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Model Range Building
Robben Island, Western Cape
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Click to view large map Coordinates: | The Model Range building is sited a short distance to the south of the underground Plotting Room. It comprises of a rectangular, single-storey building with a double pitched roof. The entrance door was placed centrally within the West gabled elevation. Two simple rectangular buttresses were provided on both the north and south elevations of the building, dividing each elevation into three equal bays, with each individual bay having two vertically proportioned timber windows with cottage panes. The Model Range building has an external cable access duct — visible at ground level on the North side — to accommodate communication cables from the underground Plotting Room. This position tallied with the contemporary wiring diagram for the Battery. The Model Range accommodated within the building was just that — a scale model of the Robben Island Battery's operational range (gun arc and shell range). It consisted of a suitably sized horizontal surface area, formed with fine wire mesh. The mesh was set high enough above the floor enough to allow the operators — typically artillery specialists in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Service (ASWAAS) — to lie underneath the mesh and push markers through to represent both the target and the fall of shot. The mesh was gridded to ensure that the markers appeared at the right place at the right time. The various instruments that were used to locate and report on the target and fall of shot were then placed in the same (scaled) relative positions, as were the guns. The target marker would be poked up through the mesh as required for the exercise, detected, measured and reported as it would be in the live situation and fed through to the actual underground Plotting Rooms. The Fortress Plotting Room and/or the Battery Plotting Room would process the information prior to sending the gun orders to the guns and the Model Range - the Model Range was also fed with the gun orders, for information. The guns would then "For Exercise" shoot and at the appropriate time the range operators would then poke markers through the mesh to simulate the fall of shot. These would be detected by the exercise OPs, fed to the underground Plotting Rooms to result in corrected orders being sent to the guns and so it went until the exercise commander was happy that the target had been destroyed. The Model Range could also receive real time information from the various observers. When combined with the underground Plotting Room info and the gun orders, meant that it could be used to monitor and even plot live shooting exercises in real time. This meant that the Model Range could also be used to debrief after a live shoot. In effect the Model Range was an early simulator — perhaps best described as a "manual simulation training device for the larger (Fortress) Fire Control system”. According to Cdr. Bob Sharpe it was invented in South Africa, with the Model Range on Robben Island being the first one. References to Model Ranges also appear in the equivalent Australian 9.2-inch Batteries. Whether the Australians started with the South African idea or South Africa improved on an existing British Commonwealth version has not been determined. During the period Robben Island was used as Maximum Security Prison, the Model Range building was re-purposed for after-school activities for the Warders’ children. The building and immediate surrounding area was used as a base for either the Landsdiens or the Voortrekkers (the Afrikaans equivalent of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides). Landsdiens was and still is, literally Land Service and allowed youngsters of school going age to experience the environment. The space within the building that had been occupied by the Model Range, became a useful assembly space. The eastern end of the building was converted to provide a kitchen area, with a serving hatch, either as a new build or an alteration to what might have been the Model Range Instructor(s) office. A free-standing braai area and wood-and-iron store and scullery was also built on the North side of the building. One of the adjacent toilet blocks was converted from a bucket latrine to waterborne sewerage and a few area lighting poles were installed. Acknowledgement: William Martinson, Osmond Lange Architects, March 2021 Reference:Martinson, William & Kuhn, Jens. Robben Island Museum: Built Environment Conservation Manual. Osmond Lange Architects + Planners, Cape Town, 2019. |