Information at sea : shipboard command and control in the U.S. Navy, from Mobile Bay to Okinawa

Bibliographic Information

Information at sea : shipboard command and control in the U.S. Navy, from Mobile Bay to Okinawa

Timothy S. Wolters

(John Hopkins studies in the history of technology)

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013

  • : hbk

Available at  / 2 libraries

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Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The brain of a modern warship is its combat information center (CIC). Data about friendly and enemy forces pour into this nerve center, contributing to command decisions about firing, maneuvering, and coordinating. Timothy S. Wolters has written the first book to investigate the history of the CIC and the many other command and control systems adopted by the U.S. Navy from the Civil War to World War II. What institutional ethos spurred such innovation? Information at Sea tells the fascinating stories of the naval and civilian personnel who developed an array of technologies for managing information at sea, from signal flares and radio to encryption machines and radar. Wolters uses previously untapped archival sources to explore how one of America's most technologically oriented institutions addressed information management before the advent of the digital computer. He argues that the human-machine systems used to coordinate forces were as critical to naval successes in World War II as the ships and commanders more familiar to historians.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Flags, Flares, and Lights: A World before Wireless 2. Sparks and Arcs: The Navy Adopts Radio 3. War and Peace: Coordinating Naval Forces 4. A Most Complex Problem: Demanding Information 5. Creating the Brain of a Warship: Radar and the CIC Conclusion Abbreviations Notes Essay on Sources Archives and Manuscript Collections Index

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