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Germany's big Mistake, no Proximity Fuse in WWII
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ธ.ค. 2023
- Unlike the allies, Germany ended WWII without deployment of a proximity fuse. Operational data showed proximity fuses were 4.75 times more combat effective as standard timed fuses for ground artillery anti-aircraft FLAK projectiles. Had they been developed, bomber losses would have not likely been sustainable. The video will estimate the increase in bomber losses had FLAK projectile proximity fuses had be in operation in lieu of standard timed fuses. Correction: Note units of 88mm flak guns rate of fire is rounds per minute not rounds per second.
Correction: Rate of fire of the 88mm FLAK gun is 15 rounds per minute, not per second.
Thank goodness!
That would be some weapon!!
Maybe with a very buff loader
This number is for the very elite Aryan artillerymen.
i just watched that part and was headed to the comments lol
Best part of this channel: no fluffing about, just going directly to the data table, never change.
How this man gets less than 40k subscribers is sad, it is one of the only data driven WWII channels on YT. I grew up in a neighborhood full of WWII veterans, one of my best friends dad flew with 8th AF, two or maybe three tours. When he passed 30 years ago turns out he had 96 missions, three distinguished flying crosses (US, UK, FR) and a bunch of other citations. He never talked about flying other than funny anecdotal stories. His wife and kids didn't even know.
Another outstanding video today - thank you.
Yes, quality videos, much research.
that is pretty common with WW2 vets. My father was the same - only told us a few funny stories, and nothing about what he actually did and witnessed. The more they fought and risked their lives, the less they talk about it.
We need a collab with Greg
Good analysis
Like and comment mate. We'll get him there one day😊. Have a lovely day.
VT fuses were not employed where the enemy could have recovered an unexploded shell (all fuzes do fail at times). In the Pacific they dropped into the ocean. Those who experienced a VT fuze up close were never in a position to report back.
I was told that ht first use of VT shells over land was at the Battle of the Bulge. I don't know who sanctioned the order but it must have been from pretty high up the command chain.
@@gordonwood1594 The Order came from Eisenhower. The Fuze's were in Theatre already.
When the US deployed the proximity fuse initially for security reasons they were not allowed to fire them over land. I think it was late 1944 the army started using them for normal bombardment. As the shell would approach the ground the radar would reflect off the ground and you would get an airburst which is horrific on infantry. The Navy started using them directing fire over land when the Kamikaze threat became real. My dad fought with the 6th Armored Division throughout their European campaign. He had a very healthy respect for that fuse.
Pretty sure it was in normandy
@@gotanon9659 No, they held them back until the Battle of the Bulge, where they devastated infantry formations in the open.
@@gotanon9659 Wrong, 2 days after the start of the Battle of the Bulge was when the embargo for use of VT fuzes over land was lifted.
There is a video on youtube about the first use of the VT fuse on a radar controlled naval gun. The navy vet said they fired one shell and the enemy plane exploded. One shell one strike completely unheard of prior to the proximity fuse.
German troops recovered unexploded proximity fuses during the battle of the bulge (it was Skorzany) and passed them on for analysis. They themselves guessed it was some kind of magnetic effect.
Utterly amazing how small the proximity fuse is. The cross section drawing 10 seconds into this video is most important to understand how they worked. Brilliant miniturisation for so long ago. Genius. Thanks for this important information.
The miniaturization came out of hearing aid technology. The first round fired was a single vacuum tube radio oscillator fired from a 37mm gun. Many survived firing.
Are you sure about that? 1930s and 1940s hearing aids were bulky things with separate battery packs the user strapped to his leg, under his clothing. They were not the tiny things we're accustomed to seeing now. In fact, I wonder if the reverse is true: hearing aid technology leaped forward because of the proximity fuse work. Just my two cents worth.
@@paulmaxwell8851 I’m absolutely sure. The BuOrd history says the first vacuum tubes they tested had been developed for hearing aids. The dropped the shells backward onto concrete floor to simulate the G forces and then fired them from 37mm rounds. These formed the basis of the first experiments. The damage to the valves was examined and modification improved them.
William, I bow to your greater knowledge on this.@@williamzk9083
William, I stand corrected. Thank you.
