I think that's where were talking past each other. Predicted fires were rather simple techniques and pretty much everybodiesl artillery was well schooled in them by 1917. The US had already in its own designs adopted the French mils, so when US industry failed to produce domestic pieces it was logical to adopt the French pieces for field and medium guns. Even so, the US Army in France also adopted a large number of heavy British pieces IIRC.nigelfe wrote:Concentrations against oppotunity tgts were not much used on the W Front in WW1, generally such tgs never warranted more than a bty. However, the ability to concentrate against planned tgts, ie DFs, was very well developed and of course barrages were the ultimate state of the art. By about Aug 1917 they had all the elemetns is place for predicted fire (RTs with corrns for non standard conditions, calibration, survey and regular met messages (6 times per day).
But what I was talking about was the developments in rapidly engaging point targets as they appeared and doing so with massed fires, something that was nearly impossible in the Great War. That was what the Artillery School's Firing Department concentrated on interwar - because it wasn't that opportunity targets were few, it was because it was almost impossible to engage them with more than a battery and even that was almost impossible with Great War techniques. The firing techniques were great for pre-planned shoots on registered targets or in DF's or barrages, but it they stank when it came to rapidly engaging mobile targets or worse when the guns had to move and then rapidly engage a new target.
As far as I understand the technique adopted in the US Army to allow for rapid engagment of targets by a single observer, was back-azimuth ranging, which was fully developed by 1932. Was the British techniques similar? Then add on the developments in communications and centralized fire control and you have all the elements that allowed a single observer to rapidly engage any target in his view and with all pieces in range.
Okay, yes this appears to parallel US developments. The key problem was communication from the observer to the ranging battery or piece and then the development of a system for linking that observer's corrections to multiple batteries. The key links were the FDC and the communications web that was developed, combining wire and wireless connections from observer to FDC and FDC to the batteries. The next step, from FDC at a single battalion to contolling multiple battalions from a single FDC-observer link was the logical endpoint.Various options for muti bty concentraions emerged bewtwwen the wars but none were notably efficient if ranging was required. The 1938 revisions added a method, basically an extension of the procedures to concentrate the tps of a bty, for regt coincentrations. However, while it worked OK at bty level and ranging by the control tp (which could be any tp), but it was less successful at regimental. The key challenge for Brit procedures was that ranging on BT was the standard method because for a bty it was significantly faster than any other method, and speed was the holy grail. Parham's procedures didn't use OT either, merely cardinal point bearings.
Actually the discussions regarding the 4.5" didn't begin until the first British purchasing mission arrived in June 1940. Production of the 4.5" M1 in the US then did not begin until September 1942. Curiously though it was almost a parallel to World War I when the failure of US industry meant that the M1906 4.7" Corps Gun (by all accounts a very good piece for its day) was never produced in sufficient quantity to equip US forces. As a result the US Army in France adopted the British 60-pdr as an intermediate piece between the 75mm and 155mm Gun. Interwar, the US refined the 4.7" M1906, attempting to produce a piece with the range of a 155mm Gun and the weight of a 155mm Howitzer, sadly tinkering with the requirements meant that tube production was delayed until early 1943, so the British 4.5" was adopted to get a substitute piece into the hands of the troops. Which is ironic since IIRC the 4.5" started life as a development from a modernized 60pdr.There must have been some UK/US arty discussion in the 1930s because of the agreement over 4.5 in Gun. However, I've never come across anything to indicate discussions beyond that. Part of the issue is that the US entered WW1 and adopted French procedures, which seem to have involved more centralised technical control that the Brits used. Post WW1 the Brits compounded the difference by deciding that the BC's primary task was tactical control from the front not technical control at the bty. In WW1 he shared front line duties with his subalterns and was often the most competant officer in the technical aspects of predicted fire as well.
But the 4.7" refused to die and although it was never produced as a field gun, it eventually entered service as the 120mm M1 AA Gun. Of course it was eventually decided that there really wasn't any need for a gun in that caliber range, but then that's the story of a lot of weapons development. But it is interesting that the US establishment didn't think of maintaning the battery commanders authority and prestige by making him an integral part of the forward observer tactical team as did the British. Given that so much of the controversy at the School interwar revolved around that loss of authority it seems it would have been the perfect solution. Instead oddly enough, in US practice the Battery Commander became merely the administrative head of the battery and maintained his "command" post party with the battery trains, while the Battery Executive Officer's post was actually at the firing battery and the duty of Forward Observer was shared by the junior lieutenants commanding the firing platoons. Frankly I think the British solution, while more hazerdous for the Battery Commander, was probbly the smarter one.
