A brief explanation of the VT or radio proximity fuze, a secret technology developed by the British and US scientists during WWII. To find out more visit: www.jhuapl.edu/aboutapl/defini...
Small correction: It doesn't matter how fast the projectile is flying through the air, it's the acceleration in the barrel that is a limiting factor in making the fuse work. The fuse needs to withstand an acceleration of 10's of thousands of G's to survive being shot out of a barrel.
There was even a report of germans refusing to leave cover for an attack because of artillery air bursting overhead. The first time they encountered it they nearly mutinied.
The Western Allies did somehow used Fuzes during Normandy but not for Land Artillery. However, they used the Fuzes for Land Artillery in the first time during the Battle of the Bulge where there was one report that an American Soldier from the Signal Corps says that there are German Infantry trying to charge their defensive position near Bastogne while calling for artillery. They next morning, they saw a field of more than a hundred dead Germans caused by the Fuzes devastating blow.
You do not charge on the enemy when artillery is firing... your story is simply retarded. Shrapnels from air bursts was killing people hiden in trenches during WW1! That is why steel helmets became standard soldier equipment. And in that time Shrapnel idea was already half century old!
Biały Have you no idea that this is a different Warhead. It has radar sensors and kill enemy soldiers in their trenches once the Fuze explodes overhead with deadly shrapnels. That is different from a WW1 Shell, VT Fuzes is a different beast that can kill enemies at the right time unlike timed Fuzes. And second, since how where the Germans are aware about the existence of Radar Sensors VT Fuzes? Aren't those Warheads extremely Top-Secret by the Allies since they were mostly used against enemy aircraft until they did first saw use in land warfare during the Ardennes Campaign.
@@Bialy_1 time fuze ur referring has nothing on the proximity fuse as used on artillery. You cant be certain a time fuze will explode in the air. ...... here is the quote . This is referring to the use of proximity fuse in the battle of the bulge.."The Germans felt safe from timed fire because they thought that the bad weather would prevent accurate observation. The effectiveness of the new VT fuzed shells exploding in mid-air, on exposed personnel, caused a minor mutiny when German soldiers started refusing orders to move out of their bunkers during an artillery attack" Rick Atkinson (2013). The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945. pp. 460-62, 763-64. ISBN 9781429943673.
When I was a Navy GM during Vietnam we were still using WWII ammo for our 3" guns and had both VT Frag and VT non-frag rounds in stock. VT frag was great for dealing with small surface targets and VT non-frag was our standard training round. Not mentioned in the video is where the fuse got its electric power from for the radar. Inside the fuse were small, fragile ampules of acid that were broken by the force of firing, and the spin of the projectile from the rifling forced that acid into a battery lining the outer wall of the fuse.
When I was overseas and short (just have a week left the country and have lived all this time) this ‘forward observer’ and me are talking about high explosive rounds he sometimes called in, this is 105 mm artillery shell. There happened to be one nearby with a variable proximity fuse already on it. Okay variable proximity fuse. This fuse has a plastic nose with a radio tucked in it. When it leaves the barrel a hammer smashes a glass vile of acid which activates the battery, which turns on the radio, which when it detects its within a few feet of something solid, like a jeep, a truck, a tank, (or a Connex) it sets the round off. When you need to fly over friendly troops it has a timer you can set before you shove it in the breach, so it’s not armed for a few seconds. I went and got the round which was in a cardboard board storage tube, plopped it next to the Connex that we were standing by, slid the cardboard tube off the round, where it stood up for a millisecond before in horror we stood helpless as we watched it tilt and then lean over tapping the Connex, smash goes the plastic nose, popping the hammer, and I see this puff of smoke come up from the acid being released which activates the radio in a proximity fuse. No timer to save our asses. Me and this dude run like hell, I look back and see it on the ground hissing. Me and a couple of my friends are talking it over, cause this is a rather dangerous situation right in the middle of our camp (6 cannons at the top of this hill). Maybe we should radio for bomb squad or something like that, but it would take time before anyone could reach us by helicopter, and who knows what the round is going to do. I did it and I just gotta take care of it myself. Everybody it saying 'no don't do it' as they are backing up. I go and get a fuse wrench, gently tipped the round up and stretched out at arms length try to screw the fuse out of it. But it’s just not working, and I say to myself ‘what the f*ck is arms length going to do me anyway’. I sit down on the ground with the round and smoking fuse nice and snug between my legs, slowly put on the fuse wrench trying not to touch any of the guts and start turning. There was really nothing to be scared about as there was no way that if the thing detonated there was going to be anything left of me to worry about. All my buddies were as far away as I could see them. Now before this happened I was thinking maybe I should extend my tour. When you get short in Viet Nam, you can extend your twelve months of duty by one month and not have to do the six months back in the states. Needless to say with every turn of the fuse wrench I said out loud "I Will Not Extend". ( Anything can happen at Anytime )
Its funny how people talk about German wonderweapons like the Me-262 but a VT fuze for their 88mm AAA would have been far more effective than the jets.
