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  • #31
    Originally posted by bigross86 View Post
    Again, bit off topic, but when I was in training, my TC's favorite pastime was shutting off my FCS and watching me do everything manually. They don't do that in artillery?
    We used to have two command posts, one that did everything on computer and the other manually, so having the manual backup for getting fire control solutions was par of the course. On the guns everything was manual in those days anyway, though I believe this has changed now.
    "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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    • #32
      Aussiegunner Reply

      "We used to have two command posts"

      As a battery commander I had two so-called command posts- the FDC and the BOC (Battery Operations Center or the X.O's lil' hideaway). While we stored manual equipment there along with a couple of radios the practical fact was that we were incapable of sustaining 24/7 firing ops out of both locations given our end-strength.

      Add to that the attachment of one FDC man as my second during the conduct of RSOP (Reconnaissance, Selection, Occupation of Position) activities and our FDC was really short.

      OTOH, a true whiz in the FDC can manually compute and transmit all the necessary firing data to the guns while maintaining commo with the F.O.s if really on the ball. Need a set-up chart, RDP (range deflection protractor), some little pins, a ball-point, TFTs, GFTs, GSTs, RoF forms, one FM radio and one TA-312 land-line phone to the guns, a shady spot and lots of coffee.

      No prob. I simulated it with our guns conducting dry-fire training while having the Chief computer (senior FDC NCO) play the F.O. role. Would never do it for real. No check-chart and, thus, a sure way to arrogantly get somebody killed downrange.
      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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      • #33
        Originally posted by S-2 View Post
        "We used to have two command posts"

        As a battery commander I had two so-called command posts- the FDC and the BOC (Battery Operations Center or the X.O's lil' hideaway). While we stored manual equipment there along with a couple of radios the practical fact was that we were incapable of sustaining 24/7 firing ops out of both locations given our end-strength.

        Add to that the attachment of one FDC man as my second during the conduct of RSOP (Reconnaissance, Selection, Occupation of Position) activities and our FDC was really short.

        OTOH, a true whiz in the FDC can manually compute and transmit all the necessary firing data to the guns while maintaining commo with the F.O.s if really on the ball. Need a set-up chart, RDP (range deflection protractor), some little pins, a ball-point, TFTs, GFTs, GSTs, RoF forms, one FM radio and one TA-312 land-line phone to the guns, a shady spot and lots of coffee.

        No prob. I simulated it with our guns conducting dry-fire training while having the Chief computer (senior FDC NCO) play the F.O. role. Would never do it for real. No check-chart and, thus, a sure way to arrogantly get somebody killed downrange.
        Interesting. About the only thing that we did have enough of were operators, command post and signallers. Some would say that we had too many sigs, because they were lazy little brew sucking shits who used to steal our morning tea the School of Artillery, but that is another topic which I will get to shortly. Anyway, we never had enough gunners to man all six of our guns, so I wonder if they had a considered approach of training opcps and sigs as a priority? It would make sense because you can train trail apes a lot quicker than CP types and you can practice with only one gun, though we generally used 4 or 5.

        A side story about lazy signallers. We had a bombadier nicknamed "Ox" who was number 1 of Charlie Gun. He was about 6ft 2 and about 130kg, and his favourite sport was thai boxing. You can see how he got the nickname.

        Anyway, when the gunners that accompanied the recon party did a night occupation of a position we would run the Tannoy (land line) out to where the command post would be located when it came in with the guns. The end of the Tannoy was tied to a tree or a post and one of the first jobs that the sigs were supposed to do was to attach it to the gear at their end and test it.

        On one particular night Ox set up his gun and, wondering why he hadn't heard the Tannoy, tried to call the command post. No answer. So Ox went over to the command post to see what was going on. After he came back the Tannoy was working and he related the story of how to all of us.

        "I followed the Tannoy line to the CP and I found that it wasn't attached at their end. So, I looked around for a bit and came across three little siglets sleeping soundly in their sleeping bags. Not wanting to wake them I tippy toed up to them ever so quietly and ... I KICKED THE F*CK OUT OF THEM!!!"

