Category Archives: Military History

A Problem Solved in Excel and Mathcad

Posted on 30-November-2013 by mathscinotes

I use both Excel and Mathcad in my daily work. Most people would consider me very proficient in both. I frequently get asked, "Which tool is better?" Like all other interesting questions in Engineering, the answer is "it depends".

As an example, I decided to work a simple problem in both Excel and Mathcad. A number of the advantages and disadvantages of both tools can be seen in this example. The key problem with Excel is its cell-oriented approach. While the cell-oriented approach works for small problems, it has major issue with large problem Continue reading →

Posted in Ballistics, History of Science and Technology, Military History, Naval History | 2 Comments

Fire Control Formulas from World War 1

Posted on 23-November-2013 by mathscinotes

Quote of the Day When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag carrying the Cross. — Sinclair Lewis Introduction I am reading the book "Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control". … Continue reading →

Posted in Ballistics, History of Science and Technology, Military History | 11 Comments

WW2 Sub Skippers Were Very Young

Posted on 15-November-2013 by mathscinotes

Hollywood movies usually show WW2 sub skippers as men in their late 40s or 50s (e.g. Operation Pacific or Run Silent Run Deep). I found a list of the top scoring US submarine skippers of WW2 and was able to figure out their birthdays. Given their birthdays, I determined that they had an average age of 32 years on December 7th, 1941. The following table summarizes their ages and their post-war "ships sunk" scoring. When you think about the responsibility they had, these men were very young. Continue reading →

Posted in History Through Spreadsheets, Military History | 3 Comments

World War 2 Industrial Casualties

Posted on 15-October-2013 by mathscinotes

I like to watch authors discuss their history books on BookTV. I listen to BookTV while I work around the house. One weekend, I heard two historians (I did not write down their names) discussing World War 2 and each mentioned a statistic that sounded something like this (my wording). Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science and Technology, History Through Spreadsheets, Military History | 24 Comments

Aiming Torpedoes from a PT Boat

Posted on 24-June-2013 by mathscinotes

I read quite a bit of World War 1 (WW1) and World War 2 (WW2) naval history. Recently, I have tried to specialize my readings on torpedo launch platforms. One area where I have never seen much information is on how torpedoes were used from PT boats during WW2. I am particularly interested in how torpedoes were aimed and launched. While doing some history-related searches on Youtube, I discovered this video that does an excellent job of showing how torpedoes were launched from PT boats. Continue reading →

Posted in Ballistics, History of Science and Technology, Military History, Naval History | 25 Comments

Battleship Guns and Danger Space

Posted on 19-April-2013 by mathscinotes

I have been reading a couple of excellent books about battleships ("Naval Firepower" and "Guns at Sea"). During my reading, I have encountered the term "Danger Space" that appears with nearly every table describing the large naval guns. Of course, I had no idea what danger space was when I began investigating it. It turns out that danger space describes an important metric for battleship guns and it is worthwhile documenting what I have learned about it here. Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science and Technology, Military History, Naval History | 7 Comments

Questions That Don't Need to Be Asked

Posted on 17-April-2013 by mathscinotes

Some "interesting" questions come my way -- one just rolled in about my plans for dealing with an electromagnetic pulse attack (I don't have any plans for that situation). When I say interesting, I mean that this question really did not need to be asked. The best example of this type of question is one I heard when I was on a cruise ship. When I am on a cruise ship, I always ask if I can get a tour of the bridge -- they often do host a tour. During this tour, the ship’s navigator will sometimes offer to host a seminar on how the ship navigates. This actually happened and a number of passengers attended. During this seminar, the navigator mentioned that the ship normally navigated using GPS, but was equipped for celestial navigation if it was needed. The navigator then sheepishly added that his celestial navigation was very rusty because it had been so long since he had used it. A passenger than very seriously asked, “What if global thermonuclear war broke out and all the GPS satellites were destroyed – how would we find our way home?” The audience sat in stunned silence. I don't think that question needed to be asked. Continue reading →

Posted in Military History, Navigation | Comments Off on Questions That Don't Need to Be Asked