Pinned post for Q&A :)

1:11:11

Battleship Texas Fire Control: "Hurry up with the abacus!  Chief Wardzynski needs to carve the solution into his clay tablets!"

Sometimes someone forgets not just how old computers are, but how complex calculation they could do.

Its not the best place for this. But my uncle passed last night in his sleep last thing he heard was this video learning more before I go to the navy.. thank you for making him comfortable and giving him something good to listen to in his last moments.

A friend's father was an ensign aboard a Gearing class DD near the end of WWII. They were testing a new fire control computer prototype on a deserted island near Cuba one day. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the computer. Instead of averaging the rangefinder results, the computer added them together. They missed the island. Thank goodness for QA...

Drach and New Jersey - the greatest collab to come out of the 2020s.

ROFL at 13:35 I had tabbed out but was listening - I tabbed back in and saw that bridge - but for a moment i genuinely thought "that is the most stupidly designed antenna I have ev... oh.  oh." :D

A whole hour of "Oh wow!" details {I am an engineer so I shall use that as an excuse :)}.

For me, the thing that I think impressed me more than anything else was the fact that the range finder builders had to manufacture to such fine tolerances AND have the materials science filed to such a point that they could build in allowances for temperature changes!

(Fire Control Part 3) Capital ships with two directors and two plotting rooms, each with its own computer, could engage two targets. The US “fast” battleships had a switchboard in their plotting rooms that allowed any director to use any mount, so that one main gun turret could be controlled by each Mk.38 director and one by one of the secondary Mk.37 directors. In this case, the Mk.37 director would by-pass its own computer to synchronize with the main armament plotting room. Some capital ships had an emergency control director in the rear of a turret (usually a super-firing turret farther above the waterline) with a simplified computer to provide director control to the gun turrets. Each mount, of course, could engage targets in local control, some navies fitting simple fire control computers at the turret officer’s station to generate a firing solution. All of this was controlled by the ship’s gunnery officer. Positioned in the conning tower or on the bridge, the gunnery officer usually had a target indicator, binoculars on a pedestal or a periscope that might communicate bearing automatically or manually. Often the gunnery officer had a spotting glass or even a rangefinder. Sometimes there was even a simplified fire control computer at his station as a backup. Modern US “fast” battleships had two primary and six secondary directors for the main armament. A spotting glass was different from a rangefinder. The spotting glass was used to detect the fall of shells and their distance from the target, not the distance from the firing ship to the target. The USN used spotting glasses in some directors, with the Mk.34 initially having a spotting glass, which was replaced from 1940 with a 15’ stereo rangefinder.
All these improvements still operated within the physical limit of the visual horizon. At one hundred feet above sea level, the curve of the earth limits visual distance to around 24,000 yards on a clear day, while the visual horizon from a point thirty feet above sea level was around 12,000 yards. This is why turret elevations generally leveled off at between fifteen- and thirty-degrees during World War 1. Most high-powered heavy guns could reach 24,000 yards at fifteen degrees, while going to twenty or thirty gave insurance against hull damage causing lists. Suddenly at the end of and after the war, navies were demanding a minimum of forty degrees elevation. What changed? The ability of the capital ship to carry and launch aircraft, aircraft that had a flight endurance of two to four hours and transceivers, that were light in weight, reliable and powerful enough to be put into an aircraft light enough to operate from a flying off platform or catapult carried aboard a capital ship. The observer could be put over the target and correct fall of shot to the maximum ballistic range of the gun. By 1935, the US Fleet could successfully engage a target ship at 30,000 yards over a smoke screen by air spotting. The IJN intended for its Battle Line to open an engagement at more than 35,000 yards using air spotting. Air spotting did have its limitations. One navy or the other had to establish air supremacy (or at least air superiority, which is why multiple aircraft were carried, to make up for losses) over the battle area. There had to be multiple aircraft to maintain spotters over the battle area. Radio procedures had to be developed to ensure ships were working with the right spotters and engaging the right targets. Aerial spotters had to be trained. Most ship’s captains were reluctant to use seaplanes if they had to recover them, since this involved slowing or even stopping their ship, making it more vulnerable to submarines. Poor visibility or bad weather would limit or prohibit the launching of aircraft. The aircraft and the aviation fuel represented a fire danger to the ship, especially when installed near ventilation systems that provided air to closed spaces like engineering or ready service

I remember reading that while the US battleships were still in service, a great deal of research was done on eliminating gun dispersion with computerised models and the best sensors available, but it turned out to be an intractable problem - some dispersion was inevitable.

By the mid-50s, the M-48 tank had a similar "iron idiot" ballistic computer that incorporated mechanical linkages to the "ears" of the coincidence rangefinder on the sides of the turret.

I know there are some of your viewers who might consider this video a bit too technical or even "dry", but I found it truly facinating. I have played the old warship simulation rules like Seapower and Seapower 2 and they give a basic idea of the difficulty of two moving objects trying to hit each other. One factor they do not address at all, is sea state. The system for determining true vertical whether by pitch or roll makes so much sense to me now, but I never thought of it before. I know age of sail ships had to take into consideration roll as it would affect the angle of the guns but it was done by the gunner's skill and experience. Bravo!

I find analog and mechanical computers cool, we can literally see the machine parts moving about when its computing and calculating

Wow! Dr. Scholes spoke for the entire hour and 11 minutes, and I listened to it all. And then there's the comments which add even more value to a fascinating topic. Thanks!

PS, Drach I'll see you at the HNSA symposium.

In early 1987 I was on USS Constellation (CV-64) in lieu of my senior training cruise on TSGB (Training Ship Golden Bear). USS New Jersey (BB-62) was docked astern and Connie's Training Officer arranged a tour. In 1990 during RIMPAC '90 I watched USS Missouri (BB-63) conduct a firing. We were 1500 yards off her stern. The sequence was the 5 inch mounts firing 10 rounds rapid continuous fire. Then the 16 inch guns fired forward to after, first by barrel and then by turret. The finale was a full broadside with the 16 inch and 5 inch guns.

In "The Night The Giants Rode" over at Unauthorised, Bill relates that he was trained on the Submarine equivalent as a young officer. And that when they got the electronic computers instead of the analogue ones; the latter did not have enough computing power to achieve the same precision.

At 4:15 Iowa (I think) is refuelling "Sophie X", german destroyer Schleswig-Holstein. My old commanding officer was aboard her during BALTOPS 86 and told us how awesome it was to see a battleship firing

when the Iowas were last in service, the Mk13 radar was the oldest extant radar in the navy still in use.

Periscope has a great film breaking down analog computation and fire control computers so that even a math-phobe like me can understand.
Thanks for this Drach!

Cousin survives Pearl Harbor on USS Maryland as firecontrolman standing atop the cage mast watching for the fall of shot. Went to work for RCA helped develop the Aegis weapons system told me after spending time on Iowa during Korea that those 4 ships were the ultimate weapons system and later said they would be immune to a electromagnet pulse.