Fire Control Towers

Fire Control Towers. .
In the trees behind this sign you'll find a square concrete platform with a circular pillar in the center. There is another one just like it on the far side of the derelict buildings to your right. They are the foundations of coast artillery fire control towers built here in 1907. They were essential parts of a system of personnel, facilities, technology and procedures that were used to observe enemy ships, estimate their positions, calculate firing data for guns directed to hit those ships, and assess the effectiveness of such fire., Battle Command Tower. The second tower behind the derelict buildings was the Battle Command Tower. If enemy ships did enter the Chesapeake and were to be engaged by the guns of the Patapsco forts, then that tower would house the overall command and would be the central hub for all decisions and communications between fire control, the gun patteries and the mien casemates., Base End Stations , The tower that was behind this sign was one of the Base End Stations that controlled the fire of eight twelve inch mortars of Battery Key. The second Base End Station for the mortars was located across the Patapsco River at Fort Smallwood. It was exactly 5499 feet from the center of the Fort Howard Base End to the center of the Fort Smallwood Base End. That distance was the Baseline. The soldiers in the small room at the top of each Base End Station used optical devices called Azimuth Instruments to measure the angle from the baseline to a line pointing directly toward the enemy ship. The two azimuth angles were sent to the plotting room inside Battery Key., Plotting Room , In the plotting room, the soldiers used simple triangular geometry to determine the exact location of the enemy ship. (If you know the length of the baseline and two of the azimuth angles then you can determine the exact location where they intersect.) Of course, it wasn't quite that simple to accurately target a ship. The movement of the ship, the flight time of the shell and the weather conditions all had to be factored into the information passed on to the gun crews.