The Age of Analog

I am currently listening to a book on tape of 'The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.' It's a gripping true story from WWII in which U.S. destroyers and destroyer escorts go up against a fleet of Japan's biggest cruisers and battleships.
While I could spend paragraphs on the story of the battle itself what interested me most was a small item in the narrative that describe the Mark 37 fire director that was in use on the Fletcher class of destroyers.
Unfortunately the history of technology in war is a neglected area in popular history and it's always amazing to find out how technically advance the weapons of WWII were.
The Mark 37 featured:

• An analog mechanical computer for ballistic calculations
• Gyro stabilization to automatically compensate for the movements of the ship imparted by the sea and keep the guns on target
• Radar range finding for target acquisition and feeding the computer.
• Electromechanical servo control of all 5-inch guns

This was an extremely sophisticated and accurate system. And, it was done with analog technology! The computer was mechanical and not electrical! Using gears, cams, and rods it could still provide for curvature of the earth, gravity, and weather conditions when calculating the guns' aim and then remotely slew and elevate each individual gun to ensure the rounds hit on target. In fact, as a further example of the capability of the Mark 37, when hitting the target the fire control officer could choose from a single pinpoint target to a spread of shells impacting along a line, for example a spread of 100 yards or 200 yards depending on the size of target.
I can only stand humbled and in awe of the quality of minds that could take gears moving in ratios, cams nudging rods to trip counters (see here for example), which could then read voltage high or voltage low signals, switches open or closed, to bring this all together.

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