American/British Artillery Comparison

I am transcribing the November 1944 After Action Report of the US 440th
Armored Field Artillery Battalion (7th Armored Division). The following
2-paragraph accolade and comparison of US and British artillery is part of
that report (with spellings retained below as they appear in the original):

"During our period of fighting with the British in Holland in the Overloon
and Meijel sectors a11 of our officers and men gained a high respect for the
fighting qualities of our British allies. Although their customs and methods
of fighting differ slightly from ours there can be no question but that teir
troops are excellent soldiers, and many times their aircraft were aloft in
weather which normally grounds our planes.

"British artillery is very effective whereas we normally adjust with one gun
it is the British custom to adjust with four guns. They seem to have a much
greater quantity of ammunition to fire than we do, but their ammunition
appears to be of inferior quality. There is an exceedingly large muzzle
flash and more time is required for the fusing. Their FDC technique varies
in that they seldom retain concentration numbers for future use, but prefer
to give new map coordinates for each mission. Their method of Fwd Obsrs
adjustment also varies slightly from ours in that their Fwd Obsrs give their
sensings as commands to the guns, whereas ours are converted from sensings
to commands at the FDC. In this respect our system seems to be better as it
relieves the work of the observer."

I will be posting the complete transcription of the 440 AFAB A/ARs for
November 1944 through at least February 1945 to the auxiliary 7th Armored
Division web site (the document repository) by the end of the day on Monday,
August 1. You can access the auxiliary 7AD web site from the main 7AD web
page at http://members.aol.com/dadswar/7ada.htm. There are now approximately
3,000 pages of complete or partial transcriptions of original documents
included on the 7AD auxiliary web site. (The partial transcriptions are
mostly the location and "Record of Events" entries from Morning Reports of
various battalions for various periods.)

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