Artillery Fire Control Equipment

[Michate]

in the US FA of the 1930s there was also the focus on massing mutiple battery/battalion fires. A very different problem leading to different soulutions.

This was similar in Germany, with several procedures introduced over the war to realize Feuerzusammenfassungen.

Ok. So they seem to have been using a fairly sophisticated technique. Radio would allow tracking the balloons at longer range & in clouds. Superior to optical tracking, except the bulky equipment would often be a problem for the field artillery. Any indication of what the radio frequencies would be, or any other techincal info?

IIRC, Froben mentions that part, but not all, of the weather platoons of the reconnaissance artillery got Würzburg devices (it seems the standard devices built for the Luftwaffe). The main advantage was that you needed three theodolites for tracking the balloon, but just one radar set. Froben's book also shows a Würzburg radar device camouflaged in what seems to be a loam hut.

The weather platoons of the reconnaissance artillery also used radio sondes, which were attached to the weather balloons. I do not know, whether the weather platoons of the firing (divisional) artillery used them as well, I can imagine they were in short supply.

[SES]

Any indication of what the radio frequencies would be, or any other techincal info?

I wonder if metorlogical corrections had any value for ships guns?

HI Carl,
I'll check if we have the frequencies.

Yes the wind was factored in, in the ship gun fire solutions, but the problem was also the vector of the ship - and that of the target.

bregds
SES

[Carl Schwamberger]

in the US FA of the 1930s there was also the focus on massing mutiple battery/battalion fires. A very different problem leading to different soulutions.

This was similar in Germany, with several procedures introduced over the war to realize Feuerzusammenfassungen.

I recall you have some documents explaining the procedures used for this, correct? If so I ned to dig into how the Germans did this.

Ok. So they seem to have been using a fairly sophisticated technique. Radio would allow tracking the balloons at longer range & in clouds. Superior to optical tracking, except the bulky equipment would often be a problem for the field artillery. Any indication of what the radio frequencies would be, or any other techincal info?

IIRC, Froben mentions that part, but not all, of the weather platoons of the reconnaissance artillery got Würzburg devices (it seems the standard devices built for the Luftwaffe). The main advantage was that you needed three theodolites for tracking the balloon, but just one radar set. Froben's book also shows a Würzburg radar device camouflaged in what seems to be a loam hut.

The weather platoons of the reconnaissance artillery also used radio sondes, which were attached to the weather balloons. I do not know, whether the weather platoons of the firing (divisional) artillery used them as well, I can imagine they were in short supply.

Perhaps something the observation battalion had, one or perhaps two per army? I cant recall any other mention of these in the German field artillery. Also I dont know if the Germans placed more emphasis on correction through observation of fall of shot, or prefered correction from metro data as the British prefered.

[Michate]

Perhaps something the observation battalion had, one or perhaps two per army? I cant recall any other mention of these in the German field artillery. Also I dont know if the Germans placed more emphasis on correction through observation of fall of shot, or prefered correction from metro data as the British prefered.

I am quite sure only observation battalions or the independent weather platoons (at some point of the war they were taken away from the observation battalions and attached to, IIRC, armies, or maybe corps) had radar devices and radio sondes.

The Germans distinguished between three types of metro messages (called Barbara-Meldungen): 1. special, 2. normal, and 3. improvised. 1. is by balloon with radio sonde, 2. with balloon, but without radio sonde, and 3. only measuring conditions at ground level, Iif I have understood the procedures correctly.

At least 3. had to be confirmed by registration on map or terrain points (this was called "Verbessertes Planschießen") via ground or air observation or via flash spotting or sound ranging. This could (and perhaps had to be) done for at least 2. but possibly 1. as well.

As to what they preferred, difficult to say. Both methods are described in the manuals. Normally they stressed observed fire, but in later war periods they increasingly went with preplanned fires during large scale enemy attacks, for the simple reason that the very strong enemy fire tended to interrupt communications and blind observers, while the guns, in particular if a special Großkampfstellung was used, were often relatively undisturbed.

[Carl Schwamberger]

As to what they preferred, difficult to say ....

This is why I have placed obtaining the technical manuals at a lower priority than collecting eyewitness descriptions.

[Carl Schwamberger]

]

As to what they preferred, difficult to say ....

This is why I have placed obtaining the technical manuals at a lower priority than collecting eyewitness descriptions.

3. only measuring conditions at ground level, Iif I have understood the procedures correctly.

For us that was observing the temperature of the propellant powder waiting on the gun line. Wind & other ground level conditions were not very usefull in our calculations.

This was similar in Germany, with several procedures introduced over the war to realize Feuerzusammenfassungen.

Do you have any detailed descriptions of these procedures.

[Michate]

This is why I have placed obtaining the technical manuals at a lower priority than collecting eyewitness descriptions.

But you would need at least dozens, better hundreds or thousands of such descriptions. I have looked for quite some time now, but I am aware of only a handful.

Do you have any detailed descriptions of these procedures.

A lot of short and incomplete descriptions widely scattered over manuals, some FMS studies, a few unit histories and artillery officer's memoirs or studies (at times with some original material included).

IMHO, due to the generally incomplete sources, you need to cross-compare a lot of such sources to get a halfway accurate picture, like many small pieces of a puzzle.

Most useful for fire concentration procedure decriptions are IMHO a couple of articles of the Artilleristische Rundschau, the German artillery magazine (but here again I lack the critical editions for 1943/44, you need a lot of patience to get them at halfway affordable costs).

