Forward to the point: the key to winning a ground engagement is to be found in the accurate placement of devastating firepower. Whether this firepower comes from artillery or from air strikes is arguably immaterial, what is vital is that it destroys the intended target rapidly, on first strike with minimal collateral damage and risk to friendly forces.

Summary

---

Optical system

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Forward to the point: the key to winning a ground engagement is to be found in the accurate placement of devastating firepower. Whether this firepower comes from artillery or from air strikes is arguably immaterial, what is vital is that it destroys the intended target rapidly, on first strike with minimal collateral damage and risk to friendly forces.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The importance of fire accuracy has caused the role of the forward observer to dramatically increase in significance over the last century. Part of the reason being that as artillery has increased in range and accuracy, so the gunners have moved further away from each other. The old European and colonial battlefields where cannon fire would engage the enemy in relatively close quarters, often in visual range, have disappeared and from 1911 military aircraft began to appear en masse in the skies. This has made the forward observers' role ever more important, as they have become the eyes of the gunners, issuing their targets and correcting their fires, hunkered down near the front line in visual contact with the enemy.

Accompanying these tactical changes has been the parallel development of forward observer systems, which have grown in sophistication and complexity as laser and location technologies have evolved. The relatively simple lase...

See the full content of this document

---