page_title: Director (military)
section_title: For warships
hierarchical_section_title: Director (military) / For warships
caption_attribution_description: en:USS Cassin Young (DD-793) berthed at en:Boston Navy Yard in Boston, Mass. Picture taken by Matteo 11:16, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC) in August 2003
context_page_description: A director, also called an auxiliary predictor, is a mechanical or electronic computer that continuously calculates trigonometric firing solutions for use against a moving target, and transmits targeting data to direct the weapon firing crew.
context_section_description: For warships of the 20th century, the director is part of the fire control system; it passes information to the computer that calculates range and elevation for the guns. Typically, positions on the ship measured range and bearing of the target; these instantaneous measurements are used to calculate rate of change values, and the computer ("fire control table" in Royal Navy terms) then predicts the correct firing solution, taking into account other parameters, such as wind direction, air temperature, and ballistic factors for the guns. In World War II a widely used computer in the US Navy was the electro-mechanical Mark I Fire Control Computer.
  On ships the director control towers for the main battery are placed high on the superstructure, where they have the best view. Due to their large size and weight, in the World War II era the computers were located in plotting rooms deep in the ship, below the armored deck on armored ships.
caption: World War II–era Mark 37 Director for 5 in/38 caliber dual purpose guns above bridge of destroyer USS Cassin Young, backfitted with postwar AN/SPG-25 radar antenna
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