Rules for adjustment and firing
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Conduct
of fire. The
duties of the battery commander were : the choice of the position, the
control of the guns in battle, the supervision of the adjustment and the selection
of the kind of fire. However he directed personally only the battery fire
and, as a rule, the section commanders directed fire with range and traverse
corrections. Adjustment and fire for effect
were usually carried out setting the sight by means of the graduations of the
range crank, and not of the sight-bar in metres. A graduation was 1/1000 of
the line of sight for the Krupp guns and a Russian line ( The battery was brought into
action with the guns loaded with shells. The first round was shot at the
elevation corresponding to the estimate distance; the extent of the bracket
was determined according with the result of the observation of the fire. To
change the elevation, the section commanders calculated the new graduation
and the direction of the turn of the range crank. Then they ordered the
changes to their guns. The aimers should count the correct number of
graduations (4, 8, 16 and so on), paying attention to the direction and the
precision of the turn, set the ordered height of the sight and aimed. The
leading gun made the modifications only on the range crank and fired, while
the remaining guns, before firing, should also set the height of the sight. When the observation was
difficult, a bracket with 4 graduations was ordered and two sections shifted
to shrapnel fire, while the remaining two sections kept up the shell fire. If
the observation was so difficult that was impossible even to see the cloud of
smoke formed by the burst of the shells, the adjustment might be carried out
by section or half-battery salvos, lowering down the bracket up to two
graduations. Rate of
fire. In
battle formation the guns
of a battery were deployed side by side at intervals of 30 – 50 paces. As a rule the guns fired in
succession at an order of the commander, beginning from leeward. In certain cases they could also fire a salvo
simultaneously. Every section fired at the portion of the target which was in
front of it; if the battery commander preferred a different distribution of
fire, he should give a special order. The “Red
booklet” established
three different kinds of fire for effect : slow,
ordinary (4-6 rounds per minute) and rapid (8-9 rounds per minute), but did
not specify whether it was produced by a six guns or an eight guns battery. The contemporary German
regulations stated that a six-guns battery should fire 6 rounds per minute
with ordinary fire and 10 rounds per minutes with rapid fire. During the
adjustment a battery could not fire more than 3-4 rounds per minute, in order
to enable the observation of the fire. Scale
fire (шкална
стрелба). The “Red
booklet” described
also the so called “scale fire” elaborated by the Russian gen. Shklarevich
and tested at that time at the Ofitserskaya Artilleriiskaya Shkola of Tsarskoe
Selo. Regarded soon as too complex, it was abandoned both in the Russian Rules published in 1892 and in the
Bulgarian Direction for firing adopted
for the first time in 1897. The scale by gun was employed only at close range
to set as soon as possible the bracket of 1 graduation, otherwise the scale
by section should be adopted. The
conduct of this kind of fire was not easy, and it was a matter of the highest
importance that everybody kept cool. The leading role was played by the
section commanders, which should listen carefully the orders of the battery
commander, transmit them timely and clearly, without shouting, and control
the correct and rapid action of the gunners. The battery commander should
only give the orders and observe the fire. He should avoid to give a great
number of orders that could not be understand or could take much time to be
executed, and in general he should avoid everything that might cause disorder
and confusion in the battery. At first the battery commander
ordered the basis (the elevation that should be adopted by the third gun in
the scale by gun or by the second section in the scale by section) and the
step of the scale (the difference of elevation between two near guns or two
near sections). The elevation should rise in progression from the guns or the
sections placed in succession. The step should correspond to the extent of
the bracket to obtain and the difference between the highest and the lowest
elevation to the limits, inside them might fell the errors of ranging. The battery was deployed with
the guns loaded with shells, the sight set in scale by guns beginning from 8
graduations with 87mm and 10 graduations with 75mm guns, with steps at
intervals of 2 graduations :
At first fired the gun whose
sight was regarded as more appropriate for the distance esteemed by the
battery commander, then the fire was carried on by the gun whose elevation
was the most suitable to bracket the target according with the observation of
the first shot, but without skipping a step of the scale. When the bracket
was obtained, the limits were repeated by section, two sections being with
the sight placed at the low limit and one at the long limit. When the low
bracket was obtained, after the observation of 3-4 rounds, the guns shifted fire for effect. With
shrapnel the fire was open at the low limit of the bracket, with the sight
and the fuze set to obtain short rounds. Fire when the observation was difficult.
