M109 howitzer

No, it is a spool of commo wire; a DR8 reel w/WD-1 wire on it to be exact.  The wire is black and can be easily represented by black thread.

thanks so much! makes more sense as the spool is pretty small.

H.A. beat me to it.....again! :) Our commo line was always too dirty to be Black- Black. So a little grey or "dirt" brown will help. Bob

Hmmm, brings up a different question, is there a supplier for PA 312 (in or out of the fabric carrier case)?

try  "www.hlj.com/product/RES352283" Mac82. Hope that's what you're looking for. Bob

Those are good, but, what I was thinking of looks more like this:

Our redleg memebers are better placed to say if they used the AFV mounted phones, or as pictured above.  (There is a switchboard, of which I could not find a good public domain image to link to, which would be  used by the commo sction at the fire control center.)

TA-312s (as in the above post) were more common on the gunline.  I haven't seen any in 1/35 scale.  There was a telephone handset/receiver   that could be used to make one in the old Italeri Modern Battle Accessories set.

Thanks, Gino, that jibes with my memories from my time in beach logistics.  My memories of the MC arty was that the SPGs had either empty reels or no reel at all, opting for the man-pack carrier for the commo wire reels.  Which might be to 'mirror' the methods used by the towed tube folks use.

Or, as old men ar wont to do, I'm remembering things, with advantage.