I would hope that you don't get a specific answer, as such information could be useful to someone named terry trying to avoid artillery.

There are no special procedures and none are needed.  Just follow the procedures for target grid corrections, don't try and be clever.  With a LRF lase the mpi including altitude and let the computer take care of the calculations.  In bioth cases the basic laws of statistics work.

Nothing to tell that playing Artillery wouldn't tell you. The short answer is that depending on range, there isn't anything in mountainous terrain that you can't hit with high angle fire. Low angle used to be preferred due to inherent accucy problems with high angle fire, but with precision guided munitions its a non issue. There's nothing particularly tricky about mountainous terrain. It takes a bit more skill than a simpler problem because you have to be on top of the issue of intervening crests, but essentially it is just standard gunnery. 

 

The FDC has charts showing the height of the trajectory of a round fired at various angles and compares the height of the trajectory to the height of the intervening crests to make sure that it will clear. If it won't, they use a higher charge and a higher angle (assuming high angle shooting above 45 degree angles, the higher charge pushes the round further while the higher angle makes it land closer so they equal out and the round lands in the same place as it would have but after traveling along a taller trajectory that can better get over crests). Firing units are never located using their highest charge to reach the target area they are responsible for--primarily because the heavier charges cause more barrel wear--so there is always a larger powder charge to move up to if it is really needed to get over a crest.

HA might have advantages is the target was on top of a narrow ridge, but the price is a greater PE than LA and hence the need to fire more rounds at efect to get the same results.  Cresting is always a potential problem where there are hills and reverse slopes relative to the line of fire exploit this, which is where HA really becomes worthwhile.  Forget FDV charts (or the charts at the back of some nations' FTs), computers give a crest confidence factor (the confidence that shells will cleart the intervenimng crests) and modern ones derive this from the digital terrain database built into the system.

Um... without getting into a high degree of specifics, you might be suprised what computers do and don't do, at least as of half a decade ago. The fire direction software might have been completely revised since then, I know when I was getting out they were "upgrading" the computers, and I'd be suprised if they did that unless they were planning on running more advanced software on it.

 

In any case, (at least in a training environment) in the US Army you always need to have at least a basic manual plot of the target which is generally in agreement with the computer plot and manually check for intervening crests to avoit potentials for problems in the database and to reduce the chances of human error getting through undetected. It has the additional advantage that it forces you to keep your manual computing skills sharp in case your computer overheats or otherwise goes down.

Sorry Folks.... I guess I didnt put across the question in the right way. What I want to ask is that a number countries have deployed their artillery units in mountainous terrain. Engagement of targets by observers has peculiar problems in mountains due to obvious reasons. Obviously, the normal rules of ranging do not hold well in mountains because of uneven terrain and dead grounds etc. I have heard that Indian Army follows a separate procedure of adjustment of fire in mountains, which puts greater emphasis on study of layout of area, location of guns with respect to observer and special preparation of maps. A friend mentioned something that some procedure similar to establishment of elevation bracket as in assault fire, can also be adopted.

I am interested to study the problems faced in adjustment  of fire and procedures techniques of engagement of targets in mountains by various armies, but sp far I have not been able to find any links where I could find such information. Lets see what you all can offer this time....

ht!ps://atiam.train.army.mil:443/soldierPortal/appmanager/soldier/start?_nfpb=true&docGroup=official&_pageLabel=rdlservicespage

Technically the US Army/Marine Field Manuals we used were not for public distribution.  But, I routinely run across old versions printed any time from the 1920s up to the 1990s in used book stores, museums, or on the internet.  In the Field Artllery Basic Officers Course @ Ft Sill we had Indonesian,  Thai, and a enourmous contingent from the "Puerto Rican National Guard" 2d Lts attending.  So the FO & Fire Direction methods were not exactly any sort of secret.  A Russian coorespondent told me he found a set of US FMs in a old Soviet era military school library.

I only remember a few things reading about using artillery in mountains.

- That it is a huge pain in the but to haul artillery up a mountain, but once it's placed it gives large advantages.
- That recoilless artilery or artillery with less recoil is better for use in mountains, because to much recoil could cause the damn thing to move and fall of the mountain.
- That mortars with their high trajectory are also effective in mountains.

"http://www.vwam.com/vets/marble/mountain5.html"


Maybe some better qualified people can comment?

