USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Vernon P Bailey

Edward J Hilliard, Jr

A mine placement system is provided for determining mine launch parameters ased on launcher vehicle position, speed, and direction and on latitude. The system includes an input module for receiving launcher vehicle position, speed, and direction having a settable aim point. The input module is connected to a processor module which continuously calculates the trajectory of the mine as the launch ship maneuvers. The processor module having a vectorizer, a decoder, a time processing unit and gyroprocessing unit drives a launch display having steering cursors and a range display. The steering cursors and range display provide maneuver information to the ship's operator to steer the ship to a launch window which will allow a mine to deploy to the set aim point. In addition to displaying the set aim point, the display also shows the present actual mine placement point based on the launch ships present location and velocity. Whenever a mine is launched, the system records the actual mine placement point. The method of the system includes manually entering the weapon type and the latitude/longitude of a desired aim point. The system then reads the inertial position and heading of the launch ship. By comparing the ship's heading and position to the aim point, the processor drives a launch display showing range and bearing to a launch window. The heading and run time are corrected for Coriolis effect and for a constant water current.

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North Kingstown, RI, United States of America

Vernon P Bailey