POHAKULOA TRAINING AREA, Hawaii -- You may never see a Fire Direction Control Marine while they’re on the job. But their impact on artillery fire missions is hard to miss — and they almost never do.
“Artillery is divided into three main parts,” said Staff Sgt. Joe A. Palacios, the operations chief for Bravo Battery’s FDC. “The eyes, the brains and the muscle. We’re the brains.”
The brain in artillery acts like a human brain. It tells every gun where to make adjustments, what projectile and propellant to use and when to fire. Thousands of computations, checking and rechecking go into firing just one round down range.
The FDC center takes data from the forward observers to include grids and computes firing manual or automated data and sends it down to the gun line digitally or by voice, enabling them to provide fast and accurate fire to maneuver personnel, said Palacios.
“The artillery motto is, ‘shoot, move, communicate and sustain,’ and the FDC is an essential part in fulfilling that motto to the highest safety, accuracy and speed standards,” he said.
An FDC consists of six billets that all work together, checking information to ensure all rounds that go down range do so safely, Palacios said.
FDC billets include charts operators, record of fire operators, Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data Systems technicians, radio operators, fire directional officer and operations chief.
“The ops chief is the technical expert of an FDC,” Palacios said. “He’s the controller of the chaos.”
Controlled chaos is how FDC Marines describe their job. Between all the data and numbers being processed, along with checking them, the FDC is a fast, hectic and very intense environment.
“If any one number is computed incorrectly, it can be bad,” Palacios said. “People could be killed as a consequence. That’s why I’m so hard, because, in here, anything but perfection is unacceptable.”
The FDC Marines always stress the importance of being always prepared and ready to support ground units.
“There is no such thing as, ‘we can’t shoot it’ or ‘we can’t make that target’,” Palacios said. “The reason we get a call is because someone is in trouble and they need our help. There’s never a reason we can’t fire.”
For that reason, it’s important FDC Marines know how to calculate shots automatically and manually. Although a lot of FDCs are now leaning more toward automation, Palacios believes being able to calculate manually will only make one more accurate on the automated systems.
“My belief is that you can’t understand this job technologically if you are unable to do it manually first,” Palacios said. “Nine times out of 10, a computer will go down in a combat situation but because we maintain proficiency in manual operations as well, that doesn’t affect us.”
The FDC is not you’re average 9 to 5 job, as Marines in this military occupational specialty are on 24-hour operations when in theater or training.
“Even after the rounds are finished firing, we will still be up computing safety, safety zones, and muzzle velocity variations to attain more accurate fires on the next mission,” Palacios said. “This is the pressure cooker, the hot spot, where the rubber meets the road. If we don’t get it right here then they don’t get it right on the gun line either.”