Targeting Kamikazes in a New Way - The Controversial, yet Brilliant Fire Control Director Change

During WWII, US ships under attack and damaged by Kamikazes. It’s is up to the ships anti-aircraft guns to shoot down these attackers. The first guns to open fire will be the 5-inch 38 caliber dual purpose guns. Their Mark 37 fire control director had shortcomings. It was not effective for ranges less than around 3,000 yards and each director can only track a single target. To increase the combat effectiveness of the ships 5-inch guns, the fleet proposed swapping out the long range accurate, but slow and complex, mark 37 fire control directors with the simple and fast Mark 51 director. This proposal was met with major push-back from the ship’s captains, however The benefits were immediate. The guns maintained short range accuracy, multiple targets could be tracked, and plane strikes increased by a factor of 3.