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.
Read more about this topic: Gun Laying
Famous quotes containing the words naval gun, naval, gun and/or laying:
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The world was a huge ball then, the universe a might harmony of ellipses, everything moved mysteriously, incalculable distances through the ether.
We used to feel the awe of the distant stars upon us. All that led to was the eighty-eight naval guns, ersatz, and the night air-raids over cities. A magnificent spectacle.
After the collapse of the socialist dream, I came to America.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)