Whose Name We Share

122 L118 Hamel Whilst 103 Battery had abandoned its use of the L5 Pack Howitzer after the Vietnam conflict, the British army held onto them until the end of 1975. The gun was not a popular choice in the British Army and as early as 1965 an approval was granted for the development of a new 105mm system. It needed to be everything the L5 wasn’t, robust, accurate and it needed the range and lethality to avoid counter battery fire. The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) in Kent took on the challenge, eventually coming up with the L118 and L119. The gun was rolled out in 1976 with 111 being procured for Australia. The gun is a highly adaptable feat of engineering with some strange capabilities to boot. For instance it has the ability to fire immediately after being submerged in water for 30 minutes in case you wanted to hide your guns in the ocean. Its design borrows notes from the 25 Pounder as RARDE is the successor to Woolwich Arsenal with features such as the box trail, weight-stripping designs like the narrow wheel base and the vertically sliding breech block. The gun uses an electronic firing mechanism. The L118 fires a generous 6-8 rounds per minute with an incredible muzzle velocity of 700m/s, giving the short barrelled gun a range of up to 20km. The design persisted in the RAA until as recently as 2014 as it could be fitted with modern electronic enhancements such as MVS, GPS and inertial direction and navigation equipment. The gun is still in service across the globe even today, keeping pace with the ever changing landscape of conventional artillery.