Video of a night shoot of 155 mm artillery during Gulf war II

www.liveleak.com...

As soon as I saw this, I had to post it for other people to see - A brutal reminder, that at the end of the day, military tech is for one thing, and one thing only - to take away the life of the enemy.

Its not action packed, just a massive, massive amount of 155 mm going down town into bagdhad to kill the enemy.

But it sure as hell looks pretty all lit up like that in the night vision goggles!

Its not action packed, just a massive, massive amount of 155 mm going down town into bagdhad to kill the enemy.

But it sure as hell looks pretty all lit up like that in the night vision goggles!

I'm not sure how one could claim that anything taking the away the life of anybody (enemy or not) is something beautiful or pretty... especially in this context, where artillery shells are shot into a downtown area, ensuring they kill plenty of innocent civilians and enemy alike.

EDIT: for quote formatting.

[edit on 20-11-2006 by ArbitraryGuy]

I served on 155's in Vietnam and I've never seen anything like that before.

Is this something new, tracer artillery rounds?

What's the purpose?

It looked more like an alien invasion than any fire mission I ever fired.

Maybe, I don't understand night vision technology.

We had starlight scopes in Vietnam, but they responded to light not heat, which is the only thing that I can imagine that would make arty rounds glow like that.

Killing the enemy is, in my own experience, a joyous experience.

Killing innocents is always tragic.


[edit on 2006/11/20 by GradyPhilpott]

No,
read my post before you start crackling on with your moan.

I think, that had it not been 155 mm artillery, the green arc of the rounds is very pretty in a fire works kind of way...

As 155 mm its any thing but... maybe I should of made that a bit clearer..


"As soon as I saw this, I had to post it for other people to see - A brutal reminder, that at the end of the day, military tech is for one thing, and one thing only - to take away the life of the enemy."

Nothing in there that admires the death and destruction its causing.

Grady,
I am not 100% sure, but as its lit from night vision goggles, i assume that its the sheer heat of the shells them selves which are lighting up in the night vision kit.

I will search for the MLRS attack at night in NVG's...thats just damn scary to be honest.

As for the 155 question, ill go onto a military forum and ask for more recent users advice.

High Explosive Tracer round maybe. If it was just tracers, thats too many.

I would say that they are firing to fast for one to be coming from 155 artillery.. some kind of rocket barrage system maybe? could explain the tracers to.. Just seems like something is fired from what ever it is 3 or so times at a time, but you can't see what is shooting it. And ya. People die in war.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
I would say that they are firing to fast for one to be coming from 155 artillery

I agree one hundred percent.

No no, ya mistaken it for one M109 Paladin, its more like a battery of them, notice sound of others firing. 4 rounds per minute for each Paladin.

Well, I was on M109's and it looks like the rounds are originating from only two sources rather than six.

All I'm saying is that having fired several million of those rounds, it looks very different from anything I've ever seen, but then I never trained a starlight scope on the guns. Those were large and cumbersome and used for perimeter duty.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
Well, I was on M109's and it looks like the rounds are originating from only two sources rather than six.

Well, lets look at the first part of the firing of just that barrage, ignore the other barrage on the far left. We can count 3 continuous rounds in few seconds which means there are 3 of them as we have seen. There has to be a battery of them. Not to mention the Swiss Kawest M109 can now fire 3 rounds in 15 seconds for burst rate but we don't have that yet.

Why would they be firing them into Bagdad? I know they are very precise weapons but even they would cause a large amount of unneeded damage.

That it would, the last thing we want is to bring down several blocks of buildings for insurgents to hide in when we drive by. Aside from that, if you watch where the shells or what ever they are land you see only a small explosion and they all hit the same spot. Why fire dozens of shells at one building? Perhaps they are flares of some kind being fired over a fire fight?

I'm by no means an artillery or ballistics expert, and I know film can distort things, but they look like they are moving very slowly Can someone explain why they appear to be moving slowly? is it the film, the angle, or are they really screaming across a massive distance and they just appear to move slow? I wondering roughly how far away the rounds are when they begin to decend in the way distance?

[edit on 20-11-2006 by warpboost]

They are moving pretty slow in my opinion. Usually when you see vids from wars in night vision, like for instance the Bahgdad bombing in Clintons term and Gulf War 1 the night was full of tracers, mostly anti aircraft gun and they where much smaller and much faster. Iv never seen a video of artilary glowing, as they have no light source? They may be hot, but heat doesn't mean light.

Grady,
I am curious about something on the M109. Did they use brass or steel cased ammo or is it powder bags just like the 155mm towed artillery?

Thanks,
Orangetom

M109's used a split charge, I believe it was called, not the shell casings used on the 105's. I believe that every artilllery piece larger than a 105 uses the same configuration, as shell casings would add too much unnecessary weight.

When I started out as a powder man, I had a real hard time learning to cut charges because they were so cumbersome and the pressure was so great to perform, especially with such loud explosions going on everywhere.

It was not uncommon for muzzle blast to knock my helmet off my head while I was trying to cut charges.

My greatest fear was fire in the powder pit and as it turned out, when I was on 4.2 in. mortars, it was an explosion of powder increments that did me in.

I didnt realize you were up standing the night watchs as am I. I just got off work here.

I was in the National Guard for two years ..155mm towed. I recall out in the field we used to use what is called Green Bag powder. Same set up..five bags banded together by the silk band. You cut some off and threw the unused in the powder pit when you didnt need to shoot that far. At the end of the shooting session you would cut these bags open and spread it on the ground in a straight line.

My surprise the first time I saw this done it looked like elbow macaroni just like you get in the stores. It looked like you could boil it and add the cheese and dinner was served.

Much to my surprise the first time...this stuff really burns hot when you light it with a lighter. It put up a wall of flame very fast about five to six feet tall. Very hot too.

We shot only Green Bag...but I was told that there was a more powerful charge called white bag.

I loaded both powder and shell. Mostly Point detonation fuses. The timed fuses were tricky to me and only a couple of guys on the crews could properly set them.

The strange thing to me was to stand just off to the side of the gun...when it was elevated properly. You could actually see the projectile go up and disappear like the SI-FI pictures of light speed. It is so very fast. All this ...after you suffered the vacuum effects of course. It was a very powerful muzzle blast ..no doubt.

Thanks Grady for your info.

Orangetom

Good video but I agree with previous posters that nothing about raining death and destruction down on even enemies, is pretty.

I have fired 51mm mortars at night, as well as the 84mm Charlie 'G' and of course the General. All are differant weapons and have differing characteristics. They do however, all produce the same effects as demonstrated in the video capture.

All projectiles produce these wierd effects. If you watch .50 or 7.26mm rounds being fired at night from a fixed position, or from rotary and fixed wing aircraft, the results are the same. The same goes for the main armament of a tank, or towed and sometimes, smaller calibre rocket artillery.

At night, it is easier to see the trajectory as the rounds are hot when they are fired and create friction as they pass through the air, en route to the target.

The larger calibre rocket artillery such as MLRS has a trajectory that differs in that you can usually see a massive launch bloom and trail of smoke as the propellent burns off.

So is just about everyone else thinking that these "rounds" are NOT firing into Bagdad?