        We never had telecommunications problems after that.
        Last edited by Aussiegunner; 07 Oct 10,, 13:28.
        "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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        • #34
          Yup, that'll about do it...
          Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

          Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

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          • #35
            Aussie Gunner

            "Some would say that we had too many sigs, because they were lazy little brew sucking shits who used to steal our morning tea..."

            Our FDC personnel handled our F.M. radios. We had a wire team assigned to the battery and a commo platoon as part of the battalion.

            My personal impression of those men was different than yours. They worked 24/7 trouble-shooting land-lines within the battery and between the batteries and battalion. Nothing at all to see them out at all hours of the night beating the boonies to find a break in the wire.

            Both FM and land-line commo is everybody's business. My FDC (fire direction center) guys and the guns had an equal responsibility to identify breaks in the wire within the battery. My commo section and battalion commo platoon had the same responsibility between our battalion FDC and ourselves. I had a responsibility as an FDO to establish FM communications with the Battalion FDC along with our battalion communications officer. If that meant a re-trans station or setting up an RC-292 antenna then so be it.
            "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
            "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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            • #36
              Originally posted by S-2 View Post
              "Some would say that we had too many sigs, because they were lazy little brew sucking shits who used to steal our morning tea..."

              Our FDC personnel handled our F.M. radios. We had a wire team assigned to the battery and a commo platoon as part of the battalion.

              My personal impression of those men was different than yours. They worked 24/7 trouble-shooting land-lines within the battery and between the batteries and battalion. Nothing at all to see them out at all hours of the night beating the boonies to find a break in the wire.

              Both FM and land-line commo is everybody's business. My FDC (fire direction center) guys and the guns had an equal responsibility to identify breaks in the wire within the battery. My commo section and battalion commo platoon had the same responsibility between our battalion FDC and ourselves. I had a responsibility as an FDO to establish FM communications with the Battalion FDC along with our battalion communications officer. If that meant a re-trans station or setting up an RC-292 antenna then so be it.
              Well your sigs were better than ours then. Anyway, we generally only had Tannoys between the CP and the guns, everything else was done by radio. We didn't get many problems with the Tannoy but when we did we would just run a spare line out, pull in the second and go over it when we had a chance to fix it.
              "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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              • #37
                Aussiegunner Reply

                "Well your sigs were better than ours then."

                Naw. Just a slightly different way of doing business with some different responsibilities. We had a requirement to run land line to the battalion FDC when I was in a TACFIRE 155mm S.P M109A3 battalion. Tried doing the same whenever possible in a 105mm battalion for redundancy of comms but not directly related to the computation of fires.

                What that means was that our battery wire-men were often on the go supporting our links to battalion.
                "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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                • #38
                  My mortar scoffed at using the plotting board when I first got there. After smoking them by minutes on calculating some hip shoots, I finally convinced them that the plotting board was very useful. In the end, the two sharpest FDC guys I had during my year and a half were two E-4s that hadn't grown up lazy like my E-5s using the ballistic computer.
                  "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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                  • #39
                    Lazy Signallers!!! - Thems fighting words....

                    Originally posted by Aussiegunner View Post
                    Interesting. About the only thing that we did have enough of were operators, command post and signallers. Some would say that we had too many sigs, because they were lazy little brew sucking shits who used to steal our morning tea the School of Artillery, but that is another topic which I will get to shortly. Anyway, we never had enough gunners to man all six of our guns, so I wonder if they had a considered approach of training opcps and sigs as a priority? It would make sense because you can train trail apes a lot quicker than CP types and you can practice with only one gun, though we generally used 4 or 5.

                    A side story lazy signallers about We had a bombadier nicknamed "Ox" who was number 1 of Charlie Gun. He was about 6ft 2 and about 130kg, and his favourite sport was thai boxing. You can see how he got the nickname.

                    Anyway, when the gunners that accompanied the recon party did a night occupation of a position we would run the Tannoy (land line) out to where the command post would be located when it came in with the guns. The end of the Tannoy was tied to a tree or a post and one of the first jobs that the sigs were supposed to do was to attach it to the gear at their end and test it.

                    On one particular night Ox set up his gun and, wondering why he hadn't heard the Tannoy, tried to call the command post. No answer. So Ox went over to the command post to see what was going on. After he came back the Tannoy was working and he related the story of how to all of us.

