101.