I recall reading that Germany WAS working on a proximity fuse in the early days of the war,but Hitler had decree that any new weapon development that took more than 6 months to become operational was to be dropped.
Hitler did not like waiting.
They also had an acoustic one for their air to air missile program (not a joke they actually had one and it worked kinda)
The British version of Operation Paperclip found records of work on acoustic, as well as, I think, radio and magnetic?
Makes sense. Germany's economy was crap even before the war. After the war kicked off, it got even worse.
Interesting analysis. I suppose there is some weakness in converting data taken from single engine Japanese fighter losses and applying it directly to 4 engine B17’s and B24’s and there may be some differences in the efficacy of the US and the German flak projectiles but overall I think it’s a good estimation, frightening though.
Also just using data from October to November
finally! I have been talking about this issue for years! Just imagine the devastating effect of 128 mm from flak 40 with proximity fuses. The B-17s are just too vulnerable for such weapons.
But I believe the B-29s could fly missions higher then the much more plentiful 88s could reach.
@@michaelbizon444b-29 flying lower than b-17
@@michaelbizon444 The 8.8cm FLAK 37 was ineffective much above 25,000ft but the 8.8cm FLAK 41 could reach the B-29 (about 39000ft). The 12.8cm FLAK 40 was the most powerful AA gun of the war and could also reach to 40,000ft. Both guns had only about 800 examples made. The 12.8cm FLAK 40 because it was so expensive and the 8.8cm FLAK 41 because it''s technical problems weren't solved till 1944.
@@williamzk9083 And the bombers were just as inaccurate or worse at max altitude cause they had the same over rated Norden's. If the resources in our new scenario were put into the heavy AAA and not V-1 & V-2 missiles they could have had more of the bigger better guns. Not good for bomber command I think.
I just yesterday read about this topic, and now a video from you! Good christmas present:)
6:40 : Actually, the number of German FlaK rounds needed to down a U.S. heavy bomber wouldn't necessarily be divided by a 4.75 factor had the Germans had access to proximity fuzes, because it relies on data of the U.S. Navy engaging Japanese suicide aircraft, which means :
a) It pertains to 5" = 127mm rounds. The AAVT Mark 31 used in 5" guns had a bursting charge of 3.3kg of explosive D or composition A, while the 3 HE rounds for the German 88mm guns (8.8 cm. Sprgr. Patr. L/4.5 (kz.) m. Zt. Z. S/30, 8.8 cm. Sprgr. Patr. L/4.5 (kz.) m. Zt. Z. S/30 Fg, 8.8 cm. Sprgr. Patr. L/4.5 (kz.) m. A.Z. 23/28), which were the same round except for the fuzes, contained a bursting charge of 1kg of TNT or 40/60 amatol. So unless I'm completely wrong, the AAVT Mark 31 should have a larger lethal radius against identical targets than the 88mm rounds. Hence the probability of getting close enough to the target and still have lethal effects should be higher with the AAVT Mark 31 than with the 88mm rounds, so the ratio of close-enough detonations to direct impacts, which should be close to the VT combat effectiveness ratio, should be higher with the AAVT Mark 31.
b) U.S. Navy data was against Japanese suicide aircraft, which should have required less damage than U.S. heavy bombers to be shot down. If VT 127mm rounds were used against U.S. heavy bombers, they'd probably need to detonate closer to them to be lethal. And the lethal radius would be further reduced with VT 88mm rounds, so the VT combat effectiveness would further drop.
While I have no doubt that proximity fuzes would have greatly increased the combat effectiveness of German FlaK, I doubt it would have increased by a 4.75 factor.
A counterpoint would be that straight flying heavy bombers would be much easier to hit than a diving and evading small kamikaze plane.
Also while Japanese kamikaze planes had to be firmly shot down to stop them, the Germans only had to deal moderate damage to prevent the bombers from dropping their load and make them turn back.
Extremely high quality video. Someone that actually does the numbers instead of just tossing opinions up in the air
VT fuses were probably in the top 5 Allied inventions/weapons that won the war.
Great video! Thank you! This is exactly what I was wondering! It is really interesting to hear what the effect of a German proximity fuse might have been. Considering that my father served in the eighth Air Force in Europe, starting in December 201944, I probably would not be here, if the Germans had deployed, proximity fuse earlier and vastly increased the number of bomber shut down. I am very fortunate.