[Carl Schwamberger]

Michate... I've found exactly the same for artillery actions of all armys. Usefull descriptions of artillery fire control & particulary the command/control techniques are 'rare'. Six years ago when I started this project I thought a couple years would be required. That was very wrong. One fragment at a time is what I collect, single paragraphs from magazine articals, a half chapter from this or that book. Like assemblying a puzzle that children had scattered across the neighborhood.


The one advantage I have is the training in the old US Army manual gunnery methods and precomputer command/control. Its allowed me to recognize & interprete items that would otherwise be unrecognizable.

"A lot of short and incomplete descriptions widely scattered over manuals, some FMS studies, a few unit histories and artillery officer's memoirs or studies (at times with some original material included)."

Any of that you are able to share would be more bricks in the pile, translated or otherwise. Thanks

[Carl Schwamberger]

A couple photos of US Artillery firing charts or plotting boards. These came from Bourke-Whites book concerning her photos of the Italian front. One of these I've seen elsewhere & attributed to the Korean War, but Bourke-White's book I scanned it from is the first edition copywrited in 1944 so a Korean war date is unlikely.

The photos are described as the "battalion Fire Direction Center" for a 155mm cannon battalion. While the details differ the equipment and general scene is very like the manual gunnery FDC I was trained in in the early 1980s. Low voltage electric lamps or chemlights vs candles, a aluminum Range/Deflection Protractor vs the clear plastic Range Fan in the photograph.

The chapter relating to these photos include a description of Bourke-White accompanying a artillery air observer in a L5 aircraft on a spotting mission.





The DL from photobucket cropped the right side of the images. In the second the row of men on the right are using radio or telephone handsets. Uncropped images are here:


http://s738.photobucket.com/albums/xx27 ... wamberger/

[Carl Schwamberger]

Found this in a local private armor vehical collection. displayed on the fender of a M7 SP howitzer. Official name was 'Graphic Firing Table' & it was used as a fast computation version of the Tabulated Firing Table - a book of precomputed elevations, charge settings fuze time & a dozen other critical items. This GFT had data for two specifc propellant charge on each side. The transparent square had a indice line that was placed over the Range Scale. Tube elevation, fuse time, ect... were read off the paralle scales as the indice line indicated. After corrections for Registration fires, Meterological observations, gun position, ect were computed they could be indicated by a second indice line made in pencil on the transparent slide. That allowed the correction to be read straight off the GFT without any further computation.

A unsure of the date of use of this particualr GFT. The two charge scales on each stick & scales running straight along the stick vs diagonal makes it definitely pre 1970s.

Each US Army battery was equipped with a firing chart and a set of the GFT as well as the TFT as part of its fire control equipment. The battalion FDC also had several sets of the same & could compute firing data for any or all of its batterys.

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Carl

When I was in the British Army in the 70s we were still using a similar devise we called the Gun Position Officer's Slide Rule with our 105mm light guns. Most of the calculations were by that time being done by FACE (Field Artillery Computer Eqipment) but the GPO and the saftey officer would double check the calculations using the slide rules. As the gun fitter I would quite often be close to the safety officer and his staff and I now wish I would have asked the Battery Captain (who was normally the safety officer) to show me how to use the slide rule.

Clive

[Carl Schwamberger]

Clive...thanks for the info. In the 1990s we still used the chart & sticks for safety checks, despite the provision of some extremely capable computers. What was your position in the battery? I'm a little curious if you remember anything about the time it took to execute the fire missions.

[Clive Mortimore]

Clive...thanks for the info. In the 1990s we still used the chart & sticks for safety checks, despite the provision of some extremely capable computers. What was your position in the battery? I'm a little curious if you remember anything about the time it took to execute the fire missions.

Hi Carl

I was the REME gun fitter, so my main role was to ensure all the guns were in full working condition and to fix them when the gunners broke them. I had to be on the firing position in case one fell apart or stopped working, so I use to make myself helpful, acting as runner for the safety officer, helping the Troop Sargent Major on the gun position, and when the gun crews were short being part of a gun crew. There were times I would help my REME mates when they had a vehicle to repair.

As for how long it took to execute a fire mission. It seemed very fast, the signallers in the Command Post would be repeating the coordinates back to the OP as the TARA (Technical Assistant Royal Artillery) would be plotting the target position and playing with the FACE. The Command Post Officer would then be giving the elevation and traverse settings for each gun. When all the gun number one's reported their gun was ready, the Gun Position Officer would check with the safety officer and give the order to fire. As I said it all seemed very fast.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Clive... thanks again. As much information as I had from some 'experts' One of the odd things I've found in the last six of research is there is very little accurate record of the details of artillery operations. Especially items like time for mission execution, time to emplace a battery.... Those bits of paper you saw theofficers & NCOs recording on don't seem to have been preserved. So,I dig for eyewitness descriptions at every opportunity.

[Michate]

German WW2 artillery had a couple of similar tools as well:

- The "Artillerie-Rechenschieber 34", a slide rule for fast computation of cballistical corrections of ballistical and weather influences. Unfortunately, I have only one photo reprinted in very bad quality. The source mentions that one tool can be found at the artillery museum at Idar-Oberstein, but I have not been there.

- The "Artillerie-Rechengerät 42". It is referenced in several manuals. Used for the same purpose, to calculate the corrections of the moment. Whether this was a more sophisticated slide rule, or a mechanical computation device (such as the Brunswiga machine, which was used for survey computations), I cannot say. Usage was probably mostly restricted to heavy and long range artillery.

- The "Artillerie-Richtschieber A", a simple slide rule, which served as a simple calculation tool for a couple of purposes - among them the differences in the azimuth of the individual guns of a battery in cases when all guns of the battery should aim at exactly one point (though standard procedure was parallel guns), or when single guns had been detached as roving guns. Of this last one, numerous photos can be found on the web, including this forum.