Talk:L118 light gun

Bosnian Service
I remember these being used by the British Army near Sarajevo during the Bosnian crisis to provide counter-battery to the arty fire that was being fired on that city. Does anyone know of a link or source? I'd like to add a sentence or two--Mongreilf 16:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Light Gun was designed by the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE), Fort Halstead, Kent and originally manufactured at the Royal Ordnance Factory, Nottingham. It was designed to fire the 105mm Fd ammunition used by the Abbot SP gun.

The Oto Melara 105mm How was called 105mm L5 pack How with L10 Ordnance in UK service. It had many problems, mostly that its sights were not tropicalised and its carriage was very prone to wear. It also had woefully less range than Abbot but light operations tended to be more dispersed and hence needed longer range artillery, and its HE shells were less lethal. It's unlikely that the CB threat was ever a primary consideration.

Since it was replacing Pack How there was the matter of the 105mm How ammo (US M1 type)stocks used by that gun. Therefore an alternative ordnance (L20 instead of L19 (which is slightly shorter than the L13 used by Abbot and hence has slightly less maximum range)) was produced, to give the L119 version of the gun. In UK service L119 guns were only used by the batteries that supported training at the School of Artillery until stocks of M1 type ammo had been expended.

Of the various nations using Light Gun, some, most notably the US only use the L119 version. Apart from UK, guns have been produced under licence in the US and Australia (where it is called Hamel Gun).

Nfe 03:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Some useful points there. If you think they ought to be incorporated in the article, do so. Be bold ! Some RA officers I spoke to in the late 1970s did say there was a potential CB issue in future flashpoints, against adversaries equipped with Soviet D74 or other 122mm artillery. HLGallon 14:43, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008
Article reassessed and graded as start class. Referencing and appropriate inline citation guidelines not met. With appropriate citations and references, this article would easily qualify as B class if not higher. --dashiellx (talk) 11:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Gun rules
"... after the introduction of Field Artillery Computer Equipment (FACE) it never, unlike Abbot, had gun rules." This sentence appears in the 'Design' section, para five. While the FACE is a red link, it is at least fairly self-explanatory. The same cannot be said about "gun rules". Even if the link was blue, it could still do with a brief summary after it, i.e. "...had gun rules" (rules for guns). [or something similar] At the moment, I and I imagine many other readers, are in the dark.

Anyone willing to sort this one out?

RASAM (talk) 16:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Could someone expand on or clairify part of the ammunition section?
What does the following line mean? By the time L118 entered service, sub-zones A and B originally used with Abbot had been replaced by a spoiler to reduce the minimum range at high angle fire when this was required. What are sub-zones A and B? What is this spoiler? It it fitted to the shell? The rest of the section about ammunition seems clear enough though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.80.225.192 (talk) 17:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090206104425/http://baesystems.com:80/ProductsServices/l_and_a_ls_105mm_light_gun.html to http://www.baesystems.com/ProductsServices/l_and_a_ls_105mm_light_gun.html

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Howitzer
How is this artillery piece classified as a howitzer? I am no artilleryman, but as far as I can tell this fits the bill as a field gun perfectly. Additionally, all of the references (and those I have access to) refer to it as a gun. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)


 * It is a somewhat belated replacement for the 25 pdr so I suspect it would be more properly termed a 'gun/howitzer', i.e., a dual-purpose weapon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.241.31 (talk) 10:42, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

37 Calibers
The menu on the right claims a barrel length of "37 calibers." Since 1 caliber is one inch, what's the rest of the 155 inches which make up it's 16 foot length? I'm thinking someone just threw that in there without a correct or reputable reference. Caliber is used to denote the inside diameter of handgun and rifle barrels, or more specifically, the design diameter of the round. Field guns, mortar tubes and similar artillery pieces, however, are described in either millimeters (mm) or inches (in) such as the 155 mm Howitzer and the 5 inch naval gun. As I've never operated an L118, however, I'll defer editing to someone who has been properly trained on this weapon system. Clepsydrae (talk) 12:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Barrel length = calibre (105 mm) X 37 = 3885 mm = 153" = 12'9"? Mr Larrington (talk) 22:02, 20 March 2022 (UTC)