Coast Artillery Gun Laying
Most coast artillery was in fixed defences, "fortresses" in some form. Their targets moved in two dimensions, and, like anti-aircraft laying, the gun had to be aimed at the target's future position. Again like anti-aircraft, some guns were relatively small calibre and dealt with relatively close targets, others were much larger for long-range targets. Since the targets were far better protected than aircraft, the coast guns were larger.
Coast artillery employed direct fire, and until the late 19th century laying had changed little, apart from gaining telescopic sights, over the centuries. Nineteenth-century improvements in gun design and ammunition greatly extended their effective range.
In 1879 Major HS Watkins of the Royal Garrison Artillery invented the position-range finder and associated fire control. He had already invented the depression range-finder. His description explains its essence: "The position-finder traces the course of the ship, and when the guns are ready to lay, predicts the position the ship will occupy half a minute or more in advance. The dials on the gun floor automatically indicate the range and training to hit the predicted position. When the guns are laid an electric tube (i.e. primer) is inserted and the signal goes up to the observing station that all is ready for firing. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the position-finder watches for the appearance of the ship in the field of view of his telescope, and when she arrives at the cross wires presses a button, and the guns are fired."
It took almost 20 years to get it to full effectiveness, but its general principle became the norm for heavy coast artillery fire control and laying. Shorter-range guns retained conventional direct-fire laying with telescopes for much longer. In the 20th century, coast artillery, like field and the larger anti-aircraft guns, included corrections for non-standard conditions such as wind and temperature in their calculations. Coast artillery passed into history in most countries in the 1950s.
Read more about this topic: Gun Laying
Famous quotes containing the words coast, artillery, gun and/or laying:
“What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“We now demand the light artillery of the intellect; we need the curt, the condensed, the pointed, the readily diffused—in place of the verbose, the detailed, the voluminous, the inaccessible. On the other hand, the lightness of the artillery should not degenerate into pop-gunnery—by which term we may designate the character of the greater portion of the newspaper press—their sole legitimate object being the discussion of ephemeral matters in an ephemeral manner.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“What cannot stand must fall; and the measure of our sincerity and therefore of the respect of men, is the amount of health and wealth we will hazard in the defence of our right. An old farmer, my neighbor across the fence, when I ask him if he is not going to town-meeting, says: “No, ‘t is no use balloting, for it will not stay; but what you do with the gun will stay so.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“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)