In regards to missiles and torpedoes, what exactly do they mean when they are working on a firing solution. Especially when most modern missiles and torpedoes seem to have automatic homing / target funding technology?
In: 4
A firing solution is the set of data you put in the missile/torpedo/gun. It may be directly giving the torpedo/missile a set of data, or aiming your launcher/gun in the right direction.
History of firing solution
Roughly, 1890: there’s a ship, it’s enemy, fire! The gunner uses a stereoscopic rangefinder to estimate how far to shoot. And lead the target whatever he feels like. 1% hit rate at 2km was considered a success.
1918: lead ship tells you to target the seventh ship in the enemy line. Your firing plotting room has several tables. Checks the target, estimates heading of both shooter and target, gets his own rangefinder estimate, wind is factored. Sometimes, earth rotation is factored in. The first ship that lands a hit will tell the others what range it was exactly and everyone can copy that and adjust the data with its relative position compared to enemy and the ship that gave the useful info. There’s massive clocks on towers of those ships, those clock-like devices were used to display to your friends what range setup gave you a positive outcome.
1930: same but the calculation is not 5 people with paper chart, but a mechanical computer. Still, the first 3-10 salvo were trial and error where you shoot, see where the shell lands and correct. It takes roughly a minute to have the fort firing solution, then you fire half salvo, wait shel to land, correct the data, shoot again. (Roughly one half salvo every shell flight time + correction calculation time)
1945: full on electronics. You factor in anything you know. Own speed, target speed, relative movements, your and theirs, wind, air density, estimated weather at the target location, get your eventual rangefinder reading and your radar rangefinder, compensate for each turret position relative to the bridge, radar or rangefinder. Fire the very first salvo, immediately a full salvo. And you may have a 10% hit rate on a moving target at 27km. Meaning you hit at least with one shell of your first salvo. In the dark, in a foggy night. That’s incredibly good. And then keep firing as fast as your gun can do without melting.
The firing solution is basically, getting to that data that tells you where you should aim. Navy devices are the most interesting as they have to be superb. Both shooter and target are maneuvering to dodge shots, the shell flight time is minutes long, and there’s no external help. On land, it’s good enough if you shoot in the general direction with a spotter that radio you back how wrong you are, that’s something you can’t have on a ship. I mean, you can try row a raft next to the enemy ship to radio the fall of shots, but that’s something the enemy won’t let you do that easy lol.
In short: getting a firing solution is the step just before opening fire. It’s your first usable data to open fire. Means you have located, identified, and estimate well enough where is, your target. If you don’t get a firing solution, you can’t shoot, as it will give away your position without an actual chance to hit the enemy.
In naval context, the next term you find is “X ship finds the range on Y ship” means X ship got to a firing solution that hits something. And then, goes “full auto in the building” against the target. That’s the actual turning point of the battle, as you start to land 1-3 hits per salvo, every 30 seconds. And one hit may likely total a ship anyway.
Hope it helped.
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