3/35FA was my first assignment
following graduation from West Point and the FA Basic Officers’ Course at Ft.
Sill. I arrived in March, 1977 and was assigned as the Fire Direction
Officer of B Btry. At the time we computed firing data with “charts and
darts” and the Field Artillery Digital Automatic Computer (FADAC). This
was a 150-lbs box the size of a small refrigerator, which was powered by a 3KW
generator which rode on top of the M577 Command Post Carrier next to the 4.2 KW
generator. To compute firing data for the first round of a fire mission
FADAC required about 2/3 the time of the physical time of flight of the
round. A reasonable chart operator could beat the FADAC on the first
round, but if the corrections on subsequent rounds was under 400 meters, the
FADAC could spit out new firing data in only six seconds. The FADAC could
also automatically calculate meteorological data and apply MET corrections to
firing data. As I was leaving the battalion in March, 1981 a team from
Ft. Sill arrived on post and replaced our FADACs with a TI-59 handheld
calculator. I was astounded that less than one pound of equipment could
replace the mighty FADAC, and perform all of its tasks faster.
We initially had firing batteries
of four M110 howitzers. In the summer of 1978 we got six more howitzers
and their crews from Ft. Riley, KS. These were good soldiers, and the
firing batteries then each had six howitzers. Sometime in 1979 we were
re-tubed to become an M110A1 unit. A few months later we received the
muzzle brakes, and became an M110A2 unit. These new tubes were
approximately six feet longer than the old tubes, and had to be retracted about
four feet to the out-of-battery position for driving. Even so, on our
first trip to the TBB local training area, one of my guns put its muzzle brake
through a second story window of a house along a curve in the road.
I have tons of fond memories of my
time in 3/35 FA. I used to love the load-out alerts because I liked to
bet on which battery’s mess truck (a deuce and a half with a large wooden
home-built shelter on the back) would ram the archway while driving down to the
battery areas to load up their gear. I remember some alerts that required
us to go out behind post to the ammo supply point and manually load up our battery’s
80 tons of ammunition basic load. At six rounds to a pallet, these
1,250-lbs pallets were rolled up ramps consisting of huge beams into the backs
of our 5-ton trucks and M548s. This always took several hours of
backbreaking labor. I would like to tell the story about returning from
Graf one day, taking the guns to the wash rack, pulling back the canvas off of
the loading tray, and finding a live 8-inch round. Somehow this round was
returned in a POV to the Graf ammo supply point’s amnesty box at about 0300
hours the next morning – but first I have to do some research into the statute
of limitations of ammo offenses.
Jim Wooley
