Tube Missile Artillery: How do they find their targets?

Golly this weekend I talked whit friend who served in artillery. He served in D-30 battery and he described basically the same things you have described…
Only difference is that he says that they also used GPS for determining position of the battery and that forward artillery observer use GPS and laser range finders to get more exact target coordinates…

Well i quess the difference is countrybased, each having their own methods. Our positioning meassurement was old, dating from the 1920's. And GPS isent the most accurate system, expecially in the old days when US officals deliberatly jammed the signal to not to give accurate information. It was said to my brother who was in the artillery survey teams that the GPS device that they had could provide same level of accuracy as the compass, and that the accuracy of compass survey was that scale that only in wartime it would have been accepted. But notably GPS is going to be future for artillery, as well as Galileo when it gets ready...

Gollevainen said:

Well i quess the difference is countrybased, each having their own methods. Our positioning meassurement was old, dating from the 1920's. And GPS isent the most accurate system, expecially in the old days when US officals deliberatly jammed the signal to not to give accurate information. It was said to my brother who was in the artillery survey teams that the GPS device that they had could provide same level of accuracy as the compass, and that the accuracy of compass survey was that scale that only in wartime it would have been accepted. But notably GPS is going to be future for artillery, as well as Galileo when it gets ready...

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Well Golly he said that they used GPS only as supplementary method… They use old ways too… As for GPS accuracy you can increase accuracy of GPS system by using ground emitters as reference points (DGPS)… Not weary useful if you are planning to have expeditionary force but great for small country’s like ours are…

Yeas. they sometimes used GPS in our battalion to ceck out the results of survey and aiming trainings. Lot offcoures depends on how much there is geographic fixed points avialable to the survey teams and how accurate are the information on these...

Dear Goll,

Yes resupply was a constant problem with the roads being bad, especially during monsoon. Although ammunition and military supplies were a problem, food and drink were not. Let me explain. You see, we were college students and had a small stipend as well as some money from the parents. In the Philippines there are always small stores where you can buy canned food and drinks (particularly alcohol).

So we would all chip in and buy additional food for us and the men. You can even ask them to cook it for you if you buy enough and are willing to pay a little more. This was not an option for the infantry as they were in the field (we were close to the roads) and had no trucks. They had to wait for the food or buy it and carry it with them. Yes that's not unusual here. Many times the food doesn't arrive.

It was a little extravagant and expensive to have to regularly by food and drink for the men but nothing builds unit solidarity better! Especially if you buy beer or gin at night!

Regards,

Dusky Lim

Nethappy said:

lazzydigger when did u quit service?

Despite this old method is still in use, most grunt unit nowaday has a GPS and a laser-range finder in the squad, it provide much more accuracy cordinates and at time allow frist round hit possible.

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About 5 years ago. We australian diggers are poor buggers. Also when grunt need to help guncrew to operate the mortar, it is really when shit hits the fang. GPS not nesserily working. At least your map and compass works in most of the situations

About 5 years ago. We australian diggers are poor buggers. Also when grunt need to help guncrew to operate the mortar, it is really when shit hits the fang. GPS not nesserily working. At least your map and compass works in most of the situations

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I know it bad, but it not that bad. What can we do, we care stuck with what we have. Anyany condition has improved a bit over the years, at lease government spend a bit more money on the army.

Dear Goll,

Yes resupply was a constant problem with the roads being bad, especially during monsoon. Although ammunition and military supplies were a problem, food and drink were not. Let me explain. You see, we were college students and had a small stipend as well as some money from the parents. In the Philippines there are always small stores where you can buy canned food and drinks (particularly alcohol).

So we would all chip in and buy additional food for us and the men. You can even ask them to cook it for you if you buy enough and are willing to pay a little more. This was not an option for the infantry as they were in the field (we were close to the roads) and had no trucks. They had to wait for the food or buy it and carry it with them. Yes that's not unusual here. Many times the food doesn't arrive.

It was a little extravagant and expensive to have to regularly by food and drink for the men but nothing builds unit solidarity better! Especially if you buy beer or gin at night!

Regards,

Dusky Lim

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Yeah....We usully shoot in areas where no human inhabitants were near by...so no shops....The garrisons cantine truck sometimes visited us, and We bougth lot of stuff in advance and took it whit us....But having alcohol (or drugs!) were bit more difficoult as they check us out whit dogs before we went into the camps...

Dear Goll,

Wow! That's a really strict army you've got there. Checked you out with sniffer dogs they did! Here that almost never happens. Just in the city or camps. The Army doesn't really have a lot of dogs outside the canine corps (K9). And the best sniffer dogs are with the police... who stay away from the army cause we got better guns. Once you've left base, most (if not all) of the excess military protocol ends, and nobody wants to make enemies... cause you never know, someone could toss a grenade and frag you at night!

The real secret to surviving was to be ok with the men but not too friendly, I usually kept to my sergeants and corporals, (who were the team leaders), I would give them some of the monetary contribution and they would see to their team. It also served to reinforce their authority as they could choose who to be generous with or not. As a rule however, its very unusual for the men to have drugs (unless we were in drug country and that usually means marijauna...). The great tradition here is that the job (unless there's an emergency) is over at 5:00 PM and after that it's OK to get drunk, just don't make a scene.

Oh my, this is really off topic...

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim

Well, Germany still had a "Battery" of unmobilized 155 mm which are used for salutation shots and nothing else.
The remainging 12 Battallions are split into 3 M109GA3s and 9 PZH2000 bearing units.
Main reason for continued existance of the M109GA3s (the roughly same old stuff the Americans use) is that they are significantly lighter and therefore easier to move (M109GA3 is pretty light, PZH2000 fully loaded is heavier and longer than a Leo 2-A6).
Targetting is made by GPS, if GPS is unavailable the Computers have inbuilt and more simplistic calculators.
All PZH2000s come with GPS, M109GA3 is upgraded to us it.
Additionally, a PZH2000 can use its computer to calculate distances if no GPS is available, but the crew/or the Feuerleittrupp has to manually input where itself is.
Once Gallileo gets online, the PZH2000 is fully equipped to make the switch (Which means that we can actually jam the evil Americans for a change^^).

If the Computer does not work we resort to map,pen, pencil and calculator like everyone else does.