METHOD AND DEVICE FOR HANDLING PROPELLING CHARGES IN FULLY AND SEMI-AUTOMATIC LOADING SYSTEMS FOR ARTILLERY GUNS

摘要

The present invention relates to a device for the loading system of artillery guns to enable unitary propelling charges (16), of preferably modular charge type that are mutually combinable into larger units and which have combustible casings, to be handled in a main magazine (1) comprising a number of mutually parallel magazine tubes (2-15) designed to accommodate such modular charges (16), with the outfeed apertures of the magazine tubes (2-15) terminating in a common vertical plane, and a retrieval tube (17) whose infeed/outfeed aperture can be docked with the outfeed aperture of any freely selectable magazine tube (2-15) whereby the retrieval tube (17) is used to transfer a selected number of modular charges (16) from the respective magazine tubes (2-15) to a loading pendulum (19) used for loading the gun. The device in the present invention is primarily characterized by the way in which the magazine tubes (2-15) and the retrieval tube (17) are designed with dedicated outfeed devices (31) which ensure that the modular charges are always kept packed together, end-to-end when they are transferred between the tubes.