clock code and...

[Vigilant]

As to Philip Townsend's comment on the RE8, please see the quote to left!

Most artillery shooting before WWI was done 'over open sights' (ie the gunners could see the target they were engaging). On the occassions when that wasn't the case and 'indirect fire' was called for, a Forward Observation Officer ('FOO') would communicate the fall of shot back to the battery via a telephone link. Often the FOO was the battery commander because only he could order the guns to make adjustments.

From the books I've read, it appears that there was no code used for reporting fall of shot. The FOO just said 'long' or 'short' or 'left' and 'right'. If he wanted to refer to a map location he apparently had to say 'under the A in ARTOIS' or something similar because grid squares only became common during the war.

Once corrections had to be reported via morse code from an aircraft conciceness obviously became a virtue!

Vig.