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The Fire Direction Center
If you are confused, think how you would feel if you actually witnessed this moment of
bedlam! Everyone talking - bellowing - at once, yet somehow keeping it all straight. And Sgt
Hallick circulating to spot check on each man's work, his ears cocked to detect anything that
sounds irregular. Speed is necessary, but accuracy is essential. Lives are at stake.
And while you were reading the last paragraph, the sweating cannoneers at the firing
batteries have been doing their thing, and the Executive Officer of B Battery has reported, "On
the Way!"
*****
The Fire Direction Center was America's contribution to the art of artillery gunnery. It
superseded the elegant French method which allowed firing only one battery (four cannon) at a
time, and made it possible to quickly mass the fire of an entire battalion of twelve cannon on a
single target. It went beyond that. Given adequate communications, it enabled the massed fire of
all the artillery within range - up to a dozen battalions or more - on a single target at the same
time. Dazed German prisoners wanted to know what kind of "automatic" cannon we had that let
us fire so much so fast.
I am sure that the FDC as I knew it no longer exists. Even while I was still in the army,
new techniques were developed to streamline it. And that was before the electronic computer
was developed. Nowadays a lap-top computer with a competent operator could easily do the
work done then by two high-priced officers and six fairly bright enlisted men.
I say fairly bright advisedly: the first experimental FDC I got a glimpse of back in 1938
was manned entirely by commissioned officers. By 1942, when we began setting one up for the
915th, it was recognized that enlisted men could handle most of the jobs, provided they were
exceptional enlisted men. So we assembled a group of the best and the brightest we could find,
and trained them. They were a quick study, and they were well trained in a couple of weeks, at
which time they all departed for Officer Candidate School (OCS). The army hungered for second
lieutenants.
So we got together another group, the next-best and next-brightest. They were a little
slower to learn, and most of them left for OCS before they were fully trained.
Eventually we got smart. To go to OCS, a man had to have an AGCT test (Army
equivalent of IQ) score of 110. So we scouted around for men with AGCT scores of 108 and
109. They took a little longer to train, but after they were trained, they did every bit as well as the
geniuses had.
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