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. At the same time, the mount's trainer would do the same with his controls.

The practice effectively increased the firing frequency, as the gun would always be ready to fire. 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.

Royal Navy Practice

Until around 1909, 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 and training could be excused.

Between 1909 and 1912, however, the Royal Navy's new construction had responsive controls, and continuous aim again became feasible when turrets were being laid locally and not under control of the director. It remained the case that in director firing the large British ships would fire on the roll or lazily hunt the roll.

German Practice

After the war, British experts inspected German vessels and found their large turrets had extremely precise training movement and control. One turret was able to creep at a consistent speed so slow that it would take hours to complete its training arc.^{[Citation needed]}

See Also

• Dotter
• Hunting the Roll
• Firing on the Roll