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We're preparing to shoot live rounds for training purposes later today. Those are the rounds that we're shooting. Number clay to 795 155 mm high explosive projectile. We'll go straight on the tray here first. This tray is going to move up here. This will be open. Use the rammer right here. Shove it up all the way in through the tube. Come back down. Put the charges in right there. Close the breach. And then hook all this up.
Put a little primer in right there. It's like a little bullet. Goes in right here. Pull this over. Close it up. I have a lanyard that attaches right here. And then first the AG will be standing over here with the lanyard ready to fire. Wait until the chief says standby, fire, and then they pull it. This gets pulled right here. And then the round the trigger's the explosive in there and it fires. This is called a rammer tray. The round will end up sitting on here. Mhm. Person will grab it, throw it onto the tray. Then this would actually Is this the already be up here. We have a switch on the one side right there where we'll actually
We have a switch on the other side that would actually end up ramming the round in through the tube and then it will end up coming right back. And from there, this will end up going right back to its spot where it's at right now. The gunner will end up close the breach closing the breach. And once the breach is closed, then I will ask permission or whoever the number one man AG is will end up ask permission from the chief to prime it. Closing the firing mechanism and then asking permission from the chief to hook up in order to fire the round because the primer ends up igniting the round uh the charge into the round where it will end up projecting however so many meters that you wanted to go.
The engine running? Yeah, it's turn the servos on. Forward. So, on rod you would have to load. Turn the gun on the gun. The gun is on, but like in a car if you just have the battery on. So, now he's going to fully turn it on with the engines. Right now, this is a servo lamp. So, this is what controls all the electrical components in this vehicle. The vehicle has to be on so that it charges 100% so that everything works at 100%. Oh, you say motor pad area clear moving. You said nobody's in the way. Swing up. Permission to ram. The ram will be up here. Request permission to ram. And that motor pad area clear again.
Swing back. And then you will close the breach. And that's when everything will go down nicely. Looking up with the timer, being able to shoot forward to whatever time you All right. Uh I'm Sergeant Steven Rodriguez. Um I'm a 13 Bravo, which is a cannon crew member for field artillery. And this is a M109A7. It takes four to man the Paladin. So, we have a driver which will get on to He'll drive the vehicle and he'll get on the azimuth, which is the direction of fire, and he'll turn on our ventilation system which keeps us from suffocating back here. He'll turn on high to help with turning everything down or making sure everything runs properly.
Um and we have the number one man, which is normally the fun position in most artillery would say in a Paladin. Um they're the ones that load the round. They're the ones that prime and pull string, make it go boom. The gunner, he's a second-hand verifica- uh verifier. He verifies defects deflection and quadrants, which is direction and elevation. Um and then they do charges and they're the ones that close the breech and make sure the breech is closed properly. And then the chief, chief of section, he's the one that controls basically everything, gives all the permission, commands
of when and what to do. that's it. Specialist Palmer, here with 2-3 Field Artillery out in Poland. And the M109A7 Paladin, we're shooting live rounds on range so that we understand how to actually use it in a real war. So, right now we're doing table sixes today. We're shooting live rounds to certify our crew so that we're able to move on to platoons, which is three guns, battery six. So, before we can get to those, we have to shoot live first as a crew so that we certify together. And yesterday we did table fives, which is certifying our crew with dry fire missions. And yeah. Okay, so here is when uh when you already have the round into and the charge already into the tube, the gunner will actually end up closing the breech.
Once the breech is closed, then that's when I would grab I would have primer set up from here. I would end up asking the chief permission to prime. And once I'm able to get that permission, it'll go right into that little socket. I'll end up pushing this back. Then I would end up asking permission to hook up. And I'll say, "Chief, permission to hook up. Permission to hook up." Until he gives me the okay, we'll end up hooking it up right here to the firing mech. And then just standing here the entire time simply just looking at him waiting for the fire and he'll just say, "Stand by. Fire." And he'll end up
pulling it and it'll end up igniting the entire primer to the charge to the round and it'll end up going boom. So we have a microclimate conditioning system which helps with cleaning out the air inside the gun for chemical attacks, stuff like that. But we normally will use it for some air conditioning in this thing. Yep. So as you can see, this thing it looks just like a bullet casing. It's all charge just So a primer is like a little tiny shotgun shell right here. It's just explosive. It's basically gunpowder.
[clears throat] And what this is called our firing mechanism. And what this does when he pulls this string is a firing pin inside of it and it smacks the back of it like a normal rifle would do and explodes and then this is what makes the charges super quick. So this is the hole that it goes through and then once you put it side it in, push it in. And then once this is pulled, this will bake the charges inside which the round in the tube. So the round in the tube, once you ram it, it is basically no oxygen coming through from the front. And once this is closed, there's no oxygen from the back. So, once this is hit, it explodes, all that pressure built up between the primer and the round with the charges in the middle, which makes it Um
how do I say this? All the pressure inside the tube, which makes it go boom. Like that. When it fires. Yeah. Yep. It's basically just hanging there. That's what it looks like when it's in. Just like that. Cuz you have to be quick and fast with it or you're going to end up As soon as that breech is closed and those witness marks line up, you grab from there. Boop. Then ask the chief to uh permission to hook up. Once you hook up, stand by, fire. Uh those rounds Uh 95 lbs. 95 to 100 lbs. Open breech. Good work, man. All right. Yeah. And lift this up, man. This will be a All right. So, you guys round comes out.
He's basically just going to smack it right onto the tray. And I'm going to end up asking the chief permission to ram and then flipping the switch. It's going to ram uh round right into the tube. The rammer's going to come right back. Next thing you know it, I'm going to clear the airway. And uh the rammer is going to end up coming right back. And then from there, the gunner ends up doing his job with grabbing the charge. Uh make sure it is verified [clears throat] from the chief. Throws it into the tube. And then from there, he should be closing the breech, and that's when I grab the primer from right here, throw it into the fire and back, closing it, hooking up the cable
to the fire and back, and just watching my chief the entire time, making sure I'm able to fire.