-The USAAF estimated that a German proximity fuse would meant that the B-24 would need to be removed from service due to its lower operational ceiling. In general proximity fuses are 4-5 times more effective per round. The 8.8cm FLAK 37 (muzzle velocity 800m/s) had an engagement time of about 11 seconds at 30,000ft so it was ineffective above 25,000ft. The more powerful 8.8cm FLAK 41 (muzzle velocity of 1000m/sec) could engage up to 39,000ft might even have removed the B-17 requiring the faster B-29
-The Germans did have a proximity fuse for the 88 but despite successful test rounds being fired never got it into production. (I'll explain in a post elsewhere)
-There was another type of fuse the double-fuse or doppelzunder that while not a proximity fuse was 3.5 times more effective against US Bomber formations.
The standard 88 fuse was timer only. There was no nose contact fuse. (they were considered too dangerous).
Many rounds that would have been direct hits would simply detonate harmlessly below the bomber due to timer errors. The ones that were direct hits would pass relatively harmlessly through the bomber and detonate usually too far above or more likely the timer mechanism would jam from the impact and defuse the round.
-Eventually a safe nose contact fuse was developed and it was found by going for a direct hit and firing with the fuses set to detonate 100m above the target the rounds were 3.5 times more effective. A round that missed might still hit another bomber in the formation. Overall the firing this way was 3.5 times more effective against formations and 2.5 times more effective against individual bombers. The Germans did a lot of statistical analysis and successfully tested the theories in Feb 1945 too late to have any effect.
@@williamzk9083
Thank you for the additional information. I have always wondered why Germany did not field a proximity fuse to combat the Allied bombing campaign. I am grateful (existentially, for sure) that Germany did not have this technology when my father went to Europe as part of the US Army 8th Air Force in December of 1944. Because bomber losses had declined by that time, my father never flew a combat mission but instead got stuck flying familiarization flights around England as they cherry picked replacements out of the aircrews he was a part of (he was a navigator and apparently navigators were not getting killed or wounded at the same rate as other positions in the B17 did). Thank goodness on behalf of my existence!
They might have used it in the V2 in the same way that the Little Boy A bomb had a ground proximity radar altimeter to detonate it at the right height. An explosive charge detonated 100 ft or more above a city devastates a much wider area than a burst at ground level. The V2 landed at such a speed that it partially buried itself before the contact fuse could detonate it, rendering the explosion even less effective.
The atomic bomb does its primary damage through the heat and blast. Any bomb is governed by what is called a tyrannical equation. To double the radius of effect, the bomb size must be cubed. An airburst of a conventional .25 ton bomb (500 pounds) compared to the estimated 21000 tons of Fat Man. A 7.5 ton Daisy cutter could make a blast diameter of 250 feet. The effective area of the 500 pound bomb was like 30 feet.
Another consideration is which method is best for bomb effect. You don't want to waste energy on overkill. The scale of the atomic bomb makes it ideal for an air burst. Ground burst is used for hardened targets, but in a city that would result in an overkill zone (dead is good enough, very dead is wasteful). I think air-dropped bombs had a .01 second delay to allow for some penetration if it hit a house (blast wave damage). If it did hit the ground, it would transmit some shock so a near miss might collapse a wall. For mortars and artillery, VT fuses were used for antipersonnel purposes, sending shrapnel downwards against troops in the open.
The V-2 warhead was 1.1 ton, so would have had an effective diameter of like 40-45 feet. Even aiming at big cities, the accuracy was dodgy.
Atomic bombs also use barometric fuses as backups.
I'm not sure that's true. The majority of destruction caused by a V2 was not caused by blast, but the by the circa 3500 tons of soil, and debris lifted by the fairly deep detonation, which then fell back from well over 1000' onto the target area. It's true the blast effect was reduced by the deep explosion, but it's not the blast that was its primary means of causing damage.
@@Fidd88-mc4sz The debris certainly would cause a lot of damage and holes in roofs etc., but a lot of it would be repairable given time. But a shock wave can flatten buildings in one go, leading to the classic pictures of blitzed houses in which only the chimneys are still standing. A V2 exploding while still falling at supersonic speed would create a devastating shock wave spreading even faster ahead of it. The damage would depend on what sort of structures it hit (which with a V2's primitive guidance was largely random) but it would shatter ordinary houses and kill anyone exposed.
