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Field Artillery Progression

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The Progression of the Field Artillery within the U.S. Army The “King of Battle” is becoming a better king. The overall progression in the U.S. Army has been rapid to say the least. With every new battle, the Field Artillery has brought something new and important to that table. Paving the way to the accurate and predicted fires that we have in today’s Artillery world. We will shine light on key events throughout the history of the Field Artillery, leading up to Current technology and training goals. You will have a vastly greater knowledge of how the Field Artillery came to be what it currently is. In the beginning there was no actual “Field Artillery”, there were only coastal defenses within some towns. The battle of Bunker Hill …show more content…

Congress then called for six Artillery companies and massed them in the already established Massachusetts. The six Artillery companies would be lead by the former Chief of Engineering Richard Gridley. Richard Gridley would also be in-trusted to create the basis for the structured Field Artillery that we know today. During this time, the Continental Army used muzzle loading, smoothbore Artillery pieces cast in bronze and sometimes iron. Artillery traveled by way of English model styled carriages drawn by either horse and or oxen. The men that controlled these movements were not Soldiers like one would think, but mostly by civilians contracted out to relocate the pieces where the Army saw fit. During this time, the United States did not have a mass production of Field Artillery pieces, in truth we relied on old used British Artillery. There were some single constructed pieces done mainly for fort defenses and were very heavy. Artillery in this age by today standards, considered a direct fire weapon, meaning only shooting accurately when there was a clear visible …show more content…

With the current war dwindling down in Afghanistan, the Field Artillery’s focus becomes more on training in a force on force style fight. Their focus is to utilize older conventional style war fighting tactics on new updated Artillery systems. The following quote from Major General Mark McDonald truly describes our current situation, “We’ve got most of the pieces in place to be able to train the digital system. What we have to do is get everybody really comfortable with it, train with it more often, so that’s their go-to system,” (Mathis). The result will be to pull away from older manually computed firing data and to begin to rely solely on the newer updated digital systems, thus allowing for the safer, more accurate and timely fires that will be needed in future conflicts. What does this mean for enlisted members and officers alike? ”The introduction of these modernized systems will provide several opportunities for cross-branch training and deployment, as well as opportunities for joint operations that have yet to be discovered. Additionally, this modernization will present substantial challenges to both officer and enlisted leadership alike, requiring both to be more technically qualified in order to be effective leaders” (Dedmond and

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