Talyn
SAINT
It happened 80 years ago today.
Official period caption: “A gun crew of the 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, loads a shell into the new 57mm recoilless rifle to fire against Japanese pillboxes and caves on Okinawa, 10 June 1945.”
laststandonzombieisland.com
This “pocket artillery” was first used in combat in the Pacific in Okinawa, where its HE and WP shells proved particularly adept at handling dug-in pockets of Japanese.
Fielded in 1945, it was light, at “just” 44 pounds, and used the same tripod as the water-cooled Browning M1917 machine gun, or could be bipod-launched to save weight. It could be fired from the shoulder like the much smaller bazooka in a pinch. Later models used the M26 direct-fire sight.
The M18 was replaced in American service by the larger and more effective M20 75mm, M67 90mm, and M40 105mm RRs, and those, by the 1980s, by more modern guided anti-tank weapons.
Official period caption: “A gun crew of the 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, loads a shell into the new 57mm recoilless rifle to fire against Japanese pillboxes and caves on Okinawa, 10 June 1945.”
Send up the Kromuskit!
It happened 80 years ago today. Official period caption: “A gun crew of the 383rd Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, loads a shell into the new 57mm recoilless rifle to fire against J…
laststandonzombieisland.com
This “pocket artillery” was first used in combat in the Pacific in Okinawa, where its HE and WP shells proved particularly adept at handling dug-in pockets of Japanese.
Fielded in 1945, it was light, at “just” 44 pounds, and used the same tripod as the water-cooled Browning M1917 machine gun, or could be bipod-launched to save weight. It could be fired from the shoulder like the much smaller bazooka in a pinch. Later models used the M26 direct-fire sight.
The M18 was replaced in American service by the larger and more effective M20 75mm, M67 90mm, and M40 105mm RRs, and those, by the 1980s, by more modern guided anti-tank weapons.
