Naval Gun Laying
The introduction of breech-loading guns, then recoil systems and smokeless powder, completed the change in warship armament from hull-mounted to turreted guns or guns on pedestal mounts fitted with shields. Main armament in capital ships soon adopted laying arrangements broadly similar to Major Watkins' coast artillery pattern, and, as with coast artillery, shorter-range guns retained conventional direct-fire sights until after World War II. Anti-aircraft guns on ships also used arrangements similar to those used on land service pattern.
However, ships had a complication compared to land based guns: they were firing from a moving platform. This meant that their laying calculations had to predict the future position of both ship and target.
By World War II, ships, turret traverse, gun elevation and recoil were managed using hydraulic power. Ballistic calculations were performed by analog computers called predictors or rangekeepers. The guns were fired electrically, and a fire control system is arranged to fire the guns in sequence, firing each gun as the roll of the ship brought the gun to bear on its target. By the 1950s gun turrets were increasingly unmanned, with gun laying controlled remotely from the ship's control centre using inputs from radar and other sources.
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