Switchboard Room / Plotting Room

A central switchboard room handled important communications, using a switchboard that made all base lines interchangeable, and a distribution switchboard was installed there as a standard part of the armaments system. After 1905, the most precise aiming method used two or more widely spaced sighting structures called base end stations, where observers continuously took bearings on a moving target and communicated the angles of sight to a central plotting room. There, the sightings were plotted, future positions were predicted, and corrections were made for meteorological factors, target progress during projectile flight, and the time needed to calculate and transmit the data before these variables were computed into aiming directions for the gun crews.

New Jersey · United States