When an officer joins the guns, he is low on the pole, usually the safety guy, or just going around with the BC for a while seeing different positions. After he gets some experience around the battery, he will be trained by the Artillery school to perform different jobs, such as recce, CP and GPO stuff. being promoted to Lt will the place the officer into a new position, a junior one might go first to recce, under the tutelage of a strong recce TSM, the Lt will learn the ins and outs of placing a battery on the ground. More importantly, they will gain a time appreciation. From there, the Lt might move into the CP to get some good training on the procedures of firing the battery. As more time progresses, the Lt will climb to being a GPO, getting a good look at the overall running of a Battery, from admin to fighting local defence battles. Some day that Rosy cheeked Lt will become a grizzled captain and be known as BK, he will always think in a tactical sense. After all of this OJT, plus trips to various artillery school, regimental, and battery level training exercises, the Captain will be sent to Gagetown to learn how to employ the guns as a Fire Effects Officer. There they learn all about calling for fire from all kinds of systems, but they learn to liaise with Battalion, Squadron, and Company commanders. FE's are there to support the combined arms battle. They need to learn how the infantry moves and fights when attacking, defending, flanking, and a bunch of other good moves. Then they learn how to advise the support arms commander on how they can help them achieve their aim. An FE officer that knows his batter is moving, pullingg in, or pullin out, would advise the supported arm that he should stay in position for a few minutes, until he has guaranteed fire. The whole point I am going for is that Officers are trained from the get go to eventually become an FE officer. They have been taught to understand the battle higher and lower than themselves. By doing every job in the battery, it is hoped that they are then more knowledgeable and realistic in dispensing advice both in regard to effectiveness of fire and reaction to calls for fire. I am not saying that the NCO's of a regiment could not be trained to do this job, but with the way that we are going, 3 streams, there is a possibility that the former BK has spent 10 years on the gun line, and the FE tech has done is DP1 arty, then his drivers, comms course and FE tech course. And has not been on the guns since DP1. He might get a bad case of "remember in the old days when I was on course and it took 45 seconds to pull in and be finished my check bearing" But even if he doesn't, he still has not got the tactics school training, the time employing a battery, or the rank (even as a Sgt, a Company commander might not be taking what you say as the gospel truth) to do the FE officers job. There are plenty of times when the FE tech gets to shoot the battery on their own, like during fire plans. But the actual logistics of training a reg forces FE techs to do the job of the FE officer might just be a drain on resources. Plus, being an MFC shouldn't be like some kind of "Last Mile" revolutionary change, Other than a higher rate of fire, less range, and a steeper trajectory it should be no harder to fire a battery of Mortars than a battery of guns. Just grab the other TOF tables and get it on.