Foggy fun with the deck gun (radar targeting)

[perisher]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Two problems with radar and missing splashes:

1) Radar can pick up short splashes, and tell pretty well how far short they are, but 'overs' are likely to be shielded by the target itself. Also, in surface ships the radar operator is in direct communication with fire control. On a sub I don't think they're using sound-powered phones to talk to each other.

2) At the kind of ranges a sub is shooting at (500 yards?) it's all too close together for the radar to work. Also, adjusting for misses takes time - the fire-control officer has to see (or be told about) the miss and adjust accordingly. At close range there's no time to do all that; it's point and shoot - direct fire.

In James Calvert's book Silent Running he was serving in a Gato in 1944. In order to reduce the number of personnel on deck in a gun action they combined the roles of fire-control officer, spotter and gun-layer. The guy in charge took the gun-layer's seat and a headset was rigged for him to talk direct to the radar operator who gave him his fall of shot.