I don’t understand how they can accurately aim artillery. When they fire the whole machine moves a great deal and it would seem any calibration of its position would be lost.
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WW2 defenses for San Francisco are a great example of how this can be done. Along the coast south of the Golden Gate were a series of spotter stations. No guns, just a small bunker with a high-precison compass and a communication line.
Farther inland and out of sight of the ocean were artillery batteries. Through careful surveying and trigonometry the correlation between any location off the coast and the azimuth/angle settings for each artillery piece to hit that spot was created. Any enemy ship approaching the coast would be sighted by the shore observation posts – each post radioing the target angle (from their perspective) and heading/speed.
The guns would receive these datapoints, look them up in a book, dial in the azimuth/angles indicated and fire. Hypothetical example: station 1 – 272 degrees, station 2 – 265 degrees would correspond to 35 degree azimuth, 285 degree angle. Gun fires… Enemy starting seeing splashes all around them with no idea of where they’re coming from. High precision continuous shots until they’re either hit or retreat.
Really cool bit of history and a very clever system.
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