A firearm you can't lift to your arm

[Niner]

I just took a few snaps of this at Ft. Morgan Alabama recently. There was a coastal battery there as late as WWII, although this 155, made in the late teens of the 20th Century, looks a bit over long in the trails to compensate for recoil, I'm sure it worked about like the modern 155's. Well except for the ones on tracks that work by computer directed machinery and and only takes a couple of men to operate by pushing buttons....to say nothing of not being likely to put five rounds in the air at once for a time on target fire mission at various quadrents and powder charges. Back in the day gun bunnies had to have some muscle to load guns like this.

[Niner]

The 155 above was only a popgun to the "real" coastal guns. The 12 inch coastal gun fired a projectile that was very nearly twice the diameter of the 155's.

As a by the way, the 155, in an updated configuration, was used in Vietnam, but generally not for close support. That job fell to the 105's which were considered safer in danger close encounters to friendlies because of less of a killing radious. This was important because those directing it were usually not particulary skilled or educated in how artillery direction worked to begin with and contact raised the not thinking clearly level considerably.....particularly among infantry shake and bakes and ROTC trained officers.

The Coastal batteries are now a thing of the past. But late in the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century they were thought to be of some use....and maybe in WWI they were....but not in Alabama.