Early Dreyer Bearing Plot

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Mark III Table plan from June 1912
Note bearing plot on left with single deflection drum and primitive rate grid.

The Early Dreyer Bearing Plots is a collective description of a family of bearing plots found on Dreyer tables before the advent of the Standard Bearing Plot and Gyro Director Training Gear. These bearing plot patterns changed incrementally and are historically important, for it was ones of this lineage that found general use at Jutland.

Improvements

Proposals were issued from H.M.S. Queen Elizabeth in December, 1915 suggesting that increasing the slope of the bearing line might assist in discerning the low bearing rates that would prevail in most long-range fighting. When a "Mark V" table was erected in Ramillies in July, 1917, the transmission steps of the bearing were also reduced from 1/4 degree steps to four arc minute steps by use of a special transmitter made by Elliott Brothers. This alteration greatly improved the visual fidelity of the data. It was ordered that these improved bearing transmitters should be provided to other ships, but the same fine transmissions were part of the Gyro Director Training Gear, and so this work was put off in favour of that innovation.[1]

[TO BE CONTINUED - TONE]

See Also

Footnotes

  1. The Technical History and Index, Vol. 3, Part 23. p. 27.

Bibliography

  • Brooks, John (2005). Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control. Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 0714657026. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
  • Admiralty, Gunnery Branch (1918). Handbook of Captain F. C. Dreyer's Fire Control Tables, 1918. C.B. 1456. Copy No. 10 at Admiralty Library, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
  • Dreyer, Frederic; Usborne, Cecil through Gunnery Branch, Admiralty. (1913). Pollen Aim Corrector System, Part I. Technical History and Technical Comparison with Commander F. C. Dreyer's Fire Control System. P. 1024. in Admiralty Library, Portsmouth.
  • Elliott Brothers, London (1916). Captain F. C. Dreyer's Fire Control Apparatus, Mark IV. Copy 19 "as fitted in H.M.S. Royal Oak" at H.M.S. Excellent Library, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.