Description
Technical Manual (TM 9-1220-223-15) for M17 Indirect Fire Plotting Board May 1961
This Technical Manual TM 9-1220-223-15 covers the M17 Indirect Fire Plotting Board and is dated May 1961.
The publication combines operator, organizational, field, and depot maintenance instructions with repair-parts and special-tools information for this portable fire-control instrument.
Historical Significance
The M17 Plotting Board is a manually operated fire-control instrument used in artillery and mortar fire-direction work. It helps personnel geometrically determine the range and azimuth from a weapon position to a target.
The operator combines known weapon-to-observation-post information with target-location data reported by the observer. Before digital fire-control systems became widely available, instruments such as the M17 provided a fast and portable method for converting observer reports into firing information.
The M17 also remained useful as a manual backup and for specialized plotting tasks after electronic fire-direction equipment entered service.
What This Manual Covers
TM 9-1220-223-15 provides instructions across the complete maintenance structure for the M17 Plotting Board.
Its scope includes:
- Description and identification of the plotting board
- Preparation for use
- Operator inspections
- Plotting procedures for indirect fire
- Determining target range and azimuth
- Problems involving mil relations
- Use of the board with survey information
- Preventive-maintenance services
- Troubleshooting and repair
- Organizational, field, and depot maintenance
- Repair-parts and special-tools information
The M17 fundamentally consists of a gridded base and a rotating transparent azimuth disk. Its graduated scales allow fire-direction personnel to plot weapon, observation-post, and target relationships and read the resulting range and direction.
Key Features
- Official publication number: TM 9-1220-223-15
- Publication date: May 1961
- Equipment covered: M17 Indirect Fire Plotting Board
- Official nomenclature: Fire Control, Indirect Fire, Plotting Board M17
- Publication type: combined operation and maintenance manual
- Maintenance scope: operator, organizational, field, and depot
- Includes: repair-parts and special-tools list
- Primary function: determining target range and azimuth for indirect fire
- Published by: Headquarters, Department of the Army
Why This Manual Matters
TM 9-1220-223-15 documents both the practical use and complete maintenance support of the M17 Plotting Board. It explains how fire-direction personnel employed a compact mechanical instrument to convert observer information into firing data under field conditions.
The publication also preserves the Army’s maintenance procedures and supply information for a plotting instrument that remained useful for training, specialized calculations, and manual fire-direction backup.
About This Manual
Published by Headquarters, Department of the Army in May 1961, TM 9-1220-223-15 is an Operator, Organizational, Field, and Depot Maintenance Manual for the M17 Indirect Fire Plotting Board.
The publication includes operating instructions, maintenance procedures, repair-parts information, and special-tools listings in a single manual.
Ideal For
This manual is a strong fit for:
- U.S. Army technical-manual collectors
- Field artillery and mortar researchers
- Fire-direction center training collections
- M17 Plotting Board restoration projects
- Military museums and reference libraries
- Collectors of analog fire-control instruments
- Historians studying manual artillery computation
Approx length 8", Approx width 10", Approx height .2", Approx weight .5lbs.
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