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ed.goforth writes:
"Gears of war: When mechanical analog computers ruled the waves over at Ars is a quick recap of the history of naval targeting & fire control systems and the transition from analog to digital. In short, you'll never believe just how good those old designs were, and how much work it's taken to make GPS-based guidance be as accurate."
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A Brief History of Analog Targeting Systems
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(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:27PM
Really nice, long, detailed article with lots of links. Other authors could learn quite a bit from it. I especially like the point that analog can be as good or better than digital, something many folks refuse to accept. But I really got a kick out of this statement:
So take away the technology that makes the AGS what it is and suddenly it becomes only as accurate as the technology it's replacing? Whodathunkit!
(Score: 2, Informative) by MozeeToby on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:40PM
The way it's written doesn't make it entirely clear, the GPS they are talking about lives inside the shells they are firing. You could drop the GPS guided shells into the old system and achieve similar accuracy to the new system; albeit with 100 times the weight, 1000 times the power requirements, and 10 times more crew to run it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Tuesday March 18 2014, @04:07PM
Projectiles in that day did not have Guidance fins of any kind steering. Adding GPS would not be enough, you also have to add control mechanisms to the projectile.
Some of the 5inch guns still found on ships, were designed around the time of WWII, and do indeed have the capability to use highly sophisticated munitions. But don't discount the accuracy of dumb chunk of metal projectiles.
Most large bore naval guns (which these days are pretty much limited to 5 inch guns) can use a variety of projectiles, some of which are simply old schools spinning projectiles which are radar monitored for corrections on subsequent shots, others are highly sophisticated saboted munitions [photoshelter.com], some with rocket assist.
This page [defense-update.com] describes an army 155mm shell with both inertial and satellite based GPS guidance to execute course corrections through the flight.
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