Moving target

Observers must be proficient at engaging moving targets of opportunity and in planning and executing planned fires against targets that will be moving at a future time of attack.

2 TYPES OF TARGET TO ENGAGE

Target of opportunity: is a target that appears during combat and against which no attack has been prearranged. Often, the observer must quickly initiate the fire mission to alert the firing unit, while simultaneously estimating the intercept and trigger points.

2 TYPES OF TARGET TO ENGAGE

Planned target: is a target upon which fires are prearranged. The degree of prearrangement varies, but some prior coordination or action is done to facilitate engagement. Planned targets may be further subdivided into scheduled, on-call, and priority targets.

MOVING TARGET CALCULATIONS

DETERMINE TARGET DIRECTION AND SPEED After acquiring the target, the observer tracks it until he is sure of the direction in which it is moving. As the target moves from point A to point B the observer can use one of three methods to determine its speed.
B A

THREE METHODS TO DETERMINE SPEED

Estimation Method: First the observer can estimate The speed as follows: Slow = 3 meters per second (7 miles per hour) Medium = 5 meters per second (11 mph) Fast = 8 meters per second (18 mph)

THREE METHODS TO DETERMINE SPEED

LASER METHOD: the target moves the observer lases it and converts the polar data to grid locations for points A and B. Then he determines how far the target moved by measuring the distance between points A and B and rounding to the nearest 1 meter.

THREE METHODS TO DETERMINE SPEED

He divides the distance traveled by the time interval between points A and B to determine the target speed in meters per second.
50 METER / 10 SEC = 5MPS

THREE METHODS TO DETERMINE SPEED

Reticle Pattern Method: As the target moves across the reticle pattern, the observer measures the number of mils traveled to the nearest 5 mils. He multiplies that number by the OT factor to convert the distance traveled by the target to meters.

THREE METHODS TO DETERMINE SPEED

He divides the distance traveled by the time interval to determine the target speed, in meters per second and then rounds to the nearest 1 meter
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 5 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4

100 Mils X 2 = 200 Meters 200Meter / 20 sec = 10mps

PREDICT THE INTERCEPT POINT

Once the observer determines the speed and direction of the target, he must predict the intercept point the point or grid at which he wants to engage the moving target. To do this, he first gathers and adds the following information: 1. Total processing time (observer, FSE, FDC and gun times). 2. Time of flight.