Someone please teach these people to shoot straight.

[Fungus]

Ten years plus working on sims for both indirect and direct fire weapons and I obviously didn't learn a thing.

No wonder the Americans missed if they used anything I worked on.

Poor little Orange Hopper. Still thinks that knowledge is useful in an argument. He must be a permie.

The Americans succeeded in hitting UK troops. And downing at least one UK aircraft. So I think you can consider your targeting systems a success.

[AtW]

Tanks do not fire straight. The rounds follow a ballistic trajectory. Same with a rifle for long range.

So, it follows that everything shoots straight then? Come on people, there is a marked difference between how mortars/howitzers/catapults operate and tanks/rifles/bows+arrows.

[EternalOptimist]

You might know didly squat about search engines, but you are right here.

no he is not

imagine two units with rifles. they are enemies. they are facing each other across a field. they can see each other.
each unit has a catapult unit as backup.

the rifle unit on the left (lets call them the english) are sat in front of a hill. the English catapults are sat behind the hill.

the rifle unit on the right(lets call them the russians) are in an open area with no hill. The Russian catapults have nothing to hide behind.


The English rifles shoot at the Russian rifles, the Russians shoot back. This is called direct fire, they are both shooting straight.

The English catapults can not see whats going on, they have a spotter on the hill who say 'shoot over there about 400 meters' . So the english catapults (who are safe) blaze away and might even hit something - this is called Indirect fire. They are Not shooting straight.

The Russian catapults have no hill, they can see the English riflemen, but they dont need a spotter. They blast away at the Enlish riflemen, same angle of fire , same range as the english catapults. This is direct fire, they ARE shooting straight.

(If this was a real scenario, the English would shift their fire to the Russian catapults aka a juicy target)

AtW this is what we mean by shooting straight

[AtW]

AtW this is what we mean by shooting straight

So, would 155 mm howitzer with effective rage of 14-20 km shoot straight (ie it can see target on its own) or not?

[The Master]

I suppose it depends on what you categorise as "see". In these days of unmanned drones and satellite reconnaisance, anything on the battle field can be "seen" (indirectly of course, but I'm sure it's presented to the gunnery controllers in the command centre as if it were seen directly).

[EternalOptimist]

So, would 155 mm howitzer with effective rage of 14-20 km shoot straight (ie it can see target on its own) or not?

ignoring visibility and pedantic sh!t like that

If a long range howitzer could see a target at 100 m and depressed barrels to horizontal this IS shooting straight (Direct fire)


If a long range howitzer could see a target at 20 km and elevated its barrels to 45 degrees this IS shooting straight (Direct fire)
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the whole point about indirect fire is that it makes the firer safer, even though the damage done to the enemy is less.

At the battle of Borodino 1812 the Russians were the first army to deploy large numbers of indirect battlefield weapons, and they royally shafted the army of Napoleon when firing from behind the Bagration fleches. The French fielded a large number of howizer units but the British lagged behind. I think at Waterloo they had ONE howitzer unit, with each other battery having 1-2 howitzer guns.

when we talk about firing straight we mean direct fire (not firing straight )



hth

[AtW]

If a long range howitzer could see a target at 20 km and elevated its barrels to 45 degrees this IS shooting straight (Direct fire)

Just how often howitzers firing crew can see anything at 20 km while being in desert, not mountains of any kind, sounds to me that 20 km is pretty much outside of normal visibility range, do you agree with this?

[OrangeHopper]

Poor little Orange Hopper. Still thinks that knowledge is useful in an argument. He must be a permie.

There are two solutions for any point within the range of an artillery gun.

There is usually only one solution for a mortar.

There are few ranges in the world where ICM is fired. The reason? The footprint is 400m in diameter so any mistake in aim means you've just made your range half a kilometer wider. Seem to recall the only ranges available to cold war western armies that you could practice with ICM were in the States and Finland.

I seem to recall an normal 155mm round on an 8G charge has a maximum range of over 30 km and will fly as high as 10km. Rocket assisted 155mm rounds have a range up to 50km.

Of course all this could be wrong because it relies on my memory.

A question for our resident russian. How many russian mils in a circle?

[EternalOptimist]

Just how often howitzers firing crew can see anything at 20 km while being in desert, not mountains of any kind, sounds to me that 20 km is pretty much outside of normal visibility range, do you agree with this?

please re-read my post. I said 'ignoring pedantic sh!te'

I am politely trying to offer you a definition

[AtW]

Let me just help those who dont have sharp mind, re-read article:

"Troops fired the 155mm shell from the base near Baquba, the US military statement said.

"A short time later Iraqi police reported an explosion at a building in the town [Hibhib] that killed two Iraqi civilians, injured four others and damaged six houses," it said."

Notice that they fired from near Baquba and hit Hibhib? Well, according to this link: "
Meanwhile, another senior National Guard officer and his family were kidnapped in the city of Hibhib, 15 kilometres northwest of Baquba, the sources added. "

So, we have around 15 km distance from shot to hit, so question is: DOES THIS STILL SOUND AS STRAIGHT SHOOTING TO YOU?!?!?!

P.S. Here is distance to horizon calculator: http://www.boatsafe.com/tools/horizon.htm note that they are in desert and eye's site would be like 2 meters high, which gives distance to horizon (at perfect visibility) of 3 nautical miles.