Artillery sighting poles - how used

They are called "Aiming Posts". Some use info here:

Basically they are usually called "Aiming Stakes" and they are used for indirect fire of the weapon. You place them a known bearing from the gun (usually behind it) at a set distance and turn the sight head around until you can see it. Then you align the sight on the stake, normally in Mils (another way to measure the angular dimensions of a circle -- 6000 in Soviet aiming circles, 6400 in NATO ones).

The idea is that when the gunner is given a mission of "deflection right 00-28" he can then look at the stake through his sight and shift the gun onto the target by using the stake as a reference point. If the points are measured correctly, the gun will swing over on target.

Do it wrong (as one 155mm battery did at Fort Hood in the 1980s) and the rounds will be off by whatever angle you messed up by -- in this case it was about 180 degrees! (Rounds landed in a lake and killed a bunch of fish...)

Cookie Sewell

Also known as aiming posts (at least in British and Commonwealth usage). One thing to note is that they are used in pairs, aligned with the gun telescope and equally spaced (if the first post is 50 metres from the gun, the second must be 100 metres). This allows "displacement laying" to compensate for any movement of the gun with respect to the posts.

I never realized the Soviets used a different value for mils than we did. :-)

Regards, Ralph

Thanks guys.

Facsinating stuff.

Regards

JP

Arty Surveyors also use stripey poles known as "stadia rods", the stripes are calibrated and can be used to measure distance when looked at through the graticuled lens of a theodolite or "director" (a theodolite with a built in compass).

Once the guns have been set up for "line" using the director, a stadia rod or aiming post can be substituted at the battery centre, in case the Gun Position Officer's party needs to go off and set up an "alternate position".

I used to do all that stuff for a living about 30 years ago!

Chris

Hi Chris,

The US Army tends to call "stadia rods" aiming stakes as they use them for that. Also a term of less than endearment used for relatively dense objects like second lieutenants with the hope they will go FORWARD of the guns and perform the same basic function...

Cookie Sewell