Ballistics and the firing table
Shells fly a real path through gravity, drag and wind. You never see the formula; you read it from a booklet, a ruler, a weather board and a spotter's voice.
Old Marta's shells fly a real, simulated path. Gravity pulls them down, the air slows them, the number of powder bags sets how fast they leave the barrel, and the wind pushes them aside. You never see the formula. You work with it the way a gun crew does: with a booklet, a ruler, a weather board and a voice on the radio.
Your tools
| Tool | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Firing table | The elevation and flight time for a range, for each charge |
| Bearing ruler and range rings | The bearing and distance from the gun to anything you click on the map table, and how far each charge reaches |
| Wind sock and weather board | Wind direction and strength, rain and visibility |
| Spotter reports | Where your shell landed, as a correction |
| Gunner's notebook | Your pinned targets, solutions and corrections |
The firing table
The firing table is a booklet. For each charge, it turns a range into an elevation and a flight time. It is generated from the same simulation that flies the shells, so it is always right. Read the range off the map table, find the row for your charge, and set that elevation on the dial. In the cockpit, it hangs pinned up where you can see it.
The table holds wherever Marta stands. When she moves to a new siding, the geometry changes, not the table. See Exposure and moving the gun.
Wind and weather
The wind sock and the weather board show which way the wind blows and how hard. The wind drifts through the day and changes with the weather, and distance magnifies everything: a 10 m/s side wind pushes a 12 km shot 150 to 250 m off. See Seasons and weather.
Spread and bracketing
Even with a perfect solution, shots scatter. Each one lands inside a small error ellipse, longer in range than it is wide, and the ellipse grows with every extra kilometre. See Charges and range.
So the first shot rarely hits exactly. You bracket: one long, one short, then split the difference. Most targets take two to four shots. See Bracketing a target.
Spotter corrections
After impact a spotter radios a correction: how much to add or drop in range, and how far to shift left or right.
Drop 100.
Early in the campaign the spotter also suggests the fix. Later you work it out yourself. The first season, "Dusting off Marta", introduces aiming, the firing table, bracketing and spotters. See The campaign: four seasons.
The gunner's notebook
One click pins a target, a spotter's correction or a row of the firing table into the notebook at the side of the screen. It takes away the busywork, not the thinking. Difficulty decides how much the notebook fills in for you, from "suggests the full solution" to "blank page". The Gunner's assist option goes further and fills in the whole firing solution. See Accessibility.