I thought these were only used on the M-38A1s. I’m surprised they were testing this on an M-38 as late as 1954. But, perhaps that was just the photo’s release date and not the date of the photo.
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“1954 Press Photo US soldiers fire rifle on a jeep at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. This is an original press photo. Guns – Artillery. Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The Army’s new battalion (BAT) 106 MM. recoilless rifle is mounted on a jeep and fired during a demonstration at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The rifle has greater range and destructive power than any other weapon now available on the battalion level.Photo measures 10 x 8.25inches. Photo is dated 10-12-1954.”
These were used on the M38s. The windshield even had the rest notch like the A1. It’s telling that the windshield frame is absent in this photo, probably because the retrofit kit hadn’t been developed yet pending this testing. Kit included a helper spring kit also. But to your point, the date of the photo being 2 years post-M38 production and 2 into the A1s, one might ask why bother on the M38? But remember, there were 65K M38s newly minted as cold weather battle Jeeps for Europe . I’m sure the Army wanted to retrofit a percentage of these for that first line of defense in West Germany and Europe.
Also, the caption for the photo says the Recoilless Rifle was something “new”, perhaps developed sometime in ’54. Again, requiring a retrofit program for newer vehicles.
I’ve worked on Aberdeen Proving Ground for the last 15 years and I can tell you that even today we have a lot of “legacy” vehicles. We still have M60 tanks and very old M1 Abrams that we use regularly for many different purposes. This was a test of the gun system not the mount for the M38A1. They would use vehicles they had on hand to move the gun around. Believe me, this was a publicity shot since the majority of test firing would be done remotely from a hard mount long before they would ever fire it from a vehicle mount. I can also guarantee that I’ve likely found and disposed of more than one 106mm projectile downrange. This is a great historical press photo though!
Great comment, Joe and the caption says “demonstration”. And being a demonstration it is indeed possible that the mounting system was already established for the Jeep and the windshield just happened to be removed. None the less, it is still a “new” gun being demonstrated on a relatively new model Jeep both of which had to be tested and demonstrated together after hard mount testing of the gun by itself. I bet Aberdeen has been a fascinating place to work. Was stationed with the Navy at nearby NTC Bainbridge in’72.
Great info guys!