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“Fire for Effect” is a Field Artillery term which the Forward Observer uses to let the Field Artillery Fire Direction Center know that the last rounds in an adjustment have landed close enough to the target to do some damage and volley fire needs to be employed to have the desired effects.
This term is hardly used now because of the advent of new technology which takes away the neccessity of the observer’s radio calls for artillery. Nowadays he will use a laser rangefinder to get the location and range to the target and to send this information back to the Fire Direction Center.
Back in the old days before the laser rangefinder the Forward Observer had to determine this information himself. Human error in locating the target was a big factor as all of you Field Artillery ring customers know. Artillery had to be adjusted onto the target. The forward observer would spot individual rounds and when he saw that they were close enough to the target to do some damage he would give a final correction and add “Fire for Effect.” To his radio transmission. This would alert the custom military ring customers firing the artillery to use all of the howitzers at once. Doing so would pepper the taret with artillery rounds and cause great damage.
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