200 yard Moving Target Ranges

Excellent - and in colour.

Re: The Askari native orderlies replenished the ammunition and collected the cases from fired rounds. Was this beyond the capability of the RAF?

I would have thought the corporal would have been dressed in tropical kit not RAF blue but I understand that the air gunners had to wear their flying kit, but boy that must have been hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think that the location is inland or coastal?

Looks to be posed too, I would not have thought the turret position would be on top of the protective bank intended to prevent damage to the traction gear!

The Dumfries MTR remains can now be clearly seen in Google Earth here:

wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm?lat=5...8076&gz=18&oz=7>=1

As far as I can find, this was the only inland MTR and the safety trace was provided by rising land to the rear of the range about SSW. There will be a lot of lead in them thar hills!

PETERTHEEATER;104430 wrote:

The Dumfries MTR remains can now be clearly seen in Google Earth

Excellent - at last! Now what were all the other things I wanted to look at in that part of Scotland?

Looking at Ivor Jones' book (South), he mentions on p172 that the "...moving target range, with its elaborate control linkage, can still be seen....". I'm intrigued as to what he's referring to as an elaborate control linkage - anyone got ideas ?

Also mentioned on p161 is a "400 yard ground range" - I've never come across a 400 yard range, is it anything like the 200yd MTRs ?

JohnG

This is a little belated but the reply from Ivor is:

To answer your Query about the moving target range at Stormy
Down. I should have explained that this was not the usual large
eliptical type that one hears of--although they did have one of these
also, sited at Morfa near the now steel works. This one at Stormy was
a long, high firing butt, with a linear track facing the machine gun
platform. It was filled with sand, and I assume that the target was
moved electrically pretty swiftly horizontally. There was a generator
house, and a system of levers, near the gunners position, where the
movement of the target was controlled -left or right. I've been unable
to reach anyone that that can explain further any reason for the
change from the conventional Moving Target Range that they already had
to this. Perhaps it was to teach gunners how to aim and fire quicker.
I hope this explains why the use of the word -elaborate was wrong, but
I had never seen or heard of one of these elsewhere.

Barrow 200 yard MTR remains July 1963:



Courtesy of RCAHMS Record Number 006-013-000-925-C

Wigtown 200 yard MTR remains July 1963:



Courtesy of RCAHMS Record Number 006-013-000-130-C