With the development of long range indirect fire artillery there was a parallel advance in the development of fire control and sighting devices for the new generation of weapons.

Sadly, the US lagged sadly behind in all respects in the development and use of state of the art artillery. It was evident that the US forces in France would have to rely upon our European Allies for supply of both weapons and fire control devices.  It was not only a problem of lagging behind in design but we could not even produce our own quality optical glass.

Prior to the outbreak of war the US relied upon Germany for high quality optic glass and devices. With the opening of hostilities this was cut off both from Germany but from other European sources. However the weaknesses in this are was soon recognized and an entire industry was developed in an unprecedented period of time. To view the detail story of WWI US fire control equipment, click to access an extract of AMERICA'S MUNITIONS, 1917-1919 (US GPO, 1920), Chapter VI, Fire-Control Apparatus.

Surviving examples found in Museums and private collections consist of both those of French manufacture plus US systems based on French design. This is understandable since the artillery units of the AEF were basically equipped with French designed artillery for the most part. The immortal 1897 French '75 and the 155 Snyder guns were wielded with deadly accuracy by American artillerymen. The French influence is also apparent in the training material and manuals of the time many of which are direct copies of French manuals.

Presented below are examples of some of the common fire controls found in use by Americans serving in AEF artillery units. These sketches are scans taken from original manuals and reproduced here.