Not meaning to offend or be contentious but I imagine the same sort of "losing the art" issue was raised when they did away with having to muzzle load each cannon ball.
As a former grunt that also had the opportunity to work in the HQ element of a heavy gun arty btn, I appreciate the hell out of the idea of a shell that will still hit the target, even if shot up to 15 degrees off deflection.
I saw too many miscalcs and accidental transpositions of coords after 4 or 5 days of the fire control folk being with little or no sleep on exercises and was once close enough to the receiving end of such a mishap to give half a crap about folk moaning over loss of artfulness.
As a former grunt that also had the opportunity to work in the HQ element of a heavy gun arty btn, I appreciate the hell out of the idea of a shell that will still hit the target, even if shot up to 15 degrees off deflection.
I saw too many miscalcs and accidental transpositions of coords after 4 or 5 days of the fire control folk being with little or no sleep on exercises and was once close enough to the receiving end of such a mishap to give half a crap about folk moaning over loss of artfulness.