When the observation of the rounds bursts near the target was difficult, the
adjustment was made with shells, shifted to shrapnel for the fire for effect.
At first the target was picked into the high bracket by means of section or
half-battery salvos, exceptionally also by single shots. The bracket was not
reduced by halving, but always lengthening or shortening one of the limits by
2 graduation; it might be lengthened or shortened by 4 graduations only if
the bracket was very high (16 graduations, for instance). As soon as the low
bracket of 4 graduations was obtained, two sections shifted to shrapnel fire,
with the sights set in scale by gun. To set the scale at the height of the
short rounds, a section loaded with shells fired a salvo at the middle of the
bracket : if at least an observation was obtained, the scale was set so that
only a shrapnel round was over; if not even one observation was obtained, the
base of scale was put at the short limit of the bracket. Then the bracket was
narrowed up to 2 graduations, by means of the observations of the shells
burst, and the sights were set in scale by sections using the two limits of
the bracket as steps. The fire for
effect was carried on with two sections firing shrapnel according with the
common rules, and the rest of the battery firing shells to verify whether the
target had changed its position. When
only the rounds burst very far from the target could be observed, the low
bracket was narrowed at first at 8 graduations and the scale per guns was set
using them with
steps at intervals of 2 graduations. Then the bracket was
narrowed only to 4 graduations and the fire went on as above. Fire
against moving targets. The
conduct of this kind of fire depended upon the direction and the rapidity of
the movement of the target. As a general rule, the
adjustment was carried by two guns firing slowly. Their fire began with the
limit of the scale toward which the target was moving (the upper limit if it
was approaching, the lower limit if it was mowing away). When a round was
observed falling not far from the target, the guns ready to fire shot some
rounds in close succession. As soon as the target went out of the area of
dispersion of the shells, the rapid fire ceased and the adjustment was
resumed. The
“Red booklet” envisaged two different methods of fire against moving targets,
both employing the scale fire : – the
guns, loaded with shells, set their sights in scale. As soon as the bracket
of 8 graduations was obtained, the limits, towards which the target was
moving, were verified, and the scale for the waiting guns was set with steps at intervals of 2
graduations. Taking account of the movement of the target, two
guns adjusted the fire, shooting some testing rounds, while the rest of the
battery got ready
to fire a salvo simultaneously or an accelerated
fire in succession. The firing guns should try to locate when the target
entered into the area of dispersion of the shells, in order to fire at the
right time. If the battery shifted to shrapnel, in order to increase the
number of the effective hits, a section continued the testing fire with
shells. – when
the target was moving infantry, the sights were set in scale by guns through 8 graduations, in order to
catch the target with individual shots within the area of a bracket of 8
graduations in breadth. Shifted over to shrapnel fire, the fuzes were set for normal burst with
sights in scale. switch Indirect
fire. Usually
the guns were deployed into the open and fired against a target that was
directly seen by the aimer. However, in order to protect the pieces and the
gunners from the enemy fire, a battery might even fire from a covered
position, placing the guns 80-100 paces behind a slope. In this case the
adjustment was carried out as above, but the observation and the conduct of
fire required an observing position on the flank of the guns, from which a
good view of the target and its surroundings might be obtained. It should be as
close to the guns as the conditions permitted, in order to be constantly in
communication with the battery. The battery commander from the
observing position determined the firing data and assisted the aimers in the
adjustment, ordering the corrections. During the shrapnel fire he observed
the height of burst and provided them the data for setting the fuze properly.
If a section aimed, the others took a direction parallel to it. The angle of
elevation was calculated for the shrapnel, extracting the angle of sight from
the angle of projection (quadrant elevation), measured with the quadrant
level or obtained from the adjustment with shell. Fire
against entrenched troops. Shelling the interior of redoubts, the number of the short rounds and
of the hits on the parapet should not exceed ¼ of the rounds fired by the
battery. Shrapnel fire against troops lying down behind low ground features
or in ditches did not differ from fire against troops standing into the open,
except that the mean interval of burst should be small. Against
entrenchment or troops laying down, the height of burst was regarded as
normal when even more than one burst of every salvo was low, and not more
than one burst was on graze; against field works some low burst were before,
some behind of the parapet and sometimes even some on the parapet itself. The
“Red booklet” contained only few mentions about the observation, the
protection and the reconnaissance in field artillery. |