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Interesting! Thanks for posting. The Crosley Corporation was based in Cincinnati I believe and sold many items, including cars. Crosley was a very wealthy man back then. There is a Crosley Fish & Wildlife Area in Indiana that he left to the state.

But this relatively obscure company produced the first batches of what became known as the proximity fuze without whose aid the US Navy would probably have been annihilated by the Kamikazes off Okinawa.

I think that is a HUGE over statement - but they did save thousands of American lives...

ping

In Vietnam I was a tank commander on an M48A3 tank. It was equipped with an M17A1 coincidence rangefinder which was connected to an M13181C mechanical ballistic computer. This computer was equipped with a series of cams, each one specific to a particular type of 90MM tank ammo. (HEAT, AP shot, HE, Beehive, WP, etc)

When the T/C spotted a target, he rotated the ranging knob on the rangefinder, and data was fed to the computer. The gunner would index the computer for the type of ammo to be fired by turning a handle on the computer, and the ballistic drive in the tank would set the correct elevation for the gun above the line of sight for that ammo at the range inputed by the range finder.

The whole affair worked quite well if the setup was accurately zeroed and boresighted. We could expect a first round hit on a tank sized target or infantry in the open out to 2000 meters with a 50% probability. If the gunner missed, it was very simple to apply a technique called “burst on target” which almost always ensured a hit with a second round. We also had infra red sights and searchlights for night firing, and the only real limitation was fog, smoke, or other low visibility obscurants.

In Nam we usually didn’t need this marvelous system, because engagements were at ranges of 100 meteres and less, and we would shoot canister which made the main gun a 90MM shotgun. We did get to fire at some NVA 122MM rocket batteries and mortars at over 3000 meters a few times, and we shot some indirect fire with aiming stakes and gunners quadrants too.

But now that they have digitized systems, thermal sights, laser range finders, and muzzle and temperature reference sensors I guesss they sholdn’t misss at all anymore, huh?