Royal Navy Gunners

[Rattlesnake road]

Always the family story of how the Royal Navy had to teach the early tank gunners how to fire on the move. If you consider it, a ship rolling in the sea must of been similar in movement to the tank moving over undulating ground.

[Son of a gun-ner]

Interesting.
Well, my father (the Gunner) who was in the Royal Artillery in North Africa transferred to the Royal Navy on convoy support ships, when the North African campaign ended. And a couple of times he was taken off the ship's to train gunners in England, and as it happens, both times saved his life, I thought it was once, but it turned out both his ships he officially missed were sunk.
Anyway, he was a static gunner moved to ships guns and trained new gunners on a couple of occasions, the last time was exercises ready for D Day.

[Rattlesnake road]

Lucky for your dad, did it rub off on you ?
I did small arms, learning to shoot with the .303, spent hours just loading drill rounds and going through the firing motion, cock, fire, reload, without dropping the penny on the foresight.
At a rifle competition now with SLR 7.62, same principles applied, I took 7 trophies, lol manic. I then had to shoot against a Major taking shot for shot, bored I threw the shoot, my troop officer was unimpressed possibly had money riding on me. Earlier in one of the shoots I had to make a point that we hadn’t had enough targets that in a competition can get a money reward.
I used to get into the Regt shooting teams all the time.

[jarndice]

Interesting.
Well, my father (the Gunner) who was in the Royal Artillery in North Africa transferred to the Royal Navy on convoy support ships, when the North African campaign ended. And a couple of times he was taken off the ship's to train gunners in England, and as it happens, both times saved his life, I thought it was once, but it turned out both his ships he officially missed were sunk.

You don't think this has the air of Uncle Albert in "Only Fools And Horses" in it do you.
He being considered a Jonah because of ships that were lost just after he moved on
Seriously, A mate of mine in the regiment after being "Bumped" from two jobs each of which then "Went in" was ordered to see the Shrink because he honestly was badly affected by what obviously was a sorry coincidence

[Son of a gun-ner]

Shaun, been there done that as soon as I found out about it being twice lol. Oh, and wasn't Uncle Albert on Subs
My father and anyone else I knew or were related to only talked about the funny moments. Maybe that was a way to keep their sanity. Also, they were all probably relieved and grateful it was over and they survived, probably with their senses of humour in tact. My father's brother, my Uncle Eddy certainly didn't seem to suffer from his ordeals in a Polish prison camp. Maybe I should write something about them in the ancestors section.

Mr Rattlesnake, the luck probably did rub off on me, I survived my biker days, where I lost quite a few friends and acquaintances, and I was probably the bigger lunatic on the bikes.
I can relate to you and the Enfield .303, and hat's off to you, that was some interesting rifle to fire, but still fun, especially for a 13/14 year old cadet, likewise the old L1A1 was also fun

Edit, I should mention, I have my father's first class shot badge somewhere. I used to think until recently it meant he was one level below a marksman lol.

[jarndice]

I remember how proud I was when I first qualified as "Marksman"
It was on the Small arms range with a Browning 9mm Hi-Power,
My delight soured slightly when the whole platoon qualified as Marksmen ,
It was a lovely gun and insanely accurate.

[Rattlesnake road]

Marksman easy to get but can be difficult to keep it up, I have a national small bore medal stored someplace, the unit was called to the parade square for the presentation. Was placed on the edge of the guys lined up and called to the Brigadier to receive the medal, hadn’t got a clue as to what was going on.

[43rdRecceReg]

On the subject fo naval gunnery, I seem to recall reading recently, that during the Battle of Calabria,1940, against the Italian fleet.
The elderly Battleship HMS Warspite achieved one of the longest range gunnery hits from a moving ship to a moving target in history, hitting Giulio Cesare at a range of approximately 24 km (26,000 yd),
The other- coequal longest shot was from from Scharnhorst when it hit the carrier, HMS Glorious, from approximately the same distance, in June 1940.
That's some shooting from a ship built in 1915 (Warspite). Scharnhorst (commissioned 1939, and sunk by the Royal Navy in 1943)- had much newer tech on board.

When the old lady was finally decommissioned, she dragged her heels- and anchors- on the way to the scrapyard, in Glasgow. They never got her there, in fact, even after 8 years and numerous attempts (1947-55).

[Rattlesnake road]

Unless I am wrong the Warspite ran aground in Mounts Bay and was dismantled there, there may even be some remains.

[cashybai]

Nice read on Warspite here...


https://www.submerged.co.uk/hms-warspite-3/