# Integrated combat system used by the U.S. Navy before Aegis **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 9, 2023, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/integrated-combat-system-used-by-the-u-s-navy-before-aegis/994327 "2023-12-09T11:20:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/integrated-combat-system-used-by-the-u-s-navy-before-aegis/994327/1 "2023-12-09T11:20:32Z")
A few years ago, I read an account of a naval combat management system that was developed for the U.S. Navy in the 1950s and used in the Vietnam war. The system integrated radar information from multiple ships as vector graphics on CRTs and allowed coordination of threat response across the naval group. It was developed so early that the decision to use newfangled digital computers was controversial, and the project had to invent the basics of the care and maintenance of large shipboard computers. This was not the Aegis system, but supposedly Aegis was partly derived from this early system. The account I read was not in an official government site or on Wikipedia, but a custom-built web site, possibly as a draft of a book. It described the development process, the people and the facilities, including an early usability lab, and included photographs. It read mostly like NASA’s history books, but seemed not quite as complete or well-written, especially near the end. I don’t seem to have saved the pages in my Evernote. Does anyone know what this system would be called? ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/integrated-combat-system-used-by-the-u-s-navy-before-aegis/994327/2 "2023-12-09T11:21:46Z")
> **[First-Hand:No Damned Computer is Going to Tell Me What to DO - The Story of...](https://ethw.org/First-Hand:No_Damned_Computer_is_Going_to_Tell_Me_What_to_DO_-_The_Story_of_the_Naval_Tactical_Data_System,_NTDS)** ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/integrated-combat-system-used-by-the-u-s-navy-before-aegis/994327/3 "2023-12-09T11:26:17Z")
Well, you could at least have let me finish my question before answering! This is exactly the text I was looking for (though not necessarily on the same website). For posterity, the system was the Naval Tactical Data System, or NTDS. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2023, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/integrated-combat-system-used-by-the-u-s-navy-before-aegis/994327/4 "2023-12-09T13:09:50Z")
The wiki for NTDS has a decent bibliography and also a nice See Also list. Any vintage computer or vintage military systems hound could waste a day pretty easily. > **[Naval Tactical Data System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Tactical_Data_System)** > > Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was a computerized information processing system developed by the United States Navy in the 1950s and first deployed in the early 1960s for use in combat ships. It took reports from multiple sensors on different ships and collated it to produce a single unified map of the battlespace. This information could then be relayed back to the ships and to the weapons operators. > Warships have compartments known as Combat Information Centers, or CICs, that collect, sort a... And an extra super-special tip o the hat to @Francis_Vaughan. I had never known of ETHW. I now have enough techno-historical geeky reading material to last my remaining lifetime. Thank you!!!1!