Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: B-29 gun turrets (response) Message-ID: <13028@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 11 Jan 90 04:59:16 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 24 Approved: military@att.att.com From: att!utzoo!henry >From: Chip Mayse >... Obviously trajectory could be estimated from the movement of the >sighting apparatus, but I don't know how range was estimated unless from >some combination of assumed values for target speed and range at initial >engagement plus sensed gunsight motion... I don't know exactly what the B-29 system did, but one approach to such things was to have the gunner turn a knob until the diameter of a circle in his sight roughly matched the wingspan of the target, with a switch for big vs small fighters. This actually worked tolerably well in theory, since there wasn't that much variation in fighter size and wingspan. >... gave me the impression that the CFC system was accurate if given >a few seconds' tracking time, which engenders the suspicion that the >computing process was slow by modern standards. Given the vintage of the equipment, this was probably a mechanical computer, not an electronic one, so it's not surprising that it would be a bit slow... Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu