Here's another link to an article that compares different schools and doctrines of artillery thinking. Please note that the author wrote it without notes, and make sure you read the correction at the end when you read the part about U.S. artillery. And I believe every nation did their ballistic homework (weather, wind, gun characteristics, charge variables like temperature etc.) well, and not only the Americans. At least the Finns had their tables for calculating a firing solution in every conceivable situation.
http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp
The article's focus on impromptu fires is spot-on, because walking artillery fire up to the target is usually relatively fruitless since the target can move or take cover. (Unless the situation is like in one memoir I've read, where the target was a Chinese bunker in Korea and the firing unit was a battleship 30 miles away ) This is especially true in WWII situations, where the artillery could be quite small-bore (75-105 mm).
The goal for the Finnish FOs has always been always that calling fires should be "target coordinates, battery, one round - left 100, add 200, fire for effect". Accurate TOT fire without any preceding corrections is the Holy Grail of redlegs everywhere. (And in modern aside, this is what many current weapon systems can do, even when the number of weapons is limited. The new Finnish-Swedish joint effort AMOS (Advanced MOrtar System) can drop six rounds on a target simultaneously from a two-barreled turret).
What interests me in this discussion is to determine if there were in WWII significant performance differences between armies in terms of speed and time consumption when placing impromptu artillery fires on targets, when all situational factors are constant except artillery and observation SOPs, and if so, why ?
rgds,
TN
P.S. If we invite a Finn to join this thread, then I suggest colonel (ret.) Matti Koskimaa rather than Linus