                    "I followed the Tannoy line to the CP and I found that it wasn't attached at their end. So, I looked around for a bit and came across three little siglets sleeping soundly in their sleeping bags. Not wanting to wake them I tippy toed up to them ever so quietly and ... I KICKED THE F*CK OUT OF THEM!!!"

                    We never had telecommunications problems after that.
                    :maddest:

                    I went from the guns to the signal section of our battery and worked as just as hard when I got there. Sure the short term periods of hard yakka when moving into and out of battery positions dropped off but we worked longer hours keeping the sig net up and running 24/7 and the work was more technically challenging - which I liked.

                    Practice in our reserve unit was to keep 2 CP's and sig outfits fully manned (even at the expense sometimes of the guns) on the basis that it was better to have 3 or 4 guns on-line and ready for fire missions 24/7 than to have 6 guns but only partial CCC.

                    As a result our "spare" sigs would as a matter of course help with laying and digging in the Tanoy lines once the sig net was up and running. Nobody shirked to my knowledge and as I said previously we worked our com watches through the night while the gunnies got some well deserved shut eye. Not once in my six years with the battery did I ever hear the gunners complain about the sigs not holding up their end. We were all on the same team. (Besides we all got to complain about the drivers who just drove their trucks into the shade of some tree before curling up for a kip in the cabin ... ;)
                    Last edited by Monash; 08 Oct 10,, 07:14.
                    If you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Monash View Post
                      :maddest:

                      I went from the guns to the signal section of our battery and worked as just as hard when I got there. Sure the short term periods of hard yakka when moving into and out of battery positions dropped off but we worked longer hours keeping the sig net up and running 24/7 and the work was more technically challenging - which I liked.

                      Practice in our reserve unit was to keep 2 CP's and sig outfits fully manned (even at the expense sometimes of the guns) on the basis that it was better to have 3 or 4 guns on-line and ready for fire missions 24/7 than to have 6 guns but only partial CCC.

                      As a result our "spare" sigs would as a matter of course help with laying and digging in the Tanoy lines once the sig net was up and running. Nobody shirked to my knowledge and as I said previously we worked our com watches through the night while the gunnies got some well deserved shut eye. Not once in my six years with the battery did I ever hear the gunners complain about the sigs not holding up their end. We were all on the same team. (Besides we all got to complain about the drivers who just drove their trucks into the shade of some tree before curling up for a kip in the cabin ... ;)
                      Sorry that our sigs gave sigs a bad name Monash, but I can only report what I saw. For example, I never saw a Tannoy dug in by a sig in my 5 years in the battery. To be honest they often weren't dug in at all ... that would have ruined our ability to make fun of the secos when they tripped over the "seco trap", but when they were it was the gunners that did it. We also had to provide pickets for the MGs (as did the drivers), which I would rate as a bit more onerous than picketing a radio in a CP vehicle, especially when it was raining.

                      Part of the problem I think was that in the Ready Reserve everybody was trained straight into being a driver, sig or an OPCP, whereas previously they had to spend 12 months on the guns before seeking other training. Consequently our sigs had no idea what being on the guns was like and consequently didn't feel the need to treat our part of the team with any respect.
                      "There is no such thing as society" - Margaret Thatcher

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                      • #41
                        going OT here, but since i did my national service in Signals Btl. it´s bit interest for me.
                        How were the phone lines run in your armies? I was lucky enough to have serving in radio plt., had just couple of days of landline dragging for the familiarisation purposes. Since running the (air)line through thick spruce forest with a hooked 4 meter pole and rolls of wire, digging it in just to dismantle the whole 2-km. line 2-3 hours later needs a special kind of mental balance, i was happy to carry the radio

                        How serious were the demands for the regulations-style phone line ?
                        If i only was so smart yesterday as my wife is today

                        Minding your own biz is great virtue, but situation awareness saves lives - Dok

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                        • #42
                          Ooooh, the things I used to be able to do with an M16 Plotting Board!!!!

                          I had an FDC E-5 I helped mkae an E-4 when I was a Weapons PL because he couldn't use the plotting board.

                          Of course back then there were no computers!

                          (And not, it was not for shooting Coehorn mortars!)
                          “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
                          Mark Twain

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