[ale] OT: ballistics software

[Jonathan Rickman]

> I am looking for a program to do line of sights for a 
> shooting range.  I want to be able to take an tin (contour 
> information), input coordinates for my targets, give the 
> origin point a "field of view" (say an angle of 22deg 
> vertical, and 20deg horizontal), and have the program print 
> out all available targets in my "field of view".

There are firing point calculators that do exactly this in reverse. Using
GPS data, the system will give you the coordinates of the nearest firing
point that will allow you to hit a target at a given set of coordinates,
based on the exterior ballistics of the particular ordinance being used and
terrain being traversed. I am not aware of anything like this for small
arms, though I'm sure LE ballisticians have something available. I can ask
around. The high tech military approach involves a proper scope, a mil-dot
master table, and a lot of old fashioned arithmetic. There may very well be
some kind of ballistics software out there that you could use in conjunction
with a bit of that old fashioned arithmetic to work something out, but I am
not aware of any that is publicly available.

--
Jonathan