Large Scale Central

When mechanical analog computers ruled the waves.

As a sailor, I found this article to be very interesting. Its about mechanical fire control aboard our battleships.

While I’m a digital nerd, that was a really cool article. Being an airplane nut I’m also fascinated with the old Norden bomb site which had an analog computer in it too. It had something like a 75 ft accuracy. Amazing what cams, shafts and servos can do…

Steve Featherkile said:

As a sailor, I found this article to be very interesting. Its about mechanical fire control aboard our battleships.

Steve,

The original mechanical computer, Babbage’s Difference Engine, was started in 182. I believe it got funded by the British Gov in order to calculate range tables for firing the guns. By the end of WWII, they had them down to a fine art.

Thanks Steve that was neat! In the books I have been reading the authors make it very clear that US Gunnery had a clear and distinct advantage due to the these targeting computers, especially when later in the war they were tied into the ships radar systems allowing them to fire accurately on targets in darkness and in weather that harmed the older optical only style targeting systems. The Rangefinder Mark 8 on the battleships and the Ford Mark 1 on smaller ships allowed the Navy to concentrate fire in such a way that was impossible for the Japanese or Germans who were still using optical systems based pretty much on updated WW1 technology, and while extremely impressive for optical systems, particularly early in the war where Japanese and German gunners clearly showed amazing accuracy, that advantage disappeared almost overnight once the US gunnery officers used to learn these systems effectively. At the Battle Of San Bernardino Straights US Battle wagons used radar to plot and co-ordinate fire on the Japanese (who were obliterated without ever coming within sight of the US Battleships) without having to get close enough to require visual identification, which was something the Japanese still relied on. The US learned early on how dangerously out trained they were in gunnery. Early in the war at the Battle off Savo Island at Guadalcanal, the Japanese ran headlong into a US cruiser force, once the Japanese turned on their spotlights, they almost instantaneously opened fire on a very shocked US Navy, the results showed just how deadly and accurate the Japanese were using there own system. These model US targeting computers once they appeared helped turn that tide, while clearly superior to the ones used at the start of the war, they really shined once they were coupled with radar range-finding. Now with radar they could fire on enemies over the horizon, or with coordinate input from land based soldier direct extremely accurate fire miles inland. Many a flatfoots lives were saved by the accuracy of the fire directed inland from miles out to sea.

Vic, the Marines wish that the Navy still had the 16 inch guns. There is nothing like a VW loaded with HEAT falling on your position to make you change your mind. During Gulf 1, the Iraquis were surrendering to the drones that the BB’s used as fire control spotters, because they knew what was coming next.