Actually Tom, an oscilloscope would have been pretty hard to use on a non-repetitive event like this, especially in those days.
Other equipment were usable (e.g. chart recorders) but probably nowhere fast enough to be useful.
The advantage of the crusher, is that it has memory and removes this issues. It is also slow and distorts the results.
It is hard to grasp how some measurements were oh so difficult to make, not so long ago.
WC-