David Harrison

1996 is a bit after my time, but a "Director" is indeed a type of theodolite used on the gun position to align the guns and part of the process involves the gunsight laying on the director. Therefore at night a light is needed to enable the gunlayer to identify the director. I suspect this box of bits is that lighting set.

Amazing job, what a transformation! Putting my anorak on(!) Please spell Breech correctly! I winced every time I read Breach!!!

I sered with HJ & our lifespan if the Russians came was not expected to be long as Speznaz had nuclear artillery as a prime target. We adopted "scoot & shoot" to have minimum exposure, otherwise we hid! The 8" was smaller & easier to hide & came into action relatively quickly. Its advantage as a weapon was that its accuracy (compared to HJ) was excellent, so it was to be used against relatively small pinpoint targets,,,evena quarter kt would give a serious headache! The shell only weighed about 100kg, so could be (and was) carried in the back of a Landrover! But don't tell the Americans who required there prcious warheads to be escorted by armoured cars, platoons of infantry all covered in warning flags! D

In the mid 50's BAOR had Corporal which was a modified V2- its fuel was very unpleasant ( I think fuming nitric acid came in somewhere!) of US origin with US provided warheads. In about 1961 BAOR received Honest John Mk1 and 8" towed Howitzers (1941 or earlier vintage).These latter were towed by vintage (1938?) MACK's that were truly awful,,,each gun had a spare tractor for when the first broke down! I recall one gun & tractor celebrated their 50th combined birthday shortly after we were issued with them! The H.J. were mounted on current 6x6 US GMC (maybe Internationals). The warhead and free flight rocket were carried on an LWB chassis truck (and 4 wheel trailer) similar to the launcher. The warhead & Rocket were "mated" using a US supplied "Wrecker" (after totally unsuitable British "Coles" cranes had been tried & rejected!) There were three sizes of warhead (again under US control...but we had to guard them!)for the free flight Honest John - up to Hiroshima size) and one fractional yield shell for the 8". A mark 2 launcher vehicle came in in about 1963/4 with a shorter "fold back" launch rail- a big improvement & "into action" times were cut down appreciably. Belgian forces certainly had HJ also.