Wichita carried four 5-inch/38 guns in enclosed positions and four in open mounts. The mixed arrangement may have saved weight, but it also addressed how crews found aircraft before radar-directed control. An open crew could scan the sky in every direction, while an enclosed gunhouse limited the crew's view to where the mount and sights were pointing. Human eyesight remained part of 1930s antiaircraft fire control even on a modern cruiser.
Notable Point · 9:04-11:05
Why Wichita mixed open and enclosed five-inch mounts
Wichita's mix of open and enclosed five-inch positions shows how human eyesight still shaped antiaircraft fire control before radar.