

40s-era Mechanical Fire Control Computers Explained - cma
http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/VIDEOS/fire_control_computer_1.html

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cma
part 2:
[http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/VIDEOS/fire_control_computer_...](http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/VIDEOS/fire_control_computer_2.html)

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andrewvc
I never thought I would see a mechanical integer overflow till I saw the cam
example in this video.

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jackfoxy
Fascinating. I've often wondered about the old mechanical fire control
computers. According to a TV show I saw, the fire control computers on US WWII
submarines were so top secret no good documentation on them has survived, and
I believe the only (or one of the few) fully intact examples left is on the
USS Pampanito in San Francisco. Once the bugs were finally worked out in the
Mark 14 torpedo US submarines were a hugely effective a weapon in the Pacific
war.

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jackfoxy
The submarine fire control computers had to solve a three body problem, not a
two body problem like the surface ships.

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ars
Hu? That's not correct. A submarine going underwater is no different than an
airplane going above a surface ship.

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jackfoxy
The third body is the torpedo. Since it travels so much slower than a
ballistic artillery projectile the navigation of the torpedo becomes the most
important part of the problem to solve. A torpedo attack wan't the way it is
portrayed in movies. It took hours to maneuver the submarine and plan the
attack. This wasn't point and click. The course, speed, and other
characteristics were programmed into the torpedo before it was launched.

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bradgessler
Does anybody have an alt link? These look like they died:

    
    
      "Sorry, Service Temporarily Unavailable."

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cma
Looks like it ended up making it to the front page of reddit; you may have to
give it a few hours (unfortunately it may end up dying here before people get
a chance to see it).

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cma
via said reddit thread:

<http://www.multiupload.com/W6BRMLW5ST>
<http://www.multiupload.com/FO2WO6GP6C>

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clistctrl
As always my computer science forefathers were more manly than I am. It really
is fascinating how these clever mechanisms can be used to solve a dynamic
problem such as fire control.

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rdtsc
My first encounter with a CS "forefather" was my CS101 professor. He had a
long gray beard , glasses, a pocket protector and could do mental arithmetic
in octal. When he started in CS there was no CS, so he was a logician, and
then switched to CS. The oldest professor from the philosophy department still
refers to him as a "traitor"