@@philiphumphrey1548 That's as maybe, what I'm saying is that that's not the way it worked, it was never meant to cause damage primarily by blast. (although the blast damage was not inconsiderable, nevertheless. The falling debris did cause a complete collapse of roofs and floors, and blew the walls out too, leaving much the same damage as a blast bomb at surface level. And this is the problem when looking at photographs of V2 damage of a built-up area, it actually looks like blast damage, leading to people thinking that's what they're looking at....
@@Fidd88-mc4sz I would disagree. It would leave a crater like 8 feet deep (3m). If it hit the ground, there would be a shock transferred to the ground, but most of the gas expansion would be directed upwards. If the bomb penetrated a building, blast overpressure was enough to bring it down. If it came down near a building, ground wave could cause a wall to collapse.
For anti-personnel, even the Germans at the time knew that saturating an area with smaller blasts was more effective, with the butterfly bomb (and bomblets in Vietnam).
Excess pressure or excess shrapnel was overkill. By focusing on smaller explosions making for more even shrapnel distribution, it maximized the effective area.
Navy sources indicate that the VT (Variable Time) fuze multiplied the effectiveness of 5" AAA fire by a factor of 4 to 7. Keeping the Germans from reverse engineering the VT fuze was why the Allied ground forces in ETO were forbidden to use POZIT fuzes for land targets until the Ardennes offensive. Proximity fuzes work for AA fire and also for causing airburst shells to detonate over troops in the open. Question; given the state of German industry circa 1944 - could they have produced enough VT fuzes to make a significant difference?
We were already using chaff and electronic countermeasures to spoof their air search radar. A radar-based VT fuse would be vulnerable to these tactics, so I suspect that loss rates would initially jump but be mitigated significantly by adapting existing techniques.
I brought up the VT fuse, certainly along with others in the other video. We get results! Another factor: against the Japanese, it was many guns concentrating on single aircraft. A flak battery just firing up into a formation, it would mainly be a vertical precision improvement. But you wouldn't expect any lateral improvement, since it's still only shells passing close enough laterally that would do the job, and the VT would mainly fix the problem of shells detonating too low or too high. I wonder what sort of difference that would make.
fwiw if you look at old school documentaries on the VT fuze on YT, they describe the effect of the fuze as increasing the "effective surface area" of the target. And if you look closely at 4:32, you'll see an illustration of this. Apparently the fuze was optimized to detect targets on the side of the shells. So it did provide some lateral improvement aswell.
Yes but the main thing is it detonates the shell at the airplane's level, correcting for timing errors of a time fuse. But if it's 500 yards away when it passes, won't make much difference. Obviously still way higher than without, and VT plus radar direction would be devastating I'm sure. @@WBtimhawk
The problem would have been mass production, Germany had huge issues producing the "8 mil short" and Hitler repeatedly said to dump the project due to the introduction of a new caliber.
Mass production of such "one shot" disposable items would have been even a bigger nightmare than V1 or 2 production.
Even the US needed time to ramp up to have sufficient numbers of fuses to matter. Contrary to popular misconception, Germany wasnt obsessed with "uber waffen", that came only in the latter half of the war when all hopes were put into those.
In fact many developments early in the war were slowed to a crawl or cut as it took too long to become feasible.
Besides Germany was developing guided missiles for AA use.
Excellent annalysis including variations due to changing tactics and a dynamic battlefield on both sides.
The Germans did develop optical seekers for antiaircraft missiles. The 1947 Sidewinder missile was developed from this research combined with US research on missile mechanical gyro roll stabilisation.
Technically the US combined its research on optical/IR research from the VB/GB guided bomb project with with the useful parts of german research to combine it with the sidewinder
Thank you & merry Christmas! Wow 4.7 x ouch! The US might have had to deploy the B-29s & nukes to Europe with losses like those. Excellently easy to follow assessment, the way these vids are put together is both entertaining to watch & thoroughly documented. Must have one heck of a lot of good sources.
Wonderful work on your part as usual.
A very thought provoking hypothetical video.