I don't think that a RCL that seems to be fitted with a ranging MG and no sign of indirect fire sights has anything relevant to do with artillery fire in mountains!  Similarly providing field artillery is capable of high angle fire then it can be fired from valleys or anywhere else that offers suitable gun platforms.  Carrying guns up mountains may have been an issue 75 years ago when there were specialist mountain howitzers that tended to be relatively short range but that's not the case today.

 

Crest clearance is an issue with low angle fire anywhere where there are hills sufficiently high to 'intercept' the trajectory.  Pre-computers there were several ways and various instruments for determining whether or not a trajectory cleared a crest (and some nations have 'national data' appended to the NATO standard Tabular FTs for this).  In some armies it was standard to increase the height of a crest if it was occuppied, this gave an additional margin for PE.  Computers simplified this significantly because while computing the trajectory they continuously checked to see if they had met a crest.  The early computers (late 60s') may have only allowed a few crest lines (storage was very limited) and these had to be manually entered.  Successive generations of computers allowed more but more recently three dimensional digital terrain databases have become standard fit.  This means the observer (or whoever originates a target) doesn't even have to enter the target height, the system finds it automatically from the coords and finds all intervening crests.  With computers some nations adopted crest confidence factors that provide a percentage assurance that the trajectory will clear a crest.  Obviously there are then SOPs about the minimum CCF for occuppied or unoccuppied (or any other status) of crest.

 

Adjusting fire in mountains follows the same procedures as anywhere else, target grid corrections using OT or GT (or any other direction, which in mountains might sometimes be a crest line if it was sufficiently defined).  Reasonably trained observers should know enough about their job to know how to apply the normal procedures to suit the circumstances.  I'd suggest that an army that needs special procedures in mountains either needs to review its normal procedures or put more effort into training its observers to a basic level of competance.

 

Against some targets, notably those of narrow crests particularly when using guns with significant PEr with the line off ffire across the crest then you might need to take greater effort in confirming the short bracket, you'll also need to allow more ammo for fire for effect because a lot is going to be wasted. Targets on a very steep reverse slope relative to the line of fire may be unreachable and may need guns with a different line of fire, and there could be an early burst problem with proximity fuzed shells.  Bracketing for height is not really worth the bother and the combination of height and range adjustment is more complicated for the observer to keep mental track of, if you have computers you can happily keep splitting the range bracket (25, 12, 6, 3) if necessary.  However, the elevation angle change may reach the point where it doesn't alter the position of the fall of shot (ie the value of 1 mil as a distance on the ground at the target).

 

However, the real question is 'who still routinely uses conventional adjustment'.  Some armies have issued LRF to every arty observer for 30 years now, and although the early ones were a bit big the modern hand held binocular type can be used anywhere, GPS means an observer always knows where they are.  Given the accuracy of arty fire (at least in those armies using continuous calibration, good met data, and electronic self surveying gun sights) then opening rounds are going to be close to where they're needed and a laser measurement to the mean point of impact guarantees the next rounds will be on target, although in mountain terrain it would often be sensible to fire 3 rounds initially to get a representative mpi and to ensure the opening rounds fall wherer they will be seen (ie don't take the risk of them being out of sight on a reverse slope).

 

I have got another clue from an old hand. I've been told that there is some procedure calling "Ladder Fire". This is used in mountains where it is not possible giving accurate target grid correction due to substansial apex angle and sloping target area. All I know is that the observer, after getting a round on OT-line, orders a ladder of fire on OT-line  from the whole battery; he then sees that which gun fired the closest to the target and records the target on that data or else engages by ordering other guns to apply that gun's data.

 

Does any of you have any knowledge about the details of this procedure???? I'll be looking forward to your worthy inputs

 

Unless ther's been a back to the future change its never been in ABCA or NATO procedures.

 

However, UK introduced 'ladder ranging' for field arty during WW2 (1943/4), whether it got much use is unclear but I've never come across any references to it being used in action.

 

The procedure was to fire a series of rounds at a series of ranges (IIRC 200 yard gaps) without ordering each range.  Off hand I cant remember whether it was all rounds by the same gun or each gun in a troop firing a differnt one, IIRC there was a interval, eg 10 secs between each.  Note that at this time UK (etc) used section ranging (2 guns) as standard.

 

IIRC it was originally a naval procedure but may have been used by coast defence arty as well.

 

There's probably something about it on  members.tripod.com/~nigelef/index.htm  and searching for 'ladder'.