A Question about US Artillery

[Richard Anderson]

Probablly a misinterpretation. I've two sources indicating air observation was common in two different 8" cannon battalions. Little else for others. Probablly there were some long range cannon battalion that leaned heavily on air observation.

Nope. Every American Field Artillery Battalion HQ & HQ Battery had a flight section consisting of two liaison aircraft for air observation. The only exception I can think of was the PFA and GFA battalions. Somewhere I've run across statistics...it wasn't 97%, but it was high. I'll see if I can find them again.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Rich, I did not say they did not have air observation. I just seldom run across a published account or interview of a battalion or battery artillery officer who conducted fire with air observation. The two 8" battalions were clear exceptions. I suspect part of the targets were being handed off to the medium or heavy battalions, that was our practice for targets that were not in the tactical units (battalion or regiment) area of operations or area of interest (choose your team du jour). I'd would note is that often the observer was transparent. The call signs were recorded, but if the observer was in a hole, on a tank, a helicopter, or a fixed wing was not recorded. In some cases that might be guessed at by the nature of the messages in the conduct of the fire, but often the nature of the observer was invisible. You could sort back through the documentation linking call signs to units or specific observers, but that was very perishable information as we destroyed comm info as soon as it was no longer in use. Usually daily for call signs.

In terms of quantity of ammunition we fired the volume observed by air observers was 'small' While high priority targets like HQ, Chemical weapons, or fire support rated high volume attacks we did not make many such deep attacks. Most of the ammunition was expended on targets derived from ground observers. That constant 'drizzle' of close fire missions ate up the bulk of the ammunition. While at this point I can't do more than 'suspect', but the evidence I've actually had suggests most of the ammo went at targets observed from the ground. While high priority targets at range did rate high ammo allotment, this was mitigated by that most targets identified were Suspect and not Confirmed or certain. A suspected target would be much more likely to rate a low volume Suppression attack vs a a large volume Neutralization. My guess is that was similar for the US Army in WWII.

Wish I'd had collected the mission ROF and log books from my decade in the artillery. Trying to sort all that out from memory leads to excluding in these conversations so much of what I observed.

[Richard Anderson]

Rich, I did not say they did not have air observation. I just seldom run across a published account or interview of a battalion or battery artillery officer who conducted fire with air observation. The two 8" battalions were clear exceptions.

Okay, I see where you were going, but I'm not sure it is correct for the ETO. I will try to dig the data...I know I have it somewhere, but we're going on vacation so I may be some time before I can.

[Carl Schwamberger]

That would be good. Solid information is always welcome. My main question here is why so few WWII artillery veterans refer to air observation. Wish I'd known the need to take notes and proper interview techniques in all those casual conversations of 30 or forty years ago. Who knew it was needed???

[Gary Kennedy]

Carl,

Not sure if you've already seen it, but the post-war General Board study on air observation in Field Artillery units can be seen here (study 66);

https://usacac.army.mil/organizations/c ... l/eto#ARTY

Gary

[Sheldrake]

To all,

I hope this has not been covered, but I was reading WWII History Magazine, December 2018 issue that a friend gave me. I found this in the article entitled “Eyes in the Sky” by Arnold Blumberg, page 28, “ From D-Day to V-E Day, they(aerial observers) performed 97 percent of all Artillery adjustment missions in the European Theater.”

That seems like a very, very high percentage to me, is this true???

Mike

There may be some truth in this.

The major campaigns in the ETO took place in countryside that offered few natural observation points, littered with trees hedges and buildings. It was hard to spot and correct the fall of shot from the ground where visibility was C 1000m. Air OPs were much better placed to spot the fall of shot and adjust for accuracy. However, it was estimated that C.90% of fire missions in Normandy were predicted rather than adjusted. With good survey and a multi battery mission it was assumed that some part of the fire would hit the target.

There is a discussion on the accuracy of predicted fire, in, er, chapter 22 of (cough) the new (my) book on the |British artillery in the Normandy campaign. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NRF556W/ ... TF8&btkr=1

[Delta Tank]

Carl,

When I was in the Field Artillery, 1974-1978, at Fort Bragg we did a lot of fire missions adjusted by air observers. The procedure was to shoot two guns, one round at the target and one round 400 meters over the target. This gave the air observer the gun target line and all his adjustments were then based off the gun target line. Ground observers we adjusted with one gun.

In World War 2, we always did a two gun adjustment??

Mike

[Carl Schwamberger]

Carl,

Not sure if you've already seen it, but the post-war General Board study on air observation in Field Artillery units can be seen here (study 66);

https://usacac.army.mil/organizations/c ... l/eto#ARTY

Gary

Read portions of that years ago. What i remember are the parts addressing what we called "deep fires" back in the 1970s-90s.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Carl,

When I was in the Field Artillery, 1974-1978, at Fort Bragg we did a lot of fire missions adjusted by air observers. The procedure was to shoot two guns, one round at the target and one round 400 meters over the target. This gave the air observer the gun target line and all his adjustments were then based off the gun target line. Ground observers we adjusted with one gun.

In World War 2, we always did a two gun adjustment??

Mike

A retired Col & instructor at Ft Sill told me they used two gun adjustment missions for refining corrections to the firing tables. I suspect this was reason different than with your air observation procedure. When he was adjusting onto actual enemy it was with either one gun, or adjusting after FFE to refine for further FFE. He told me with experince they dropped the detailed procedures when making actual attacks. Those were still used for setting up planned targets and fine tuning the corrections on the sticks. Thats near identical to my experience of the 1980s. As long as you had your target location close a single adjusting round & correction was enough to get to FFE. If things were ambigious then two, or maybe three if you were lost in the Mojave desert or in the hills and dales of Korea. Precision Registrations were something one did to refine the Meterological corrections, or substitute for absent Meterological data.

[Carl Schwamberger]

There may be some truth in this.

The major campaigns in the ETO took place in countryside that offered few natural observation points, littered with trees hedges and buildings. It was hard to spot and correct the fall of shot from the ground where visibility was C 1000m. Air OPs were much better placed to spot the fall of shot and adjust for accuracy. However, it was estimated that C.90% of fire missions in Normandy were predicted rather than adjusted. With good survey and a multi battery mission it was assumed that some part of the fire would hit the target.

There is a discussion on the accuracy of predicted fire, in, er, chapter 22 of (cough) the new (my) book on the |British artillery in the Normandy campaign. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NRF556W/ ... TF8&btkr=1

What I am taking from the FOs on the ground descriptions is their targets were under 1000 meters distant. In WWII that distance would often be out side the area of direct danger to the company commander. Inside his area of interest, but like you say usually not visible. This connects to the oft repeated remark that most infantry engagements were under 500 meters. Mostly because you often cant get line of sight with your rifle, MG, mortar, or FO at that range. Macdonalds Company Commander sort of summed up what I'd been told or read from artillery officers accounts. The ranges at which his company were engaging the enemy with their weapons or calling on the artillery were of interest to me.

I have run across some cases in Viet Nam where air observation linked a infantry company & the artillery in a sort of threesome. One case seemed organized & routine. the other very unusual and ad hoc. The air observation was performed by a helocopter crew doing a supply run into a company position, not by actual artillery officers, & its was hastily planned while the helo was off loading in the company position. Further the helo pilot passed the corrections to the company staff who relayed them to the mortars involved.