Continuous Aim

Continuous Aim was a gunnery technique formalised by Percy Scott by which a gunlayer would actively and continually work his elevation controls to keep his sighting crosshairs on the point of aim, as the gun could then be immediately fired as soon as it was loaded and ready.

Moreover, the practice also reduced issues of latency in the firing circuit, as the crosshairs would not be sweeping past the aim point no matter when the gun discharged.

It was a trick that required hard training before it would become effective, and then frequent drill could also deliver improvement from there. It was hoped that such a skill would become the by which which victory over an enemy with equivalent materiel could be achieved.

Primarily, this was a method suitable only to gear-worked mountings of 6-in and smaller, as the hydraulic controls of various larger mounts at the time were clumsy. Those weapons generally had to employ firing on the roll or hunting the roll so the coarse nature of their adjustments in elevation could be excused.

See Also

• Dotter
• Hunting the Roll
• Firing on the Roll