This US Navy training film from 1954 (film number MN9342) demonstrates how the 16-inch main battery guns are aimed and how trajectories are calculated to hit the target. An essential document of mid-century naval gunnery doctrine.
Hitting a moving target from a moving ship, miles away, is a problem in prediction rather than pointing. The film walks through the main-battery fire-control chain: spotters and optical range finders measure the target’s range and bearing; the fire-control radar refines it; and that data feeds the analog Ford Mark 8 rangekeeper below decks, which continuously computes where the target will be by the time the shells arrive. To that solution the system adds ballistic corrections for the range, for wind, for air density and temperature, for the earth’s rotation, and for the wear of the gun bore, then transmits the resulting gun orders to the turrets so the 16-inch rifles are laid automatically. The film shows how each of these elements combines into a single firing solution.
See also the companion pages on Fire Control Analog Computers Parts 1 & 2 — 1953.