registration fire
-
Do we tag registration fire as Firing?
Posted
-
by
cyngast
moderator
I always have.
Perhaps Rob can give us a definitive answer.
Posted
-
by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Yes, definitely. 'Attacking/Firing' is the right tag to use here.
Posted
-
by
Stork
My diary has entries like, "Night firing stopped. Registration started." What's the difference?
Posted
-
by
cyngast
moderator
Registration is the process of finding the right way to set the guns to hit a particular target. They would fire a shell and wait for a report from an observation post or sometimes an airplane as to whether they had hit it or how far off the mark they were. And then try again.
Firing means they have found the target and are sending a certain number of shells onto it. Sometimes you'll see a reference that they are firing per a program, which might be at a particular rate or a set time or the number of rounds.
Posted
-
I think on the receiving end the result is equally deadly.
Posted
-
by
cyngast
moderator
in response to erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be's comment.
Quite true.
Posted
-
by
David_Underdown
moderator
One of the big artillery improvements during the course of the war was the development of predicted fire. Registration was initially necessary because the weather and the age of the gun barrel affect range and accuracy. Predicted fire meant that data on barrel wear and so on could be collected on the basis of test firing behind the line, and then improvements in surveying the location of the gun itself, and mapping of enemy positions (often via aerial photography) meant you could make much better gunlaying calculations prior to firing, without making actual registration shoots (which potentially warned the enemy of your intentions). You could launch a devastating bombardment with no previous indication that anything out of the ordinary was about to happen. Cambrai in 1917 was one of the first times this was applied on a large scale (and was arguably of greater importance than the large scale use of tanks).
Posted
-
Was it necessary to test all the guns behind the line or just one type of gun to get the right data?
Posted
-
by
cyngast
moderator
According to what David said, they would need to test each individual gun to account for barrel wear. An older, well-used barrel would result in different data than a new one would.
Posted
-
Must have been a time-consuming activity.
Posted
-
by
cyngast
moderator
It could be. In some diaries I've seen it listed as the main activity for two or three days.
Posted
-
On this page ( Image AWD0003kac) one mentions "calibration" in the remarks column of one of the intelligence summaries. Is that the same thing as the "test firing" mentioned by David?
Posted
-
The page image that is showing is AWD0003kfd - nothing mentioned in the remarks column.
Posted
-
by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Erik, I think in this case calibration isn't referring to the sort of test firing of the guns David describes. The report you're looking at seems to be dealing with actual offensive fire from the batteries, so I would think in this case calibration is making slight adjustments to the guns to make sure they're still accurate given changing temperatures and other conditions which may affect them. As they would already be registered on the target, this would be more a sort of fine-tuning to ensure they remained effective.
Posted