Just to be clear, the muzzle velocity of the 88mm is Mach 2.45 as stated in this video. This is the maximum speed when the projectile leaves the muzzle. The projectile starts slowing down after it leaves the barrel. Mach number varies with air density & air temperature. As the projectile ascends the temperature decreases as does the air density. So the Mach 2.45 at sea level is 1867mph and at 30,000 feet is 1664 mph if travelling at the Mach 2.45. In reality the projectile would have slowed substantiality when reach its detonation altitude.
Maybe someone can calculate the speed of the projectile at 30,000 feet.
The formula shown for VT Combat effectiveness at time 6:35 or so has the numerator and denominator reversed! It appears to show that it takes more VT rounds for each kill.
Thanks good catch. The annotations are corrected
Whether a German proximity fuse would have any strategic impact on the outcome of the war would depend almost entirely on when in the war it became operational. In 1943 it might have totally defeated both the day and night bomber offensives AND induced ripple effects in Allied planning for Overlord. By January 1944 the outcome of the war would not be been affected more than marginally. Maybe the bomber offensive would not have been sufficient to disrupt the Luftwaffe in time for a D Day June or July 1944. A Normandy landing in October or November 1944 would have given the Russians time seize more of Germany in 1945. So, unless the Germans developed and deployed a proximity fuse significantly before the Allies did it would not have changed the outcome of the war; but it might have changed the complexion of the Cold War.
I have a soft cover book from the Ballentine Series of books on WW2 weapons and military operations. There is one called German Secret Weapons. Its absolutely amazing how many weapons of all types they explored. Not a one was the proximity fuse all though they could have easily developed one considering they developed the v2 and night vision eqipment and very advanced radars just to mention a small number..
I have had the same book since it was published back in the late 60s. The subtitle was "Blueprint for Mars". I was amazed why the German's did not continue work on the different SAMs listed in the book. Thanks!
Excellent analysis and I say that as a retired electrical engineer with 47 years in industry. Subscribing.
Significant analysis -- or maybe presentation -- of a WWII "what if". WELL done, sir!
Excellent coverage of the subject as well as Luftwaffe air-air rockets. I'm notifying my CCs of your tremendous site.
Great vid! Tons of information. Thanks!
Great research and information shared.
I am surprised that it all held together after the charge had gone off. top show 👍👍👍👍👍
Fascinating video! Excellent work as always!!
Fascinating what-if analysis. 👍
My words exactly :)
The main reason flak was so ineffective during ww2 was that pilot where trained to change heading and altitude constently to avoid the flak barrage that could not be calculated fast enought to adjust meaning they alway exploded too high or too low.
You can watch an old training film on this on youtube.
Very well done and a very thought provoking presentation.
Great video. The gun at 00:24 is not an AA gun, but is an Anti-Tank gun. I am being pedantic, but I am sure that's OK on this channel!
excellent. Thanks!
Question/request: do you have anything that compares different Allied (and Axis, for that matter) bombers in terms of survival rates of crew members once they were shot down (by flak or fighters)? Which bombers were the preferred or most dreaded by crews?
Excellent video thank you. Simply put loss rates of 4.75 times those observed would have caused the US to cease high level saturation bombing, and war might have dragged on for at least another year.
I think the potential effect might be over stated . there is a difference between defending against Single aircraft surprise attacks and engaging a b17 combat Box wich approaches in a very visible manner at a speed of not more than 250 miles per hour.
Great channel 👏
I really enjoyed the part where you considered possible countermeasures to the VT fuse, had Germany deployed it.
I worked at the place where they helped develop the VT fuse... Dahlgren, VA (now NSWCDD)
HA cool, I live a few hundred yards where the concept was invented and protypes built (Christchurch in England). Its a fascinating story, and the prototype development is really interesting.
I really dont think your going to be firing an 88mm 15 times a second, I think it would be more realistic at 15 time a min.(1:17)
Realistically, even if Germany had managed to develop a VT fuse at the same pace as the Allies and have it ready by 1943, I can't see German industry managing to produce it in the required quantities.
