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Director, M5A1


Johan Willaert
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Johan Willaert

As I walked into the office this morning, I found this in the hallway...

I've never seen one of these before so took some pictures...

Don't know what it's for, but I guess it is used to direct fire of some sort (artillery??)...

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Spathologist

Anti-aircraft systems, I think I remember seeing one on an old 40mm Bofors system...

 

[ETA: Yeah, AAA fire director, found the manual here.]

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craig_pickrall

The M5 Director is used with 40 MM AA guns on the M2 Carriage and also with the 37 MM AA guns on the M3A1 Carriage.

 

The M6 Director is the same thing except designed to work with British AA guns.

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Cobrahistorian

Very nice Johan! Yep, it's a 40mm gun director. Let me know if you need any info on it.

 

 

Jon

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Johan Willaert

Thanks!

 

I don't know what will happen to it... Will try to find out before it ends up in the trash... :think:

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ThompsonSavage

The only question you should be asking yourselve is whether it fits in the boot of your car, or if you have to bring the GPW with the Bantam ;)

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Johan Willaert
The only question you should be asking yourselve is whether it fits in the boot of your car, or if you have to bring the GPW with the Bantam ;)

 

I commute by train, so I could take it with me... :w00t:

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craig_pickrall

It looks like you might need a fork lift or maybe jack it up and put some casters on the pallet. With casters it will follow you anywhere.

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craig_pickrall

On second thought, you do realize, that if it follows you home, then you will probably spend the rest of your life looking for a nice 40 MM Bofors to go with it.

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  • 11 months later...
Cobrahistorian

Very nice Johan! I'll dig up some more and post em. I don't have an M5 in the collection, but I've got an M7 and M9.

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  • 3 years later...
Cobrahistorian

Turns out I do have an M5 in the collection. Trying to find a tripod for it now. Anyone know of any?

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Very sophisticated effective equipment, but required highly trained and practiced personnel. After all the time consuming training and backaches associated with 40mm crews lugging the heavy M5 and generator equipment around stateside and into ETO battle zones the M5's were usually discarded at equipment dumps near the cigarette camps of France as it was determined as ineffective against fast low flying targets in the fluid arena of ETO AAA missions. An amazing piece of technology for that era. Good to know this M5 survived.

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  • 2 years later...

I found this photo on a search to find out what a M5A1 director was.

My Father received a bronze star for an improvement to this machine in 1945. never knew what it was, how it worked and what he did to make it better.

Like a lot of WW2 vets, he talked little about his time in the Pacific, wish now I would have asked more questions.

The records for his service burned in the early 70's in St. Louis. All I know is that he was in the invasions on the Philippine Islands and on the Invasion on Okinawa 1945.

Any info I can get here would be greatly appreciated.

His name was Elmer Ernst Reinke

Thanks for any input Burdon

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Thanks!

 

I don't know what will happen to it... Will try to find out before it ends up in the trash... :think:

So what was the fate of this thing? Hope it escaped the trash!

 

Mikie

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Johan Willaert

So what was the fate of this thing? Hope it escaped the trash!

Absolutely no idea... I transferred out of those barracks several years ago....

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