I promised content, didn't I. And here it is nearly the end of February and nothing since the beginning of the second week.
Sorry.
I have been thinking...ummm...thoughts. About the coronavirus and the beyond-typically-idiotic Fraudulency Administration "response" (yeah, let's put the guy who doesn't believe in actual 21st Century science and was widely loathed as the governor of his state for his incompetence, and let's do exactly what the government of the PRC did - that is, ensure that ignorant, ass-covering officials are in charge of suppressing or lying about the diesease - that enabled the Covid-19 to escape the infectious disease reporting-and-response protocols enacted after the SARS outbreak of 2003...).
And about the latest Oregon Yik-a-hoo Adventure; the ridiculous "Greater Idaho" redneck rebellion.
And about cops. Portland cops in particular, but cops in general.
And, for the first time since December, 2018, I have a "battle long ago" for March - the Battle of Crossbarry, 1921, part of the chaotic war for independence that turned into a civil war that still has portents for the Ireland and Great Britain of today.
So...more soon, promise!
Meanwhile, here's a picture of a cat:
How's the Democratic primary playing out in Portlandia?
ReplyDeleteI am highly entertained, up here in Canada where our provincial leadership has decided to criminalize protest anywhere near "critical infrastructure" which includes things like sidewalks and power poles.
Hi there, I'm interested in stuff like artillery and TFTs, do you have a label or roundup post with your most FDC-related posts?
ReplyDeleteT=Our primary is so late, Ael, that nearly all of the national campaigns pass us by. Last time Bernie won handily - the Portland area is pretty lefty, and the rest of the pais votes NSDAP. My guess is that our four or so delegates will go to Sanders again.
ReplyDeleteNoumenon - sadly, I've not written much about my time in the Guard artillery. We've done a couple of posts over at MilPub (https://milpubblog.blogspot.com/search/label/artillery) though.
Did you have any specific questions or information you're looking for? That might be a good starting point for a post.
FDChief -- I was just looking for "what it's like to be there" stuff like http://firedirectioncenter.blogspot.com/2009/01/clearly-obscure.html . I recently learned about "coordinated illumination" and that story just broadens my perspective on it. Also your discussion of inexperienced observers and "chasing the round".
ReplyDeleteI found that by using Google Site Search for the term "rounds", which also found me http://firedirectioncenter.blogspot.com/2015/05/mortar-maggots.html . I was interested that you have to put ammo on tarps so the sand heating doesn't mess up your range. I wouldn't have thought to ask about that, so that's how a blog helps!
If you can think of any other good keywords to search for, let me know!
Noumenon: I'd forgotten those posts, thanks for reminding me. JEsus, I'm old.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, both artillery and mortars work similarly in this; there's three components of putting steel on target.
1) Observation. There has to be a eyes on the target. That's typically an "FO", forward observer. Here's a good place to get the basics of hos this worked for donkey's years - a 1944 FO mfield manual (https://archive.org/details/FM6-135/mode/2up) that give you an idea of the basics.
Now, of course, that "FO" is just as likely to be a drone, or a laser - here's a recent FM 6-30 that covers the same missions that the earlier FM does (https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/FM%206-30.pdf) but includes the updated technical observation means and methods.
You CAN fire "blind" - in Vietnam supposedly units did this, hitting preplotted targets like road intersections as random; this was called "harassing and interdiction" fire and was, supposedly, pretty worthless except for killing and maiming rando civilians, but, then, that was Vietnam, wasn't it?
2) Technical fire direction. This takes the FO's observations and information and turns them into deflections and elevations for the cannons (or rocket srtillery, in the calse of things like MLRS...). This is typically done either at the battery fire direction center - the FDC - or at the battalion for larger missions. This used to be done through "manual gunnery"; using a physical plotting board ("charts and darts") and either tactical firing tables ("TFTs") or graphic firing tables ("GFTs") that are just the slipstick versions of the TFT. Don't think of them as stone axes; that was what the US FA had back in the 1940s and those boys fired some pretty slick missions. The Soviet artillery gets all the glamor because the Reds had cannons out the fucking wazoo, but for pure elegance the German and U.S. armies were the gold standard.
Obviously now it's done primarily by computer (tho every battery and battalion has to keep an updated firing chart, or at least they did when I was in...)
FM 6-40 covers that portion of the business - (https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/mcwp3_16_4.pdf).
3) Cannon operations - the business end, putting the mojo in the projo. That's a line of steel thing, and wasn't really my rice bowl, but it's largely covered in FM 6-50 (https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CDG/cdg_resources/manuals/fm/fm6_50.pdf)
(con't)
(con't from above...)
ReplyDeleteIt's worth noting that artillery has an odd and unique NCO TO&E.
Two E-7 sergeants first class - the "gunnery sergeant", or Gunny - sorry, jarheads, it's not just you - and the Chief of Battery (the Chief of Smoke or just "Smoke") - provide the primary operational direction to the battery. The Gunny is the advon guy; he goes to the next firing point, sets up the aiming circle, and lays out the battery. The Smoke march orders the battery, leads them in, and once the Gunny is done takes charge of the line of steel.
That means that the battery first sergeant is almost purely an administrator and logistics guy - he makes the resupply runs and keeps the duty rosters - the Gunny and the Smoke pretty much run the battery for the battery commander. It's not that the First Shirt is useless, but he's not the commander's go-to NCO support the way he is in an infantry or armor unit. When the guns are in battery, the BC is hooked into the Smoke rather than the 1SG for tactical and technical issues. The First Shirt, meanwhile, is keeping an eye on the round count and hooking up with battalion S-4 for Class V resupply...
There's also a higher level, what's called "tactical" fire direction; how to employ all these technical elements to provide effective fire support to maneuver elements. That's kind of an echelon above my reality, but a good place to start might be here - what used to be FM 6-20 (https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CDG/cdg_resources/manuals/fm/fm3_09x21.pdf), which tell you how Army doctrine thinks all this should work...
Anyway, one good thing is that you've motivated me to start talking about my old Army days, and I'll do that this month. Thanks!
I'll be following, thanks! I should read the field manuals already, but your writing is much more entertaining. You know, they're redoing the AFATDS software, so if you used that or it was missing anything, that would be interesting. Sounds like that would be more about tactical fire direction than what you mostly did.
ReplyDeleteThe FMs are important because 1) they give you the technical doctrine the US FA uses, and that's basic to everything we do. Most people have some base level understanding of what grunts do (though the grotesque stuff of most the TV and movie versions has a lot to do with how little most people know of HOW the infantry does what they do...) but artillery is a really non-intuitive branch. The FMs give you a basis for understanding on the most intuitive level whether something you see or hear passes the sniff test. If you don't understand what, say, "angle of site" is and how it can screw up low-angle fires then it can be hard to understand why a particular unit or mission is fired the way it is, or how the GT angle affects how the FO is supposed to call in adjustments you will probably have a hard time understanding how a cherry FO ends up "chasing the round" like I mentioned in that earlier post. Anyway, no problem if you don't, but the FMs ARE a realy good place to start understanding field artillery.
ReplyDeleteThe RA was using the AFATDS (and we tended to call it "A-fay-tads", so I always think the acronym is "AFATADS", which is just kinda weird...) hard- and software system by the early Oughts when I retired; the Guard wasn't. We were still stuck with the older BCS system that dated to the Eighties. I won't pretend to be particularly sorry, given that my understanding is that a lot of the AFATDS missions pretty much bypass the battery-level FDC; the initial mission might stop there for a safety check, but things like corrections and FFEs go directly from the FO to the guns. I had a couple of "at-my-command" missions do that, where the Hill gave the fire-for-effect command directly to my gunline; it felt very weird and while I admit that it was tactically effective I admit to not liking it.
To date myself even more, at the time I did most of my FA service (from the late Nineties into the Oughts) we still used something called a "Back Up Computer System" or "BUCS"; a little hand-held, Nintento-DS-looking gimmick that the RA had 86ed years earlier. It was a complete kludge and was obviously a 1G digital computation device that was just barely quicker than a good FD crew with the charts-and-darts and GFT.
I'll definitely read the FMs at some point, I have them on PDF. When you refer to "the Hill" is that slang for an observer because they like to go up on hills?
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've been wondering is whether people actually observe from a BFIST or if they just drive around till they get close to a good spot. You don't have to answer all my questions, but thanks so much for your perspective!
When you're on the range the FOs are typically up on whatever high point they can find to overlook the impact area, so, yeah, "the Hill" is the assumption that the FOs are up on some sort of high ground.
ReplyDeleteAnd...well, my problem with that is that I was always light, so our FOs traveled in HMMWVs. I've never worked with FISTVs, whether the M901 or the BFIST version. But I always assumed that the Battalion FSO/FSE worked out the best presumed location for the FOs based on the mission profile of the maneuver elements (and the supported company commander obviously had some input there, too...) and gave those coordinates to the FO elements.
One thing that is difficult to guesstimate is how this would actually work in a genuine high-intensity setting; I would suspect that the FOs would have to do a LOT more sneaking around and displacing immediately after calling for fire...