We'd love to know how the modern Guided Artillery & Mortor Shells works!!! P.S : Excellent channel...I discover it today and love browsing your content!!!
For once youtube recommendation works, i didn't understand the other proximity fuze videos but this one helped. Also if you're wondering why i searched this stuff its because it was mention that the gra valkas empire uses proximity fuze and i don't know what it is until now.
Just when you thought you knew it all, you find something new that you didn't know. This is pretty cool. I wonder if this stuff is still used today on modern munitions.
AFAIK, they had something like a nail inside the shell which would hit a primer as soon as the shell hits something hard (due to inertia). Until that primer triggers a secondary explosive, the projectile would have already travelled on. The thicker armor got, the harder it was to make the delay right. If you got a powerful round like the 88L70 then it would likely go through a light tank without even triggering the explosive, or perhaps detonating after it penetrated both sides of the tank! The same principle was also used for rifle rounds. The idea was to create a visual feedback for machine gunners without having to give away your position as if you used a tracer. Those rounds proved very effective against humans as a skull, or a hipbone would cause them to explode inside the body! They were thus used by the Wehrmacht and Soviets by snipers. However, the Wehrmacht strictly forbid to use them against anyone other than the Soviets, as they saw it as a very despicable practice (but the Soviets did it anyway, so there was no point in holding back). This is a nice example, of how the war on the eastern front was a completely different beast than on the western front... What I heard from my grandfather, who served in the Wehrmacht is also nightmare material... My other grandfather was a final stage alcoholic when I met him because of the war.
One of the greatest secrets of WW2 next to: 1: Manhattan Project 2: Enigma:3: Operation Overlord. These 4 element were key and critical to the winning of the war itself.
@@honour123 Yes however the axis had few units. whereas the US and UK had many of them in planes, subs, ships and land. US had them during pearl harbour and Germany had them later, if my history is correct.
I recall hearing that for awhile, the US Navy didnt want to deploy as many of the VT fused shells as they could actually manage because they didnt want to risk the Japanese getting a hold of one that didnt go off as intended and reverse engineering it, so they severely cut down the numbers actually deployed on ships. Could be misremembering that and I dont recall the source.... Mightve been Drachinifel, but Im not 100% sure on that.
I've heard there were definitely limits to where they were allowed to be used for that reason.
3 года назад
Variable Time Fuze is commonly used in 40mm Bofors Cannon. 40mm Bofor is the gun that saved Ships from enemy planes during WW2 especially in the War on the Pacific.
The Navy refused to allow these to be used on land. Till late in the war. They didn't want the enemy getting their hands on one.. So when Patton's army got them. He used them to great effect..
The importance of the VT Fuze and the incredible story of its development (this thing used vacuum tubes!) cannot be fully impressed in just one minute. If you want to be thoroughly amazed, dig a little deeper on this one.
