No. 27 Artillery Trailer
 

Hi
Highly technical question.
The No 27 artillery trailer was used with the 25-pounder field gun and the 17-pounder anti-tank gun. Their ammunition is different.

Were there different styles of ammunition trays inside the trailer for each equipment?

Doug Knight

Doug,
I doubt if the no.27 artillery trailer was ever used with the 17pdr.
In fact I think the gun was towed directly behind the tractor, which also carried the ammunition. Remember that not only is the ammunition completely different ( fixed vs seperate rounds ) but also the number of rounds allocated to each gun would probably be much less. The 17pdr. would be firing single, well aimed shots, rather than barrages.

The No. 27 Ammunition trailer was widely used with the 17pdr A/t gun. There are many photos showing the Ram or Crusader gun tractors pulling both the trailer and the gun. However, when the FAT is being used as the tractor, then the ammunition trailer is not used. This is probably because the 17pdr gun plus the trailer would exceed the towing limit of the FAT.

Limber
 

You are probably right about the load limit, although the 25 pdr. and limber are really enough for the FAT. Part of the reason for the limber is that the 25 pdr. trail hits the back of the FAT on turns. Using the limber eliminates that problem. On my DAF YA314 the pintle has an extension that I was told was put on the non artillery tractors (YA328) so that they could tow the 25 pdr. I can't imagine they would have used my particular truck for that as it is a tipper, even though that's what I am going to do.
Cheers, Barry

The numbers that I have are that the 25pdr weights in at 3968lbs with a fully loaded No. 27 trailer tipping the scales at a little more them 3000lbs. That gives a total weight for the gun and trailer of about 7000lbs. The 17pdr in the traveling position weights 6700lbs. So the 17pdr gun by itself weights almost as the 25pdr and ammunition trailer combined.