The Field Artillery Journal
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VOLUME VII NUMBER 4 OCTOBER-DECEMBER THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL EDITED BY CLAUDE B. THUMMEL MAJOR (FIELD ARTILLERY), ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, UNITED STATES ARMY THE UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY ASSOCIATION WASHINGTON, D. C. COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE UNITED STATES FIELD ARTILLERY ASSOCIATION Contents No. 4 PAGE The Mission of the School of Fire for Field Artillery ......... 383 Colonel A. S. Fleming, 14th Field Artillery The Killing Power of Projectiles........................................... 391 Captain G. De L. Landon, M.C., R.F.A. Methods of Correcting Error................................................ 403 Second Lieutenant J. N. Kennedy, M.C., R.G.A. Report on Remount Depot at Lachine, Near Montreal, Canada............................................................................... 406 Major J. S. Hammond, Field Artillery Comparison Between the German "77" and the French "75"...... 413 Maurice Duval With a Trench Mortar Battery on the French Front ......... 427 Traduction and Commentary by George Nestler Tricoche, formerly of the French Artillery Accurate Shooting in Trench Warfare ................................ 440 Major George H. Paine, 17th Field Artillery Insignia of Foreign Armies.................................................... 449 Recording Firing Data........................................................... 454 Sergeant Arno R. G. Fritsche, Battery "B," 2d Field Artillery Improvised Methods of Instruction Employed in National Army Camps ...................................................... 458 Captain James L. Fort, 321st Field Artillery Computing Firing Data ......................................................... 462 Noland Blass, Captain F. A. R. C. Compilation of Orders........................................................... 474 Notes ........................................................................................ 476 The United States Field Artillery Association..................... 478 Editorial .................................................................................. 480 Where Money Spent is Life Saved Field Artillery and the Staff Departments The Military Service Institute Book Reviews.......................................................................... 485 Index to Current Field Artillery Literature ........................ 493 Index to Volume VII .............................................................. 497 FRENCH HEAVY ARTILLERY THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL VOL. VII OCTOBER - DECEMBER, 1917 NO. 4 The Mission of the School of Fire for Field Artillery* THE object of this talk is to give you a brief outline of the raison d'être of the School of Fire, of what you may expect in the course you are here to take, and of what the School expects of you. The School of Fire for Field Artillery was founded in 1911. Its beginning was modest. There were two classes per year for officers and noncommissioned officers; about 60 regular and 60 militia officers took the course annually. In 1914 the work of the School became more comprehensive and more prominent. Considerable research work was done and much valuable literature compiled and issued to the Field Artillery. After this promising progress the School was closed in 1916, because of the embroglio with Mexico. It was not reopened until last July, when, after a fresh and encouraging start, it received a severe blow in losing the majority of its instructors, due to their promotion into the National Army. Just prior to this General Snow, who was then commandant, had evolved a bold and splendid project for the enlargement of the School. This project General Snow personally took to Washington, and to his untiring patience and perseverance is due its final adoption by the War Department, on September 12, 1917. Unhappily, he too fell a victim, by promotion, to the National Army and was ordered to his brigade before he could take steps to put his project into effect. The honor * Address to an incoming class of student officers at the School of Fire for Field Artillery by the Commandant, Col. A. S. Fleming, 14th Field Artillery. 383 THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL of doing this fell to me. I shall not narrate the many obstacles that lay between the approval of this project and the concrete measures essential before its execution could be even begun. Suffice it to say that they were overcome. Of the magnitude of the approved project few had any idea, and these had departed from the War Department by the National Army route. Even now there is but a meagre conception of this institution outside of its halls. Briefly, the approved project was as follows: The capacity of the School was to be increased to 1200 student officers, entering at the rate of 100 per week for a twelve weeks' course; the School staff, including instructors, was to be increased to 150; three and one-half regiments of field artillery were to constitute the firing units; and $730,000 was allotted for the construction of the necessary quarters, buildings, etc. These are only the outstanding features. Many of the details were worked out in advance. Some have since been modified and others elaborated. Several changes in the project have been authorized. A definite policy for the School has been submitted and approved, one that will have far- reaching consequences. In five weeks the construction for the School proper, including accommodations for instructors and students, has been about 40 per cent. completed. Your class, the second, should be followed in three weeks by the third, and in January classes should be reporting every week. Before telling you about the organization and curriculum of the School I desire to explain its purpose and, in general, the means by which this purpose will be attained. The need of even partially educated field artillery officers is so urgent that the School term has been reduced to a minimum. Tactics and the broad knowledge necessary for the proper emplacement and use of artillery you must learn elsewhere. Practical liaison with the other arms you must also learn subsequently, except that some opportunity will be afforded for exercises, in conjunction with The Infantry School of Arms, illustrating the close coöperation necessary between the artillery and the infantry; 384 SCHOOL OF FIRE also you will receive considerable instruction in air liaison in coöperation with the School for Aerial Artillery Observers establishment at this post for the purpose of training these observers in conjunction with this School. Time precludes any effort to make finished regimental or battalion commanders of you. Our efforts will necessarily be limited to teaching you those things which captains and subalterns of field artillery must know if their batteries are to be efficient and which field officers must know in order that they may either give competent instruction or supervise it. And since the ultimate reason for the existence of artillery is to shoot, our primary and final object is to teach you the technique of shooting. The artillery of all nations is indebted to the French Artillery for the discovery and successful development of the two great principles which have made possible the rapid and accurate fire of modern field artillery. Without the long recoil carriage only accelerated fire is possible. Utilization of the possibility of this carriage resulted from the adoption of the mil as the field artillery unit of angular measurement. Since the mil made possible the rapid computation of firing data for indirect laying, all nations rearmed. The tactics of artillery were revolutionized. The resulting system invented by the French and copied by other nations has stood the acid test of the greatest war in history. Conceived, developed, and used with no idea of its application to the character of warfare now being waged in the trenches, it has proved its soundness and its applicability to such warfare for all field artillery. Prior to the present conflict, what has become known as open warfare was the only kind for which armies in general were trained. Nevertheless, years ago the principles and, to some extent, the practice of close shooting were developed. In the Russo-Japanese War the Russian Field Artillery made atmospheric corrections and used squared fighting maps similar to those now in use. For nearly ten years our field artillery has utilized a "Reference point," the "point de surveillance" of the French fighting map and the "Zero point" of that of the English. Our battery 385 THE FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL "in observation" is quite as old as the French one "en surveillance." The desirability and utilization of forward observers as near the enemy as possible were recognized in our F. A. Drill Regulations, 1911, Pars. 354, 356–7. Balloon and aeroplane observation of fire is a development, not a discovery of this war. Registration of fire was well covered in our F. A. Drill Regulations, 1911, Pars. 344, 458, 460, which provided for registering on prominent features of the terrain and, by minor changes in the data thus obtained, securing a quick adjustment on nearby targets in the same assigned sector. This registration is the sine qua non of the close shooting of trench fighting. These points are elaborated in our 1916 F. A. Drill and Service Regulations merely because the peculiar character of the existing phase of the war has rendered their application more necessary and more common. None can say when trench fighting will give place to open warfare, and, when it does, the army that is not skilled in the latter is a beaten army. Especially is this