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S-Curves and Kano—Maturity and Sustainability
Published in George K. Strodtbeck, Mohan V. Tatikonda, A Magnificent Journey to Excellence, 2019
George K. Strodtbeck, Mohan V. Tatikonda
Officers enter the Army from a variety of different sources: the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), West Point, or Officer Candidate School (OCS). Even though these new officers have just graduated from a school, the very first assignment is Branch School (my branch, the Field Artillery, is shown in the example). The Branch is analogous to a function in a business. At the Branch School, the new officer learns the details of small-unit leadership tactics and some higher-level subjects. The officer proceeds from Branch School to a job in a unit. Following time in the small unit role, there is often schooling in a special topic prior to the next job. For example, I (George Strodtbeck) was in the Army, I attended survey officer school prior to holding that role in my next assignment. Then, after that assignment, it was off to the Branch Advanced Course, where company-level leadership and tactics are taught with some higher-level education. This pattern is followed as an officer’s career advances.
Fire-Arms
Published in Robert Routledge, Discoveries and Inventions of the Ninteenth Century, 2018
After a careful comparison of the effects of field artillery firing shrapnel, the committee concluded that the Gatling would be more destructive in the open at distances up to 1,200 yards, but that it is not comparable to artillery in effect at greater distances, or where the ground is covered by trees, brushwood, earthworks, &c. The mitrailleur, however, would soon be knocked over by artillery if exposed, and therefore will probably only be employed in situations under shelter from such fire. An English officer, who witnessed the effects of mitrailleur fire at the battle of Beaugency, looks upon the mitrailleur as representing a certain number of infantry, for whom there is not room on the ground, suddenly placed forward at the proper moment at a decisive point to bring a crushing fire upon the enemy. Many other eye-witnesses have spoken of the fearfully deadly effect of the mitrailleur in certain actions during the Franco-German War.
Multiple Access Methods for Communications Networks
Published in Jerry D. Gibson, The Communications Handbook, 2018
Such a multiple-access mechanism is also known as a collision avoidance scheme. It has been implemented as part of a MAC protocol for high-speed back-end LANs (which support a relatively small number of nodes) such as HyperChannel. It has also been implemented by wireless packet radio net works, such as the TACFIRE field artillery military nets. In assessing the delay-throughput behavior of such an implicit polling distributed control mechanism, we note that the throughput efficiency of the scheme depends critically on the monitoring slot duration T, whereas the message delay behavior depends on the terminal's priority level [Rubin and Baker, 1986]. At lower loading levels, when the number of network nodes is not too large, acceptable message delays may be incurred by all terminals. In turn, at higher loading levels, only higher priority terminals will manage to attain timely access to the network while lower priority ones will be effectively blocked from entering the shared medium.
From tissue paper screens to radar screens: some episodes in the development of ballistic testing methods
Published in The International Journal for the History of Engineering & Technology, 2021
The next innovation (late 1950s) was the Electronic Velocity Analyser (EVA) which was an adaptation of radar to observing the behaviour of projectiles, especially their velocities as they left the muzzles of guns. This was a major step forward as it obviated the previous requirement to conduct numerous calibration shots and measure the time and distances of the ‘fall of shot’ by one of the older methods described above. EVA used X-band (microwave frequencies) doppler radar to measure muzzle velocities via paper traces.37 Soon the paper screens and calculations became electronic and all the operations and analytical work was computerised, as Field Artillery Computer Equipment (FACE) which, from 1969, followed the general electronic trend of miniaturisation until the entire set up could be carried within armoured vehicles, tanks etc.38 Increasing integration of every necessary variable, such as weather data, was programmable, initially punched onto mylar tapes (polyester versions of earlier paper tape), but now the same work is done entirely within the electronics and the continuous streams of data are presented on computer screens, probably even on smart phones.
An ‘experimental’ instrument: testing the torsion balance in Britain, Canada and Australia
Published in Annals of Science, 2019
The new cluster of geophysical methods all sprang in part from wartime research, reflecting the shift from coal to oil energy consumption that had been a feature of that conflict. As the Conservative politician Lord George Curzon famously remarked in 1918, ‘the Allied cause had floated to victory upon a wave of oil’.16 In the rush to locate and exploit oil after 1919, then, new geophysical methods were seductive. Detection of ores by magnetic measurements had been in use, especially in Sweden, for several decades, but three others – seismic, electric and gravitational – were largely new techniques. The seismic method, using reflections from the shock waves of an explosion to detect subterranean strata, was an acoustic technique that developed from Reginald Fessenden’s underwater echo-ranging researches and from field artillery detection. Both in Germany and the United States, patents were filed in 1919, and the technique was being used by a prospecting company in Oklahoma as early as 1921. The electrical method was a related technique, analysing the varying conductivity of subterranean strata from an electrical pulse set off below ground from within initial bore-holes. Its use in prospecting was associated particularly with the Schlumberger brothers in France.17 Finally, there was the gravimetric method with the Eötvös torsion balance. Local measurements could be compared to geological standards for types of minerals, then laid out in isometric charts with arrows indicating force, not unlike the isobars and wind arrows on weather charts. The charts gave a picture of the underlying ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ that indicated key geological features associated with petroleum deposits18 (Figure 2).