Joe Rafferty III (Far left) FDC Section Chief B Battery
Description
Joe Rafferty III (Far left), FDC (fire direction control center) Section Chief B Btry 6/14 Ben Het '68. Photo by Earle Smith, 6th Battalion, 14th Artillery Regiment, RVN 1967-68.
The 100,000th Round painted and ready to be fired by B Battery December 1967 at LZ Uplift. Photo by Gary D. Harrington HHB and B Battery, 7th Battalion, 15th Field Artillery, RVN.
155mm in full recoil. 1/30th arty 1st Cavalry Fire Support Base Noble War Zone D Vietnam. Photo by Dennis Proulx, 6th Battalion, 14th Artillery Regiment, RVN, 1970.
Consedine and Dennis Sprenkle, killed in Quan Loi mortar attack May 5, 1970 weeks before he was scheduled to go home. Photo by Tom Consedine, 1st Platoon 1970. Company B, 1/7 Cavalry.
Soldiers of the U.S Eleventh Armored Cavalry Regiment Exercise "Mad Minute"
Description
Soldiers of the U.S Eleventh Armored Cavalry Regiment spray the area in an exercise known as a "Mad Minute," in Cambodia, June 1970. Photo by Henri Huet KIA Laos Feb. 10 1971.
42nd US Artillery Which was Temporarily Based at Nui Dat in Support of the Australian Task Force
Description
What??? Gunner (Gnr) Mervyn Bignall 107th Field battery of NSW (in the foreground) during a visit to C Battery, 5th/42nd US Artillery which was temporarily based at Nui Dat in support of the Australian Task Force, January 1971.
Gunners of the 101st Battery, Royal Australian Artillery fire in support of the Anzac battalion, made up of Australian and New Zealand troops, during March 1970.
A helicopter lifts a 155 mm Howitzer cannon to the top of a hill during a U.S. Marine-South Vietnamese thrust. Khe Sanh, 1969. Photo by Henri Huet KIA Laos Feb. 10, 1971.
SP/5 Redger 'Lower than whale what?' FDC Dak To April '68. Photo by Earle Smith, 6th Battalion, 14th Artillery Regiment, RVN 1967-68. Typically, there is one FDC for a battery of six guns, in a light division. In a typical heavy division configuration, there exists two FDC elements capable of operating two four gun sections, also known as a split battery. The FDC computes firing data, fire direction, for the guns. The process consists of determining the precise target location based on the observer's location if needed, then computing range and direction to the target from the guns' location. This data can be computed manually, using special protractors and slide rules with precomputed firing data.
