Back in the day when a warship was doing a workup off Portland in the UK at approximately 08:30 all ships would commence OOW manoeuvres. Junior Officers would take the con and armed with a Battenberg Course Plotter and a range finder would be required to take station on the guide ship and move to a different station when signaled to do so.
The Battenberg
Plotter.
Range was obtained by a small hand held optical rangefinder using the mast height of the guide ship. Manoeuvring distance was 2.5 cables for destroyers.
With the first pictured item they flew to the moon. .How spectacular and how inappropriate of me not to mention it Bet You used abacus in primary school. I did
Had something similar when I started flying. A circular slide rule for speed distance calculation.
Probably still have it somewhere along with my parallel rules
How would you describe how that device was used? Would you set it up initially for a solution and then after just tweak the inputs as the shipâs relative position changed?
the speed of the guide was set on 1 arm, shipâs own speed set up on the other, present position set up using bearing and distance marked on the perspex surface with chinograph pencil and the bearing and distance required from the guide was also marked. the grid was then aligned to the twop points 9the realative course required. the guides arm line up with her course. the other swung around to the maching line thus completing a velocity triangle and giving a course to steer,
TIâs first retail** calculator was introduced in 1072 [ETA: oops â 1972] (Datamath 4-function and SR10 with square and square root), and their first one with trig functions (SR50) in 1974.
** [ETA: TI demonstrated a handheld electronic calculator in 1967 which they claim as the worldâs first.]
Tools like the Battenberg (obsolete) and the nautical slide rule exploit tactile reasoning about motion.
This is from Edwin Hutchinsâ paper, "The technology of team navigation".
The ⌠slide-rule transform the task from one of computation planningâfiguring out what to divide by whatâto one of simple manipulation of external devices.In the first two conditions, all that stands between the task performer and the nonsensical expressions R= DT and R=^T/D is a knowledge of the syntax of algebraic transformations. When using the nomogram or the slide-rule, the structure of the artifacts themselves obviate or lock out such relations among the terms.
Before ECDIS I sometimes used the nautical slide instead of a calculator. To calculate time to turn on a short leg for example.
Many years ago, I read s science fiction short story about a âspaceshipâ whoâs nav computer went down. Without it they couldnât plot a course to get them back to Earth and not certain about how much fuel they needed. One of the crewman had an âOrientalâ ethnicity and his grandparents used an abacus in their store. So the crew made abacuses (abacai) and used those to calculate their way home.
Obsolete or historical features a lot in the instruments procedures and equipment I used to use. Taunt Wire Measuring winch used in high speed mine laying, a Kelvin Hughes Sounding Machine and constructing a set of curves on a chart so that horizontal sextant angles could be plotted without using a station pointer for naval gunfire support.
The sounding machine was in a sorry state when I joined a ship as second mate and the captain ordered it to be cleaned up and it was duly attended to. When we fitted with a echo sounder the new master told me to get rid of it. It was mostly bronze and lowering it into a bum boat in Singapore anchorage kept me in the black for quite a while.
Nowadays the GPS feeds direct to the fire control system and with the geographical location of the target itâs look mum, no hands.
An ingenious device, analogous in some ways to the nautical slide rule in that it gives the user, literally, a âfeelâ for the problems and solutions, the Batternberg of course being more complicated.
If anyone is familiar with Harbor Freight, at one time they were selling a sextant that with correct use, it could probably tell you which ocean you were in.
Thanks for that trip down memory lane. My explanation relied on my imperfect memory.
On the bridge of the frigates I served in the reflection plotter was fitted with two Perspex arms that were moved in the same fashion. You faced aft to use the radar. Looking over your shoulder at the radar from the compass platform at night with the mask removed you could confirm that the ship acting as guide was moving down your calculated resultant track. This would be the procedure for moving into plane guard station on a carrier at night. Not apparently followed by the Evans collision with Melbourne.
I donât remember any problems with situation awareness even though looking backwards at a radar picture North Up then looking out the window.
Before ARPA all the tankers I sailed in had a little desk alongside the radar with US Navy manoeuvring sheets, chinograph pencils and an ultra violet light.
Yes, situational awareness (SA), This topic reminds me of Edwin Hutchinsâ work on distributed cognition .
The Battenberg fits perfectly with this concept, manipulating the various parts of the device with oneâs hands to build and maintain a mental representation of the situation.
There was a Baghdad battery back in Babalon, about that time. They thought up Algebra around that time⌠There might not have been much of a market back then.
I need to do some digging, but was the Battenburg plotter invented/promoted/developed by First Sea Lord Battenburg before he became a Mountbatten?
(An interesting tale of a family name changed for political/social reasons)
Yes. The device was developed by the father (also an admiral) of the better known Lord Lois Mountbatten who became Viceroy of India, mentor to then Prince Charles and was murdered by the IRA (pricks) with other innocent Irish civilians.
The Battenberg name was changed to Anglicise it to ease the anti-German ill-feeling of the Great War.
.How spectacular and how inappropriate of me not to mention it 
