Director control aims all guns on the ship at a single target. Local control originated with primitive gun installations aimed by the individual gun crews. Naval gun fire control potentially involves three levels of complexity. Moreover, in naval engagements it is also necessary to control the firing of several guns at once. One could no longer eyeball the aim with any hope of accuracy. Combined with the long range of the guns, this meant that the target ship could move a considerable distance, several ship lengths, between the time the shells were fired and landed. Earlier screw-powered capital ships were capable of perhaps 16 knots, but the first large turbine ships were capable of over 20 knots. These guns were capable of such great range that the primary limitation was seeing the target, leading to the use of high masts on ships.Īnother technical improvement was the introduction of the steam turbine which greatly increased the performance of the ships.
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Guns were now free to grow to any size, and quickly surpassed 10 inches (250 mm) calibre by the turn of the century. This problem was solved with the introduction of the gyroscope, which corrected this motion and provided sub-degree accuracies. Rifled guns of much larger size firing explosive shells of lighter relative weight (compared to all-metal balls) so greatly increased the range of the guns that the main problem became aiming them while the ship was moving on the waves. Rapid technical improvements in the late 19th century greatly increased the range at which gunfire was possible. Įven during the American Civil War, the famous engagement between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia was often conducted at less than 100 yards (90 m) range. In fact, most naval engagements before 1800 were conducted at ranges of 20 to 50 yards (20 to 50 m).
The early history of naval fire control was dominated by the engagement of targets within visual range (also referred to as direct fire). The original fire-control systems were developed for ships. See also: Ship gun fire-control system Origins
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