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General artillery, SPGs, MLRS and long range ATGMs thread.


LoooSeR

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They are basically a base station for mechanized FO teams and meant to put artillery support as an organic part of the maniuever element. Typically one vehicle per mechanized company with a fire support officer attached to the battalion HQ. They carried all the radios (4 or 5) needed for the maneuver elements they supported. One radio for the company net, one on the battalion net, one of the artillery battalion FDC net, and one free for other communications as needed (division artillery, organic fire support like a mortar section, CAS, rotary wing support). They also carried the digital entry devices for secure digital fire missions, a laser range finder/designator with magnification that can be mounted on the vehicle or on the ground. A gyroscope, a GPS systesm, and thermal or FLIR night optics. All of that was tied together by the vehicle to facilitate accurate calls for fire.  We didn't have as many guns as  you Russians, so we needed to make sure each fire mission counted, so our guns could relocate. 

I could have everything set up on my OP,  range a target with the laser, it would automatically fill in all the parameters (distance, direction, grid coordinates, elevation, etc) for the fire mission. I could then entry the shell fuse combination I needed and transmit that to the FDC through the secure digital radio communications (later iterations went  directly to the gun battery computer) and would get rounds downrange. In the early days, the vehicle had to sit still to align the gyroscope and 16 digit grid coordinates had to be entered into the computer manually. That all went away with GPS.  

 

 Each team had a preassigned code to program into the designator. When we needed precision guided munitions, we would make the call and designate the target for whatever round type we got.  If it was a copperhead, the gun crew would dial our code into the fuse of the round so it would only see our laser.  CAS and rotary support would program the missile with our code (that we gave them over the radio during the a paricular sequence of the procedure)  before they fired it. 


Of course, when you are not a mechanized FO the job (and the equipement) is bit different.  Or was. I'm sure they have lots of small doodads now. 

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