Kickless Cannon

ARMY & NAVY

At Fort Banning last week a corporal picked up a 57-mm. cannon (which ordinarily weighs 3,000 lbs.), and aimed it as casually as a shotgun. He fired a 2 1/4-lb. projectile (more than 2 in. in diameter) which demolished a cordwood target 800 yards away. The weight of this cannon: 45 Ibs. There was not enough recoil "to move the skin on my shoulder."

This cannon was the most revolutionary development in artillery since the rifled field pieces of the Civil War, although the recoilless principle was not new; the Germans tried out a similar piece in 1942.

Secret of the kickless weapon: it lets some of the powder blast drive to the rear through the breech as the projectile is driven forward. Result: the rearward blast cancels out the "kick" of the gun. One of the weapon's drawbacks: the blast--a fiery column 12-to-15 ft. long, about 4 ft. in diameter--might betray its location to the enemy.

The new 57, which will fire any type of shell--including phosphorous--has the accuracy of an M-1 Garand rifle, a maximum range of 2 1/2 miles. A heavier (110-lb.) kickless gun also in service is the 75 mm., which is fired from a tripod no heavier than a machine-gun mount and has a range of more than four miles. The Army's most mobile artillery weapon was formerly the 75-mm. pack howitzer, weighing about 1,500 lbs.

The recoilless guns, said Ordnance men, were deadly against tanks in Europe, better than bazookas because of their greater accuracy. Now, says the Army, they are in use in the Pacific. They are especially handy against caves.

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