16 inch guns aft

Love the Shot!! I worked on the USS Missouri in 1986 at Long Beach Naval Shipyard. My responsibility was to bring the the aft Secondary Battery(5" Guns) Gun Director and Radar (Mark 37 GFCS) , designated as Sky 4, to full operational status. If you are not familiar, it is the Radar dish and Structure directly above the aft turret in this photo. The two projections that look like "wings" on each side are covers for optical rangefinder which was ORIGINALLY the primary target acquisition method for this type of Director before the Radar(evidenced by the "dish") was installed in the early '40s when the ship was built. It was retained along with the radar installation. The entire rangefinder was roll and pitch stabilized and moved within the director as the ship moved. Because it was large and moved up and down at the far ends within the director, the director Rangefinder Operator and the Radar console operator who sat behind the rangefinder had to have a screen or a guard installed in later modifications. The moving RF was known prior to that as The Mankiller. The front of the inside of the director had 3 additional personnel: Two Radar display operators (Bearing and Elevation displays) and the Director Officer, who could fire the guns from the director. He was an Officer, all the other four in the Director were enlisted.Earlier BBs had this director without this radar or with earlier versions. A tracking Radar of this type was absolute CUTTING EDGE technology at the time. You could equate its inclusion at that time as equivalent today to a high energy laser weapon being developed and then installed to active use within a year to 18 months after development. It is a primitive system now. But at the time it was straight out of Science Fiction!! Just as a technical point, the moving director as installed aboard a BB weighed in at 40 TONS. Its drives could move it at up to 25 or 30 degrees per sec from a stopped position to full velocity !! Feel free to write dale.fire.control.usn@ear thlink.net

said DaleFireControlUSN 2007.03.02 at 11:02:20 PST