I remember when automation hit the FA and the GIGO Factor jumped! Seeing 1600 mil firing errors, “Because that is what came out of the computer, Sir!”.
If you are going to be a Field Artilleryman, you have to know ballistics. As a Fire Direction Officer, you have to have the ballistics table in your head so that when you hear a range, quadrant and charge, you have to know it is in the safe zone. Many times, I caught errors, just by listening.
Computers are great, but just because they go down, you are still obligated to do your job. Grunt and Treadheads are counting on you!
Field Artillery, Often mistaken for the Wraith of God!
So they found someone to make GFTs again? Never saw one for the 700 series projos.
Oh how my chiefs hated me when I made them do it all manually at least once each AT. Then they fat fingered a target out of the box that the computer said was safe.
Manual MET and high burst, mean point of impact! What fun.
I was in bn FDC in an 8” bn in the reserves in Florida and had an FDO, CPT Danny Henson that could that.
I can see him now with his stop watch hanging around his neck, sitting on the ramp of the 577, sweating in the heat at Blanding or Avon Park, on top of multiple fire missions. The guy was on top of everything, country boy from Arkansas and scary smart. Tough too, whipped the commo section CPT’s butt one night at the end of AT when said officer got smart about criticism of commo deficiencies, I believe Jack Daniels may have been involved, lol.
When I went thru the SF Qualification course a lifetime ago as a Weapons guy, we were taught FDC, Fire Direction Control, using pencil, paper, and an M16 plotting board. MBC’s, Mortar Ballistic Computers, were in use then, but never saw one. I still have nightmares about that plotting board. :-)