THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
Volume 70 March, 1929
Attributes of Efficiency
A TREATISE ON THE MOBILE ANTIAIRCRAFT GUN BATTERY
By CAPTAIN BENJAMIN F. HARMON, C. A. C.
First Prize, Annual Essay Contest
Number 3
IT has been stated, in definition, that "a good gun is a gun that is where you
want it, at the time you want it, with sufficient ammunition, and ready to fire."
Let us augment this definition somewhat, modify it a trifle, and say of the mobile
antiaircraft gun battery:
An efficient battery is a battery that can be moved in time to the proper
firing position, with sufficient ammunition, and can remain there and be
prepared to deliver accurate fire on the proper targets.
This maxim gives the thought underlying the discussion herein presented.
At the outset, let us select the word accurate from the latter part of the
maxim, discuss the various ramifications into "\\Chichit leads and then proceed to
dissect and analyze the remainder.
The accuracy of fire of an antiaircraft battery is, paradoxically speaking,
incapable of accurate definition, since the use of the word accurate implies a
standard of comparison. Who shall prescribe the standard and who shall say
to what limits of refinement our accuracy should proceed? The accuracy of
fire is the result of innumerable small cogs running together to operate the entire
machine, which is the battery. We may group them, broadly, under the
divisions of (1) materiel, (2) gunnery, (3) training, and (4) opposition.
It is the materiel factor which has been given such tremenduous impetus by
the Aberdeen exercises of the three years last past. The predicting interval
(time of flight plus dead time) has been greatly decreased by attacking its two
component parts. The continuous fuze setter, of recent development, has
reduced the dead time from its war-time figure of 8 seconds to a more satisfactory
one of about ~ second. It has disappeared, practically, from consideration.
The time of flight has been reduced by increasing the muzzle velocity
from about 1700 foot-seconds, as exemplified by the is-rum. antiaircraft gun,
to the values of 2600 and 2800 foot-seconds now in use--with at least 3000
foot-seconds in the not-too-distant future. This improvement in time noted in
materiel developments since the war may be visualized more readily by showing,
in figures, the extent of the gain effected. Specifically, let us compare the
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