I think I have an artillery addiction

It seems I have developed an artillery "dependency issue". This weekend, I've finished off yet another towed artillery battery for my 1981 East Germans. 

When the D-30 122mm howitzer:

began entering service in 1963, it was intended that its predecessor, the M-30:

would be retired as quickly as D-30 production allowed. The M-30 was a barely modernized version of the M1938, which had entered service in 1939 and ceased production in 1955. There were two versions; the most common, without a muzzle brake:

and a less common version with the brake:

Industrial production in the Warsaw Pact being what it was, it proved impossible to fully phase out the M-30 and it continued to serve alongside the newer D-30 right up until the fall of the Soviet Union, though the Soviets retained fewer of them in service than did the other members of the WarPac. In fact, quite a few former Communist countries still have M30s in their reserves. 

I chose Star 266 trucks as prime movers:

The Star was produced by the Poles, but East Germany purchased quite a number of them for their army. As you can see, it most often had a peaked tarpaulin, but Marcin has given his a flat-topped one. And here is my battery:

with the usual 1V18 for the forward observer:

and a BTR-60PU for the battery commander:

I ran across this oddity when searching for images of the Star 266:

You rarely see wheeled monitors!! I wouldn't think that a truck with a curb weight of only 7.35 long tons could possibly stand up to the recoil that a gun that size must generate. It rather reminds me of the British Terror class monitors:

A whole lot of gun on not much ship!

I still have one more battery in mind. Some outdated guns for my East German reserve and training unit, the 20th Motor Rifle Division. More on that in the next post or two.