The resulting weapon was of a largely conventional design arrangement with the gun tube sat over the mounting hardware and the mounting component installed over a "split-trail" carriage featuring two roadwheels. The trail arms worked as both a tow arm for road transportation and as the support arms for when the weapon was made ready to fire. The gun tube was given a large, twin-baffled muzzle brake at its "business end" and the recoil mechanism was fitted under the barrel in the usual way. Elevation and traversal controls were all included as was the required (removable) APU unit. A vertical-sliding breech mechanism provided the gunnery crew with quick, effective access to the all-important firing chamber.
Overall weight of what became the "FH70" was over 17,000lb. The barrel alone measured 19.7 feet long and the carriage had a 7.2 foot width. The typical operating crew was eight, each charged with a particular function of the weapon for maximum efficiency. The mounting hardware allowed for an elevation span of -5 to +70 degrees, giving the weapon a good deal of tactical flexibility, and the traversal was limited to 56 degrees either side from centerline.
In practice, the gun gave seemingly good field performance with a burst rate-of-fire of three rounds per every fifteen seconds. Sustained fire could reach up to six rounds-per-minute. Muzzle velocity of the outgoing shell was 2,713 feet-per-second and range was out to the required 24 kilometers (30 km with rocket-assist). However, early service did reveal some issues with the feed mechanism prone to dust collection, inconsistent APU performance and construction of key operating parts. Some remedies were enacted into the latter part of the 1980s while others simply forced a rewriting of operating procedures for gunnery crews.
The FH70 was formally adopted for service in 1980 with European operators becoming Britain, Estonia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway and West Germany. The largest operator of these was West Germany with 150 pieces purchased followed by 67 units operated by the British military. Netherlands, Norway, West Germany (Germany) and Britain have all since become former operators of the system (2018).
Overseas users were Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Japan took to local license production of the gun through Japan Steel Works and 480 were built in this fashion. Italy has managed a stock of some 182 units and Saudi Arabia procured 72 of their own.
So while there is continued global use of the FH70, its days as a frontline system, at least by Western standards, appear to be numbered as several of the primary project contributors have given up use of the product (typically artillery pieces see decades-upon-decades of consistent service with even large militaries). Nevertheless, for some countries, the weapon continues to give good service on the modern, digitally-driven battlefield.
Content ©MilitaryFactory.com; No Reproduction Permitted.