Geometry of Artillery Fire

In this piece, I will share how Artillery can fire accurately. It require basic knowledge of geometry and some common mathematics. First start by considering the gun position known point, then establish a baseline in the direction of the enemy. We named this as direction or azimuth of fire. Any changes to direction to aim will be referred to this line.

Next get a modern maps with grid coordinate and measure the range from the gun to the target.  We eventually will find the azimuth to the target. In case  there is no grided maps available we need to use older method. In addition to the azimuth of fire, the observer must identify a second known points which adjacent to the anticipated target area. Then identify accurately the distance and direction from this point to the gun. The gun crew may not see the point but only visible at observer position. When target is identified , the observer estimates the distance from the known point to the target and then the directions. By combining this distance and direction from the gun to the known point will give two legs of triangle. From there the length and angle  of the third side can be calculate with basic geometry, which is the range and azimuth to target for the gun. This method serve longer time of  firing solution.

The battery then will fire test shots at the base point to find errors before registering the targets. Additional registered target could be wise especially areas the enemy might use for defending or attacking. Communications circuits are established to link all guns and batteries. Regiment HQ then collecting all the locations of the batteries, their base point registered it and redistribute this data to all other batteries. The batteries recorded and compute a firing solution for range and directions to any target in the divisional areas. By this , at any mission the regiment would have put more rounds on the targets from great number guns in less than ten minutes.