Naval History Forums

How does the distribution of fire worked? As a matter of fact how someone flotaing on a warship at certain speed and course and looking thru a fire director can hit an object at another speed and direction?
No digital computers in WWI and WW2: all manual?

They had electromechanical devices that we can call "computer" for the calculation of the fire data.

Paul Schmalenbach, 2nd and then 1st Gunnery Officer in the PRINZ EUGEN, and later director of the Bundesmarine's Federal Artillery Testing Facility, wrote a very comprehensive book on the subject and its historical evolution: "Die Geschichte der deutschen Schiffsartillerie", Koehler Verlag, 1993. Unfortunately, there is no English edition, but some of the diagrams are self-explanatory. I am sure there are equivalent English texts for the armchair admirals.

These two sources are a good place to start for the US and RN systems

http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/FIRE-CONTROL-PAGE.html

and

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/br224/index.htm

Karl Heidenreich wrote:How does the distribution of fire worked? As a matter of fact how someone flotaing on a warship at certain speed and course and looking thru a fire director can hit an object at another speed and direction?
No digital computers in WWI and WW2: all manual?

Hi Karl:

If you have not already poked around "The Dreadnought Project" you should give it a look. Tony Lovell has done some amazing computer animated simulations showing RN methods of developing firing solutions using mechanical computers. WWI Dreadnought material.

http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/

Best Regards
marty