FIRE-CONTROL RADARS FOR XAVAL VESSELS 47 



part in furnishing accurate range which made 5" gunfire against aircraft, 

 for exanii)le, deadly at long range. Thus on October 16, 1942, when the 

 South Dakota was attacked by planes she shot down an even 38 out of 38 

 attacking. 



The rapid and widespread application of this rather complex electronic 

 equipment was not accomplished without pain and confusion. It is beyond 

 the scope of this paper to discuss the enormous problem of training in 

 operation and maintenance that had to be solved, or of the tactical revo- 

 lution in Naval warfare that fire-control radar produced. It is sufficient 

 here to say that these and other problems were solved by heroic efforts of 

 hundreds of officers and civilians in the Navy Department ashore and the 

 thousands of officers and men of the fleet. Their problems were made more 

 difficult by weaknesses in the equipment which were revealed by battle 

 experience as the new science of radar got its baptism of fire. In every 

 possible case the Laboratories attempted to remove the causes of recurring 

 troubles by redesign and the furnishing of improvement kits of parts for 

 installation in the fleet. The many lessons of experience learned from the 

 Mark 3's and 4's were immediately applied in the design of the many more 

 modern radars for the same and other types of service. 



The authors of this paper wish to express their gratitude to the many 

 Navy men with whom they have worked in connection with these equip- 

 ments, and whose whole-hearted cooperation during difficult times made 

 possible the successful development of these lire-control radars. They 

 also wish to thank their colleagues in Bell Telephone Laboratories who 

 worked as a team to make this important equipment possible, and the men 

 of the Western Electric Company for their help on the many engineering 

 problems which arose during production and use in the field. It is the hope 

 of all who were concerned with this development that accurate radars, like 

 other radars, will find peaceful use in a peaceful world, but it is also the 

 determination of these engineers that as long as we need a Navy, we will 

 try to provide it with radars as much superior to those of any possible 

 enemy as they were in the recent w^ar. 



