Posted on 03/15/2002 8:22:52 AM PST by My Identity
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:38:12 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The just-concluded battle of Gardez, Afghanistan, demonstrated the power of combined arms, the professionalism of young Army infantrymen participating in their first combat, and the stupidity of al Qaeda fighters holed up in caves in the area south of Gardez. That's the appraisal of an American military officer who took part in the two-week clash.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
i dunno- it had the word "mortar" in it...*grin*
Interesting- again we see the consequences of incomplete/limited training, versus having a Mk1 Clue, OD Green, One Each.... I swear to christ I hope some Drill instructor is copying these articles and mounting them on wooden plaques- ought to be issued to every young troop going through AIT-
Anybody know how computerized FDC is for 60/81s now? Are they still doing everything by hand & Mk1 eyeball, or are they using laser range finders and handheld calculators?
Anybody?
<G> BIG BLU BUNKER BUSTER MAKE BIG, BIG BOOM!
Iraq's underground bomb-proof cities are in for a BBQ.
Who is this generation's Hanoi Jane Fonda?
I'm fairly sure an 81mm FDC uses a Mortar Ballistic Computer as do the heavier mortars. They're obviously heavier than the M16 plotting board and you need batteries to boot- but they would still carry a plotting board and firing tables as backup (I hope). I don't know what you were using when you were in, but when I was in, the FOs had the ability to plug in their equipment to the radio and FDC plugged the MBCs in on their end. If you got it working right- the FOs entered the fire mission they wanted on their end and the deflection, charge and elevation comes out on FDC's end- pretty cool.
I, personally, shunned the MBC until I had mastered working up all fire missions and other FDC tasks by hand. If you thoroughly study all the Mortar manuals and really bear down and learn the stuff- you understand mortars and then you can move on and let the computer do the drudgery. I used a plotting board in Bosnia to check the FDC chief- and gave him a great big ole "No Check!" on some of his deflections he worked up for Camp Dobol's FPFs. One of my finest moments. I did MET-T messages, Registration, Temperature correction, everything by hand.
It sounds like I'm bragging, and in a way I am, but when I left, there weren't that many guys interested in knowing all that stuff- they were content to let the computer figure it out or to wait until they got sent to BNOC or IMLOC/IMPOC to learn the deep stuff.
Anyway, those Al Quaida f#ckups don't have a clue what they're doing if they can't hang rounds effectively from a new location. It's pretty standard in our Army to move locations after throwing some rounds downrange- you don't want the enemy's anti battery radar homing in on you- d'oh!
Kim Basinger?
Michael Moore? Alec Baldwin?
Interesting question. Based on a little web surfing, combination theodolite/EDM (electronic distance meter) devices for surveyors, that have sufficient range (~3 miles) are somewhat big for a mortar crew to lug around, and cost around $10k. I'm sure a $100 calculator has more than enough computational juice to do the ballistics side; heck, the HP-41C I used 20+ years ago at the North Avenue Trade School had enough processor. The processor in these combination theodolite/EDM's should be more than up to the task, it would just require some code development. The military *should* be able to get something built that would do the job for less than $15K, but I doubt the ability of the procurement and development system to do so. More than likely, they'd come up with something costing $100k.
I've pinged a friend who may know, or more likely, should know someone who would know. We'll see if we get an answer.
FWIW What good is a "fixed" postion mortar? War does move around.....
fourdeuce82d: Check this out: FM 23-91 MORTAR GUNNERY
In particular, see Part Three - MORTAR BALLISTIC COMPUTER
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IMO, that has always been the chief strength of the entire American (including both USA and CSA) military establishment, since long before it was issued in OD. I believe Gen'rl Washington was issueing them to his army.
That's why we always called the "Defense" "Die in Place". In training, for the defense, you set up, dig in and don't budge till the OpFor overruns you. I think it's always good to have a the very least a "Roving Gun".
There's a lot of argument even among seasoned FDC Chiefs about the number of rounds to use on a given mission.
Let's say you want a 400 meter smoke screen. The chart is set up for 500 meters. Let's say too that you've got a head wind and it's a water burst. FDC has to be a little bit of a meteorologist and figure out whether it's lapse, inverse or neutral conditions. Neutral is the temperature staying roughly the same up through the relevant layers of atmosphere, lapse is the temperatures get colder as you go up and inverse is temperature gets warmer with elevation. Let's call it neutral and say 30% humditiy and wind of 4 knots. Also, you want the smoke to last 3 minutes.
You enter the table and get 9 rounds a minute for "neutral- 4 knots". Since it's water burst and head winds, you have to multiply times 2 and then 2.5 respectively to come up with your true rpm to maitain the smoke. To establish the screen you have to double the amount of rounds fired in the initial volley. Since it's 400 meters wide, you have to scale it down to 80% of the table values (this is generally where the arguing comes in- do you scale before you multiply the base value or after you total everything?) I come up with 72 rounds to establish and 64 rounds per minute to maintain.
That's a lot of rounds- more than ten per tube in a six gun platoon. That's right at the limit of what a 4.2" can fire sustained. Technically it's a bit more- but you'd probably fudge it on that mission and get away with it for three minutes. Max rate of fire for the 4.2" is 18 rpm for the first minute and then 9 rpm for the next five minutes (3 rpm indefinitely)
Whoo-whee! That's just like old times. The only thing missing is the Section Seargent hollering at the gun line to keep them tubes swabbed!
As a lowly gunner type, "I" wasn't using anything- just trying to keep my elevation bubble level, and aiming posts lined up right... the FDC guys weren't using digital gear circa 80-83 in the mortar platoon, but I seem to recall it was being fielded for artillery- IIRC. I did go to one class where we learned about the M16- promptly forgot it all 'cause I was assigned SD to cut grass...go figure...
Prodigal Son- yeah, good on ya- think your approach of mastering the basics first is dead on. That was one thing that always bugged me when I was in- the assumption that lowly knuckle dragging E1s,2s,3s, 4s, won't/can't/shouldn't learn more advanced stuff.
I think one of the morale killers is being stuck in a groove- "here we go again- same old $hit again..." I'd like to see the military establish as a training goal that every soldier train to do the job of someone 2-3 ranks above- i.e. the kid cutting charges should be regularly working the sight, the gunner/AG should be swapping in and out of FDC plotting fire missions, etc..
young bucks will rise to the challenge if pushed. If you let them know that you think they are smart enough to learn something, and insist on it, they will come through. We owe it to them to wring every last drop of performance/mastery out of them we can- some day those microprocessors may be fried by EMP, FDC blown to bits, and 19 year old Rodney Tent Peg has to step up to the plate and plot a mission by hand. (Hmmm...noticed I said "we" from the comfort and safety of my keyboard...)
I'm not trying to detract from what our guys did- this is mostly a reflection of what PS wrote re: his experience using manual plotting vs. the digital gear, and how that relates to training/standards in general.
Glad to see we have the tech, glad to see how well our boys did- wish it was possible to crank up the pressure and demand even more of them. They've got it to give.
I'm so damned tired of reading British reports that our troops aren't fighting well.
10-4 on that!
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert A. Heinlein
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