Practice, practice. Some days i can nail targets on an airfield or in a town with no problem other days my aim is just horrible. The key is having a good cv driver and taking out the sb's early so you can get in close. I find that once i get inside 15-14k range i can start watching were my rounds land and adjust better. It is really hard to hit a sb though and seems more difficult than it should be. It also seems that there should be a larger blast damage radius from where the shells impact. IMO you shouldn't have to drop a salvo directly on a tank to kill it. I'd be interested to read some factual info on what the actual damage radius of the guns were and what the most common form of aiming them was in WWII.
An 8 incher is ~ equivalent to a 203MM Field Artillery piece.
In AROTC we've been taught that for 105-155MM Artillery (We don't use 203's anymore) accuracy is not so essential. The "Oh dear god this is the absolute WRONG place to be on this planet" radius is 100 Meters. Danger close artillery calls are anything within 500 Meters of your position. And you really don't want to call big guns in on anything closer than 1,000 Meters. The preferred under 1,000M but over 500 would be CAS, or gunships if you can get 'em... unless you're hip-deep in very mean people and are already getting shot to hell. (Dead by bullets, or dead by our own artillery... at least the artillery will kill some of them too.)
I've used R/L artillery methods to a measure of effect, but without a decent map, the ability to find my coordinates, and the enemies' coordinates... its pretty much a crapshoot unless you're close enough to see your rounds impact. Which is kinda contrary to the idea of indirect fire support.
The problem, though is that you can't register a hit unless you destroy the target, or have visual range. And all three barrels firing at once really really sucks.
I would love the option for firing one barrel at a time. Like real guns do. Adjust fire onto target, switch to all barrels, and FFE.
Colored smoke would rule.
