Heavy Metal with the M777 155mm Howitzer
If you are a US Solider or Marine hunkered down in some remote forward base and the perimeter is crawling with what are politely called, ‘unfriendly’, the sweetest call that can be made is for a fire mission. Since 2005, this type of call has increasingly gone to a new, effective, and hard-hitting howitzer– the Triple 7.
During World War 1 (1914-1918), large caliber heavy artillery became the all-encompassing Mother Medusa of the modern battlefield. The United States entered that war behind the technological 8-ball and had to make due with French 155mm guns to provide punch for the dozens of new infantry divisions sent ‘over there’. The French guns weighed 7300-pounds and could fire three 100-pound shells a minute out to 12,400 yards.
Following WWI, the US decided to design their own 155, the 13,000-pound M114 that could fire four shells a minute out to 16,000 yards. In the quest for bigger, faster, and better, the Army replaced this gun with the M198 in 1977. The M198, designed with input from fighting in Vietnam, could fire four rounds per minute out to amazing 24640-yards. That’s 14-miles. The problem was, the gun weighed just a hair under 8-tons. While it could be parachuted into tight spots, or carried by supercargo USMC CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, it was still a heavy beast.
Then came the M777 of today.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms talk
