I don’t understand how they can accurately aim artillery. When they fire the whole machine moves a great deal and it would seem any calibration of its position would be lost.
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I havent seen this in the upper comments so let me try and shed some light. I used to shoot, load, operate radio, prepare ammo (13B, whats the sound of artillery!? BOOM BOOM!) howitzers in the US Army for my credentials. Without giving away the boat here it is as simple as i can. When you ‘lay’ a howitzer you essentially use a fixed/known point on a map by putting what is more or less a survey stick in the ground. Its got a bunch of ‘doohickeys’ to help you with that. From that point you sight into that fixed point from the howitzer, and with the distance and angle from the howitzer to the known point the super smart guys in a truck behind all the gunners triangulate your position on a map.
Your howitzer is now ‘laid’ at this point. You now shove a smaller fixed targeting device in front of your howitzers sights. This device has essentially a targeting reticle in it. Your initial laid position will be 0’0′ degrees on the reticle.
With that out the way heres my attempt at a explain like im five. Smart guys in a truck in the back know where the big boomy gun is right? So they use Big Maths (trignomotery) that you will only ever use if you are an engineer to tell you where to aim and how high to point the barrel of the big boomy gun. After you fire you use another sight that was put out before you fired to get back to the same relative position as before.
I realize im not cut out to be a elementary school teacher. To brag slightly and to express the effectivemess of this. During a training exercise i once was given coordinates to fire on a truck, not moving, which was about 7 km away. Four rounds fired and four rounds steel on target. Shit seems like magic but it works.
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