Thing is - how many of those had already been combed out for the Emergency Batteries and others...not to mention the super heavy batteries that had been formed previously and sent off to France with the BEF?Major Cleeve might have been the only serving artillery officer with experience of the large railway guns but how many reserve or TA officers had served with the 9.2 inch gun and 12 inch howitzer batteries?
It would be a long research project for someone - but given that the various war diaries DO name the three officers with each battery, it should be possible to check their individual careers!
Certainly they will have become better trained and more capable as the months went by, but the thing of interest to me is how much they can contribute to the defence of Britain as of September 1940. The spectre has already been raised that with some of these only two weeks old by the end of the month, exactly how they were to be used/what they were to be used for had not yet been established and wasn't to be finalised for another half-month...let alone the whole aspect of how well trained they were/became within the timeframe of this thread -Without having to disect every post can we conclude that in the area of the potential invasion were a collection of 9.2 inch railway guns that in the event of the said invasion would have been able to contribute to the defence of Britain.
Training raw recruits to fire a complex weapon takes time. Each new battery raised would have a cadre of experienced senior gunnery NCOs, their only problem would have been familiarity with the new gun.
....I.E. two weeks No wonder there were "frequent" practice shoots...
Compared to the EBs whos' practice shoots were limited to save ammunition, there must have been no shortage of ammunition for the railway guns of the super heavy batteries. But the note about the 25lb'ers being provided for field training would hint that there were some basic artillery skills missing when the units were formed.
Ideally, yes. But as we've both read, some of these were found parked up under canvas in railway sidings...The 9.2 inch guns were stored as complete equipment’s, therefore the gun documents should have remained with the guns this is from my experience as a gun fitter. There should have been no problem with the manuals as they would be with the guns.
Apart from anything else, I wonder how long it took to service/refurbish them? Is that why we can see the large group of guns in the material Gooner posted up only becoming available for the batteries in early September?