Talk:List of equipment used by the enemy/@comment-900265-20150822011750/@comment-26872367-20150822155235

Combat Information Center. Basically, a centralized command center, usually buried deep in the ship for protection, that can display all target tracking information at once so the captain and/or task force commander can easily view the entire tactical situation at once. In the WW2 era, it was generally done by plotting contacts on a large glass grid with grease pencils, updating them regularly and erasing outdated information; today, it's usually done with large-screen computer displays. It also has a number of officers stationed in it whose jobs are to coordinate various aspects of combat. For example, the original CIC was developed to help coordinate carrier air defense by having a control officer on board, with the "big picture" the CIC plot provided, vectoring fighters to intercept attacking aircraft; by using such coordinated techniques, you avoided situations like the disaster that struck the Japanese at Midway, where a single US torpedo bomber group, arriving first and with no escort, lured their entire fighter cover down to maul it, leaving the fighters down on the deck when US dive bombers arrived at high altitude--with a CIC, one or two fighter groups would have been directed down to attack Torpedo 8, with the rest ordered to remain at high altitude to protect against possible dive bombers.