Talk:Abbot (artillery)

Why Abbot not upgraded?
Why was this retired and not updated instead. It just seems a better spg than the AS90 the only thing going for the AS90 is the larger gun but in a modern battlefield is that really important anymore. Corustar 02:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Ammo, communications & the different models
There is wrong information on this page. Abbot never fired 'NATO ammunition', called 105mm How in UK service.

The L13 ordnance was designed to fire a new UK 105mm ammo family. This is how it achieved its range of 17.4 km. This round was called 105mm Fd. Unlike 105mm How (ie the US M1 round generally, and probably incorrectly, called 'NATO standard') the 105mm Fd round was 'separate loading' (ie the shell and cartridge were loaded separately and not as a single item). The cartridge had an electrical not a percussion primer and a different length to that used with 105mm How. There were two marks of 105mm Fd. Mk 1 was transitional, it used the M1 type shell (of UK manufacture and given UK Land Service numbers because the filling method was different to that used by the US) and a 105mm Fd cartridge, albeit with reduced charge and a max range of only 15 km. Mk 2 was the real thing, a new shell design slightly different in shape from M1. The HE shell had more HE filling than M1 to make it more lethal. It will be obvious from the above that Abbot was totally incapable of firing the 'NATO ammunition'.

Both 105mm Fd Mk 1 and Mk 2 had two cartridges: Normal and Super. Normal went to charge 4 (Mk 1) and charge 5 (Mk 2). Charge 5 was in a container that extended beyond the metal cartridge case. Initially there was a 'sub-zone' cartridge which charges A and B, this was to reduce the minimum range of high angle fire, this cart was short-lived and replaced by a 'spoiler' fitted over the shell nose.

Another notable feature of Abbot was its use of an induction loop for communications within the gun and to enable the gun detachment members outside the gun to listen (they had a mike fixed to the hull). The total detachment size was 6 men, of whivh 3 were the 'in-action' turret crew (No 1, layer, loader). The gun was also capable of operating 'closed-down'.

There were two models of Abbot, the real thing in UK service and the Value Engineered model used on the UK training area in Canada and by the Indian Army. VE Abbot had different and cheaper sights (which prevented closed-down operation) and lacked electrically powered elevation, traverse and loading. Nfe 02:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Radios
Radios, Abbot was fitted with B48 not B47. The Larkspur VHF radios followed the same approach as German and US VHF radios in WW2. This split the VHF band (roughly 30 to 88 MHz) into two halves, with vitually no frequency overlap. With Larkspur artillery used the lower band and had A42, B48 and C45 radios. The rest of the Army used the higher band with A41, B47 and C42. Artillery also had A41 and C42 but only for communication to the supported arm (ie only used by FO parties, etc). B47 and B48 were mostly used for automatic rebroadcast to receive traffic from low power A41 and 42 pass in through hardwire to a C42 or 45 in the same installation for re-transmission on another frequency (and in reverse off course). However, since gun positions were small B48 was more than adequate for comms between SP guns and their battery CP. B48 was also fitted to M109, M107 and M110. Nfe 08:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)