Communications for Artillery Location in the British Army

Alister J Mitchell GM3UDL

Originally, this page described a particular piece of World War 2 communications kit, the Wireless Set, Sound Ranging, Mk2 - a very rare item about which Colin Guy, G4DDI had written an article some years ago for VMARS, currently found here. This was to be the beginning of a three year investigation which led me through some fairly esoteric backwaters and proved that the Radio Link SR Mk2 was by no means either the beginning of the story, or the end.
The first thing I discovered was that location of enemy gunfire by sound goes back to around 1910 in Russia, but that used the "flash to bang" time and, although it produced acceptable results for the time, it was not accurate. The credit for the invention of accurate sound location goes to William Lawrence Bragg, later Sir Lawrence, who was serving in the the Royal Horse Artillery and noticed an interesting phenomenon whilst sitting on the privvy!
Hand in hand with Sound Ranging goes Flash Spotting, which relies on accurate bearings on gun flashes taken from several locations. This was perfected by a Canadian officer, Harold Hemming, at around the same time as Bragg was working on SR.
I have consulted a number of members of the Wireless-Set-No19 email group, read a great many training documents, revised my university Trig 101, and visited two wonderful libraries, the Royal Artillery Archive in Woolwich Arsenal and the National Archive at Kew, both in London. In the course of my reading, as must always happen, I've found tantalising hints of dozens of other areas of research which could be pursued by someone interested in military communications. But I stuck to the task in hand and over the five years have put together what I hope is an interesting story, which may be found by clicking the link below - there is no password.
Alister Mitchell 24/5/2009

Download the article here (no password required).

The article contains many pictures relating to Sound Ranging and Flash Spotting but we have some additional pictures of the Radio Link, SR, Mk2 which you may like to see. Click here to see a thumbnail index of these photographs.
The article also refers to many source documents, some of which I have collected over the years and which are listedon various pages in the archvie the archive. For convenience, I've brought them all together in the following table. All of these documents require passwords, as on the rest of the site.

Documents Relevant to Artillery Location
Number
5154	Artillery Survey Pocket Book 1924, Reprinted with Amendments 1948, WO7329
5105	Manual of Flash Spotting, 1937, 26/Manuals/1708
5106	Manual of Sound Ranging, 1937, 26/Manuals/1716
1512	Instruments Flash Spotting No4 MkIII	Instructions for the Use and Maintenance, Cooke, Troughton & Simms (Undated)
5209	Instructions for the Repair of Optical and Other Instruments held on charge by an Artillery Unit, 26/Regs/2367, April 1941
5210	Artillery Training Volume 3, Field Gunnery, Pamphlet No.7, Co-operation with the Observation Regiment, WO Code 8273, Feb 1948
912	Radio Link SR Mark II	Working Instructions, ZA21056, circa 1943
787	Carrier Link, Sound Ranging	EMER Tels B852, B853, B857, Description, 1st Echelon Work, Mod Instruction, Feb 1945
963	Equipment Recorder SR No5 Mk1	Technical Handbook, EMER Tels C620, C630, C622 Parts 1 & 2, C623, C624, C628, C629, May 1954
1694	Directions for the Use of Artillery Instruments, Pamphlet No.8, Sound Ranging Equipment (Excluding Recorders), WO Code 9556, May 1959
1566	Barometer, Precision, Aneroid Mk I (Baromec)	User Handbook, AC13627, 1962
962	Calibrator, Paper Speed, Kit No1	Technical Handbook - Technical Description, EMER Tels C652, April 1964
5211	Artillery Training Volume 1, Artillery in Battle, Pamphlet No.2A Locating and Artillery Intelligence, WO Code 9864, Feb 1964
1695	Directions for the Use of Artillery Instruments, Pamphlet No.14, Equipment, Recording Sound Ranging No.5, WO Code 9926, Feb 1964
781	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B820, Data Summary, April 1968
782	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B822 Pt1, Tech Description, March 1967
783	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B822 Pt2, Fault Finding & Repair Data, April 1974
784	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B823, Unit Repairs, May 1967
785	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B824, Field Repairs, October 1970
786	SR Set, Radio Link, No2 Mk1	EMER Tels B826, 7, 9, CENTREMS, Mod & Misc Instructions
965	Test Kit, Sound Ranging, No2 Mk1	Technical Handbook, EMER Tels M280, M282, M287, July 1969