Battle of Long Tan Documentary – Artillery Behind the Scenes
Here is some video I filmed behind the scenes while we shot footage of Artillery firing in New Zealand for my Battle of Long Tan documentary with the 16th Field Regiment, Royal New Zealand Artillery on the 23rd June 2006 at the Linton Army base.
It was actually minus 3 degrees Celsius this day and Palmerston North had the worst snow storm in living memory the day before we scheduled to film these scenes. These amazing gunners actually did the scene recreations for the entire day in the freezing cold with cold water being poured over them from an Army fire truck!
Capt. Morrie Stanley who was the Forward Artillery Observer during the Battle of Long Tan was there with us while we filmed which really spurred on the NZ gunners!
The Artillery piece is a M101A1 105mm L1A1 Howitzer and it was firing blanks.
Just imagine that 18 of these artillery guns were each firing 6-8 rounds per minute for more than 5 hours non stop in a lightning monsoon storm in support of D Company 5km’s away in the heat of the battle!
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You may add another 6 – 155mm howitzers firing from Nui Dat by the Americans attached. I think did not supply any close support but concentrated fire on likely escape routes and reserve positions, and I am under the impression that this battery fired for more than one hour, long enough so that everyone was called out to resupply the guns with ammo after they had each used up their on-hand supply of 60 rounds per gun.