How does a gyroscope stabilize a ship?
In roll-stabilized ships, a gyro senses the ship’s roll, producing an electrical signal. See ref. 1. A servo system amplifies the signal to drive some sort of roll effector like “planes” (fins) mounted on the sides of the ship that tilt and oppose the roll. The added weight comes from the servo mechanism, hydraulics (if not an all-electrical servo) and planes, not from the insignificant weight of the gyro. In military applications it is more common to allow ship roll but provide a stable platform for tilt-sensitive equipment like weapons or radar dishes. The servos for these require far less power to run. Earlier ship antiroll systems used direct gyro stabilization (see ref. 2). The stabilization came from gyro precession torque. A large gyro wheel was mounted with its spin axis perpendicular to the roll (longitudinal) axis. Rolling would be opposed by the sizable angular momentum of the wheel. These were indeed heavy systems but only a percent or so of the weight of the large ships th
