Gears of war: When mechanical analog computers ruled the waves

By admin 4 years ago

From the archives: In some ways, new Navy computers fall short of the power of 1930s tech. …

The Advanced Gun System, left, is intended to take on the role of the battleship's 16-inch guns, right. Aside from its GPS-guided shell, the digital technology of the AGS's fire control system does exactly what the USS Iowa's Rangekeeper Mark 8 did—just with fewer people and less weight.

The Advanced Gun System, left, is intended to take on the role of the battleship’s 16-inch guns, right. Aside from its GPS-guided shell, the digital technology of the AGS’s fire control system does exactly what the USS Iowa’s Rangekeeper Mark 8 did—just with fewer people and less weight.

reader comments

53 with 37 posters participating

Update: We are resurfacing this feature from 2014 for your reading pleasure on this holiday weekend.

The USS Zumwalt, the latest destroyer now undergoing acceptance trials, comes with a new type of naval artillery: the Advanced Gun System (AGS). The automated AGS can fire 10 rocket-assisted, precision-guided projectiles per minute at targets over 100 miles away.

Those projectiles use GPS and inertial guidance to improve the gun’s accuracy to a 50 meter (164 feet) circle of probable error—meaning that half of its GPS-guided shells will fall within that distance from the target. But take away the fancy GPS shells, and the AGS and its digital fire control system are no more accurate than mechanical analog technology that is nearly a century old.

We’re talking about electro-mechanical analog fire control computers like the Ford Instruments Mark 1A Fire Control Computer and Mark 8 Rangekeeper. These machines solved 20-plus variable calculus problems in real-time, constantly, long before digital computers got their sea legs. They were still in use when I served aboard the USS Iowa

Continue reading – Article source

Similar Posts:

Related Posts: