Equipes tourelle 75/33

Hello,

The 75/33 twin turret was needing 3 servants in the fire chamber when using a semi-automated breechblock, which was the case in the turrets installed in the North-Eastern part of France. The ones installed in the Alps were fitted with screwed breechblocks and therefore needing 2 more servants.

More generally, the average full complement per single gun was in average 13 in the RAP's, including arms operation on shift, associated command posts people and observers. This is of course only an average and variable from one kind of arm/mounting to another.

More details - especially on the role of each individual - can probably be found in the "Instruction Provisoire sur le service des pièces d'une tourelle armée de matériels de 75 modèle 33" from the CEPARF. - 02/10/1935.

Regards
Jean-Michel

Source : wikimaginot T75/33 page and "Hommes et Ouvrages de la ligne Maginot, Tome 2", p 157.

Thanks Jean-Michel. Do you think the note in the blue box on p. 157 is significant? It says that on 30 Juillet 1935 96 shells fired by a team of 151 RAP composed of one officer and 16 cannoniers. (17?)
If you think its 13 that is OK. I can go with that.

can I find the "Instruction provisoire..."? Is it on the Wiki?

Best wishes,
Clayton

Hello Clayton

Unfortunately, this Instruction provisoire is not yet available on wikimaginot. If someone got it, he should not hesitate to send it to us, we would certainly obtain the rights to publish it and to make it available to everyone.

Regards, Pascal

Well, considering that this was a firing exercise for the brand new turret reception, in a context the gunners were not trained to use their new equipment, it makes sense to oversize slightly the complement. 16 + 1 officer in this case is certainly making sense.

Note that the 13 referred to here above is for 1 gun, ie for a turret this would make 26, again including observers, command post people, etc, and considering that some of the positions are on shift (ie 24h per day), so split in 8 hours teams.

The "Instruction provisoire..." is not on the wiki. I did check quickly yesterday evening on the national library website, and didn't find it. Maybe another contributor to wiki has this document and could share it. If not the place it can be found is probably the SHD in Châtellerault (weapons army historical library) or in Vincennes (general army historical library).

Regards
JEan-Michel

Thank you very much. Here is what I am planning to write:
The exact size of the crew is unknown. There is no available documentation detailing the specifics. The 75R32 had a crew of twenty-five. Therefore, since the 75/33 was larger it can be surmised that the turret had a larger crew but this may not be so. It is documented in several books that there were three men in the gun chamber. Jean-Yves Mary cites records of the 151 Regiment d’Artillerie de Position detailing a test on 30 July 1935 in which 96 shells were fired from a 75/33 turret with a team of one officer and sixteen cannoniers. Another source mentions the figure thirteen. With three crew in the gun chamber plus the thirteen plus the Chef de Tourelle, seventeen would also make sense.

Hello,

I wouldn't express it exactly this way. The relevant documentation do exist and may be found in the relevant Defense Historical Library repository. In addition, it is clear that the size of the crew was also depending on the type/make of the breechblock (ie. more or less automatic) which is explaining probable differences between the turrets.

Another point to mention - probably upfront of any discussion about crew size - is the fact that this is highly depending on the scope which is taken into account, in the sense that accounting for the command posts (SRA and bloc PC) people functionally related to the turret can change figures by a few in plus or minus. This is important and probably explaining inconsistencies between sources.

Just to be clear about the "13" figure. This is an average given for one and only one gun, meaning that for a turret - containing two guns - the average crew size from this way of calculating would be 26. As already precised here above, this figure do include associated crew members in command posts, etc. The 16+1 mentioned by J-Y Mary and al. is probably only including the people in the close vicinity of the turret (gunners, loaders, ammunition specialists and management) but not the people in charge of M2 ammunitions handling, transport, etc.

Regards
Jean-Michel

Je comprehend. Merci Jean-Michel.