Northumbrian Gunner: D-Day - Royal Artillery Run In Shoot

Saturday 28 April 2012

D-Day - Royal Artillery Run In Shoot

At Ver sur Mere a Sexton self-propelled gun has been preserved. On D-Day no towed guns landed on the beaches, the Artillery support being provided by SP guns. The British used a Sexton, a SP 25 pounder, the Canadians 105mm Priests.

SP Sexton 25 Pounder
Ver Sur Mer

SP Priest 105 mm
Ouisterham

As part of the overall fire plan the Royal Artillery would fire from modified Landing Craft Tank (LCT A), utilising the period when sailing to the beaches to provide fires.

The self- propelled Sextons and Priests of ten field regiments would fire on the run in. The LCT’s had been modified with blast screens to protect those outside the guns, and other modifications made to facilitate this task.

The SP regiments in their LCT's followed the infantry assault onto the beaches whilst firing their guns at specific hard-point targets. The landing craft with the guns then turned away 3,000 yards short of the beaches, and re-joined the third wave of assault craft to land the guns.

Assault Technique

The approach had been timed on the basis of a speed of 6 knots, meaning the expected movement would be 200 yards per minute. Ranging was to commence at the earliest possible moment. The Sextons (25 pdr SP) with a range of 13,200 yards could therefore provide 50 minutes of fire, the Priests (105mm SP), range 11,400 yards, 40 minutes of fire.

Royal Artillery Run In Shoot

The guns fired from 10,000 yards to 4,000 yards on 60 separate barrage lines. The range was controlled by means of the ‘Coventry Clock’ (named after the IG who conceived the idea, major Coventry). The clock was aligned to the expected speed of the landing craft and showed ranges, so as the clock moved the ranges were known. Alignment was through the crafts captain steering towards the shore, Nos 1’s firing when elevation bubbles were level. On reaching a barrage line guns would fire at rate 3.