You predate the US Army Ballistics Research Lab?
They had a dog that did ballistics calculations???!?!!!!!
No. That was back in the mid fifties, right?
I served from '66 to '80. By about '74 or '75 we had FADAC. Expensive, big, heavy, slow, fragile and regarded as mostly useless by those of us who knew how to do the work. A set of sticks, a whiz wheel and tabular firing tables weighed less than a pound. The FADAC took four men to move it and it needed a gasoline operated 10K generator that rode on a trailer and made a LOT of noise to provide power. By the late seventies we were still leaving the FADAC behind whenever we could get away with it because it was too much trouble to set up and use and was slower than a competent E-5 with a set of sticks and tables. Not to mention the lack of reliability.
FADAC was not the kind of computer we know today. In 1980 when I got out, the job titles in the Fire Direction center were:
Chart operator (x2) who plotted the target and read off range and azimuth using a specialized Range/Deflection Protractor.
Computer. Usually an E-5 who, using graphical (sticks) and tabular (a book) firing tables, calculated ballistic data using the information from the chart operators and applying corrections based on the most recent meteorological message to account for air pressure and density, wind direction and velocity in the various layers of atmosphere through which the round would pass on it's trajectory to the target. Other corrections were applied to account for battery registration data, projectile weight, propellant temperature and the difference in elevation between the battery and the target.
"That's a whole lot of numbers!" said PFC Michaels in 1975. Yes. It is
The Chief Computer, usually an E-6, was the section chief who supervised and checked the work of the computer with his own set of sticks. The two chart operators checked each other.
And that is WAY more than needed to be said about that. But I spent so much time drafting it that I shall post it anyway.
Forgive me.