XPost: sci.military.naval, alt.war.world-war-two
On Thu, 15 Aug 2024 12:47:01 -0400, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"a425couple" wrote in message news:vwruO.348359$qO%5.170771@fx16.iad...
Common myth is that battleships were these cross sighted bad shooters
that almost always scored less than 1% hit rates. This could sometimes
be the case, heavy seas and fog did often mess up their shooting, but
when given the opportunity, such as in clear-ish weather, battleships
could aim very well.
------------------------
This claims 20 hits from 75 16" shells fired by USS Washington in a
night battle with IJN Kirishima:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/kirishimaDamageAnalysis.php
"Washington's first salvo was a straddle."
Or the Pearl Harbor Survivors, back in the line after being raised and repaired, fitted with 1944 era U.S. Navy Radar and Fire Control Systems, plastering the IJN Yamashiro with first-salvo hits at Surigao Straight.
US Fire Control Systems in the late 1930s and 1940s on were fierce - Electromechanical Analog Computers automatically fed target range, azimuth (And, in the case of AA and Dual Purpose Guns, elevation) from the radars
and rangefinders, using these inputs plus Own Ship's Speed, Heading, Orientation (A Stable Vertical System using Gyroscopes to measure roll,
pitch and yaw for automatic Cross Leveling) to drive the Directors and
Optical Rangefinders by Remote Power Control (So that when the Computer
was tracking properly, having derived Target Bearing, Speed, Instantaneous Range and Bearing and Range Rates) the director automatically slewed on
target, (Adjusted if necessary by the Director Operators - a Rate-Aided Tracking System) that was also driving the guns via Remote Power Control,
using set ballistic data. The entire data chain was automated - after the initial setup, no manual inputs, with firing controlled by 1 Officer at
the Computer with a firing trigger (Which was actually Permission to Fire
- Ship's Roll and motion had to be allowed for).
During the War, nobody else had this - the Japanese came close, but relied
on manual data transmission and inputs, and cross levelling was done
manually by optical means, with all the delays and potential garbling of information.
The Brits started to get into that level of sophistication toward the end
of the War, the Germans and Italians never came close.
--
Peter Stickney
Java Man knew nothing about coffee
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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