Initially it was only used in the navy and a secret , not widely used as the risk of it falling in to enemy hands was considered a risk . Towards germany it was introduced in 44 , germany thrmselves had them in almost ten years earlier as with most of things but they never were widespread deployed
Germany did not have proximity fuses. They struggled with finding ways to destroy enemy bombers, to the point they designed the first SAM, but using timed fuses was a major handicap.
Brilliant design multiple layers of safety and used in battle of bulge artillery didn’t need clear view of German infantry cloud cover didn’t matter look at pictures of that battle and see trees cut off 20ft off ground foxholes couldn’t protect you Also in pacific decimated Kamakazi attack Japan stunned by how accurate our defense was saved many ships
Can you do a video on the "bat" asm-n-2 radar guided glide bomb? There is lituraly not a single half decent video on youtube about this incredible pice of military ww2 dechnology. In case you dont know, the bat asm-n-2 was basicly just a bomb with wings that you would strap to any of the US navy aircraft, no matter if it was a Helldiver, Corsair, or even something like a PB4Y. Unlike something like the german fritz X which was guided by the bomberdier useing a joystick while circling over the enemy ship, the bat had a intigrated radar that could lock on to a enemy ship. And so this world war 2 bomb could track its target and guide itself by useing the radar. In other words, in 1944 the US navy had what was basicly the worlds first fire and forget smart weapon which, kind of like a modern day air to air missle, could lock onto a target and guide itself towards it. I personaly think that this is one of the most incredible world war 2 weaponsystems.
American ships have this, the 127mm (5 inch) on the Farragut-class has it. That's the earliest ship you could get with the shell available. The shell is called '5 inch AAVT Mk. 31'
At the time its too small to be fitted with the VT fuse, it was already a challenge back then to miniaturize the electronics in the fuse for the 127mm (5 inch) shell. I would guess the smallest they could have fitted the fuse in is a 75mm (3 inch) shell. But nowadays they could probably make a proximity fuse for something as small as a .50cal (12.7mm) but wouldn't be practical since you'd basically need to have hit your target to make the tiny amount of explosive in the small shell be any effective and this applies to the Chicago Piano 28mm.
Jesus, humans are ingenious at finding ways to kill each other. Even at the time of WWII they already had this. I have always on and off wondered about this because I thought timed fuses would be too impractical and outdated, but it was never on my mind long enough for me to look it up on the internet. Now I know thanks to this video that popped up on my recommend list because I have been watching a few tank videos. I love how this video is detailed and to the point too.
Sound wouldn't work since the shell works with radio waves not sound. It has a tiny radar, not sonar. But you would be right just replace the speaker apparatus with a radio transmitter. And that is why they kept it top secret on the true nature of the fuse. Publicly they just called it VT or Variable time and not something like Radio-Proximity which would be more accurate to its function.
I don't know why the Germans didn't go for a similar idea. I mean if the fuse can't withstand the acceleration of an Artillery shell then put it in Rockets. One idea of implementation would be the Werfergranate 21, a 21cm diameter rocket which has I believe 40kilograms or 90 pounds of explosives. Couple this with a proximity fuse and you have a really deadly weapon against aircraft or ground troops
Des chercheurs allemands auraient également travaillé à la conception de fusées de proximité dans les années 1930 : les recherches chez Rheinmetall furent arrêtées en 1940 en faveur de projets jugés plus prioritaires. ...
Wait question, IS THE THING SUBSONIC OR SUPERSONIC If it was supersonic the radar wont work cuz radio frequency travels at the speed of sound which means Mach 1.0 If it was around Mach 5.2 or 3.6 the thing wont work
They did, but they didn’t like it too much as it wasn’t programmable. The XM25 grenade launcher was canceled due to high cost, high weight and overall unsatisfactory performance. Couple all of those factors with the fact that the gun cost a fortune to purchase and maintain it didn’t help either. The threat from drones are so minimal during the XM25’s development period that a VT fuse was unnecessary. The military found the next best thing and created anti-drone guns which doesn’t eat live ammo and minimal maintenance required.
