Service trials demonstrated another problem however: that ranging and tracking the new high-speed targets was almost impossible. At short range, the apparent target area is relatively large, the trajectory is flat and the time of flight is short, allowing to correct lead by watching the tracers. At long range, the aircraft remains in firing range for a long time, so the necessary calculations can in theory be done by slide rules - though, because small errors in distance cause large errors in shell fall height and detonation time, exact ranging is crucial. For the ranges and speeds that the Bofors worked at, neither answer was good enough.
At long range what, in theory, could be used to set ranging calculations?
slide rules