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Milspec Teardown: ID-2124 Howitzer Data Display

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday August 27 2019, @11:51AM   
from the hardware-that-comes-with-a-bang dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3196

Milspec Teardown: ID-2124 Howitzer Data Display

It’s time once again for another installment in “Milspec Teardown”, where we get to see what Uncle Sam spends all those defense dollars on. Battle hardened pieces of kit are always a fascinating look at what can be accomplished if money is truly no object. When engineers are given a list of requirements and effectively a blank check, you know the results are going to be worth taking a closer look.

Today, we have quite a treat indeed. Not only is this ID-2124 Howitzer Deflection-Elevation Data Display unit relatively modern (this particular specimen appears to have been pulled from service in June of 1989), but unlike other military devices we’ve looked at in the past, there’s actually a fair bit of information about it available to us lowly civilians. In a first for this ongoing series of themed teardowns, we’ll be able to compare the genuine article with the extensive documentation afforded by the ever fastidious United States Armed Forces.

For example, rather than speculate wildly as to the purpose of said device, we can read the description directly from Field Manual 6-50 “TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR THE FIELD ARTILLERY CANNON BATTERY”:

The gun assembly provides instant identification of required deflection to the gunner or elevation to the assistant gunner. The display window shows quadrant elevation or deflection information. The tenths digit shows on the QE display only when the special instruction of GUNNER'S QUADRANT is received.

From this description we can surmise that the ID-2124 is used to display critical data to be used during the aiming and firing of the weapon. Further, the small size of the device and the use of binding posts seem to indicate that it would be used remotely or temporarily. Perhaps so the crew can put some distance between themselves and the artillery piece they’re controlling.

Now that we have an idea of what the ID-2124 is and how it would be used, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on inside that olive drab aluminum enclosure.

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Original Submission

• Re:Just imagine what could be accomplished (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday August 27 2019, @09:27PM

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday August 27 2019, @09:27PM (#886409) Journal

  Then we'd be slaves working to fund the military budget of whomever screwed us last.

  Who would that be? The Canadians or the Mexicans?
  Joke aside, at a certain point enough is enough. Do you think you need to go beyond top-predator status to be safe?
  Especially when it becomes more expensive by the day to maintain the said status, are you really ready to scale up the military?

  There is a bright side of course, more than a few things we use a lot came from the military

  As long as you don't imply those would have never been invented without military, you'll be fine.
  Because, you see, there are mistakes on your list:

  1. superglue [wikipedia.org]

     The original patent for cyanoacrylate was filed in 1942 by the B.F. Goodrich Company as an outgrowth of a search for materials suitable for clear plastic gun sights for the war effort. In 1942, a team of scientists headed by Harry Coover Jr. stumbled upon a formulation that stuck to everything with which it came in contact. The team quickly rejected the substance for the wartime application, but in 1951, while working as researchers for Eastman Kodak, Coover and a colleague, Fred Joyner, rediscovered cyanoacrylates. The two realized the true commercial potential, and a form of the adhesive was first sold in 1958 under the title "Eastman #910" (later "Eastman 910").

  2. Duct tape [wikipedia.org]

     The first material called "duck tape" was long strips of plain cotton duck cloth used in making shoes stronger, for decoration on clothing, and for wrapping steel cables or electrical conductors to protect them from corrosion or wear. For instance, in 1902, steel cables supporting the Manhattan Bridge were first covered in linseed oil then wrapped in duck tape before being laid in place...

     ...In 1930, the magazine Popular Mechanics described how to make adhesive tape at home using plain cloth tape soaked in a heated liquid mixture of rosin and rubber from inner tubes...

     The idea for what became duct tape came from Vesta Stoudt, an ordnance-factory worker and mother of two Navy sailors, who worried that problems with ammunition box seals would cost soldiers precious time in battle.

     Fucking two civilians invented duct tape as we know it today

  3. Digital camera [wikipedia.org] - first used in space exploration by NASA/JPL in 1965, not military

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  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

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