Aparently Germany was developing proximity fuses that used infrared (whatever that means, I don't know) towards the end of the war, they also tried out automatically triggered guns on ME 163 fighters that would activate when the fighter passed underneath a bomber (guns were installed at an angle, similar to schräge Musik) (again, not sure if this would be the same or simiar tech). I read about this when checking some books on submarine U-234 and its cargo (part of which were those fuses plus a passenger who was a scientist involved in their development) when it surrendered to US. The infrared technology was of interest to the US which were looking for a system to trigger its implosion-type bombs.......... Now that is a loooot of claims in just a few lines and I admit I do not have the means to check any of it (particularly the stuff around the u-boat is a bit muddy...), but thought I'd post it, anyway, in case there may be any interesting clues to someone with better knowledge.
Something that is triggered by infrared today are automatic porch lights. It sends out infrared light and when something solid breaks the field at a certain distance enough of the light is reflected back to the IR sensor. They were actually using those sensors to set off IED’s, specifically EFP’s, by the time I got to Baghdad. So our humvees and most other vehicles would have Rhino’s on the front. A box on a bar extending out some 6 plus feet from the bumper that would get hot using glow plugs. The heat, or IR radiation, would set off the Passive Infra-Red sensors and detonate the IED’s early.
You can search for, for example, "Strela-10 missile proximity sensor overview and partial teardown" here in TH-cam (infrared proximity sensor). The channel has fascinating (disassembly) videos of military components, missile parts etc.
The Germans had proximity fuse for the 8.8cm gun which was test fired in 1943-1944 with about 1000s test fired with an effectiveness of 95 against elevated ground targets. (netting).
The code name was Kuhglochen and it was by Rheinmetall-Borsig.
-The fuse was in development in 1940 but development was halted during the emergency that was the Battle of France due to a Fuhrer Order that all weapons development that could not be completed within 6 months should be suspended. It took a long time to reactivate the program (late 1942).
-The Existence of the fuse was reveled to British Intelligence in the Oslo Report which was delivered to British Intelligence in November 1939 along with the shock hardened vacuum tube called a cold cathode thyratron tube. The cold cathode thyratron was a tube(or valve as British call it) filled with Argon at 0.5 bar pressure. It had a cathode, an anode and a striking anode. When a voltage was applied to the striking anode current would conduct from anode to cathode. It didn't require a heating element. The valve was extremely sensitive and the voltage very precise and repeatable.
-The Germans had already been using the shock hardened cold cathode tubes to arm their bombs and set impact time delays.
-With the Oslo letter tube and other tubes being found in bombs the British restarted their own proximity fuse program just as the Germans suspended theirs.
-The man in charge, physicist john cockcroft had an atomic bomb to develop so the work was handed over to the US. The US fuse entered production in 1942 but the British test fired their own fuse in 1942 but by then US fuse was in production. (see Louis Brown: Radar technical and military imperatives) . The British fuse was detonated remotely when the relfection from a coner reflector merged with the target. A double pulse triggered detonation. They'd hoped to track the shell as well.
-The Germans had planed to cuse cold cathode tubes in 2 ways on FLAK shells. A/ by using them as electronic timers and B/ Using them as proximity fuses that trigger of the aircraft electrostatic field.
-A shell in flight and an aircraft have a powerful electrostatic field. The German shell had an whisker aerial on one side of the shell. As it spun through the air at 500 RPM the field around the shell was even. If an aircraft was in the vicinity the field was disturbed. The 500Hz was filtered and rectified and if sufficient would fire the cold gas thryratorn which would discharge a capacitor through a fuse link primer detonating the shell. A nose contact switch was present ass a backup and it could obviously be timed to self destruct a little beynd the bomber target.
-About 1000 round were fired in 1943/44 with a range up to 4m. Improved circuits of 10m and 15m were developed but not tested. Production did not occur because the factory was over run in early 1945. The cold gas tubes needed a little radium to trigger fast enough and this cause a delay as tetrode tubes which did not need radium were developed.
-The Fuse is briefly mentioned in Wolfgang Samuel book "American Raiders" and also Igor Witkoski's "Truth about the Wunderwaffe" which gives illustrations and CIOS references. (wrong but I found them in a US archive depository)
I love this comment section, thanks so much, crazy insights! @@williamzk9083
Holy smokes! Thank you for all this information! Very interesting.@@williamzk9083
Thanks for another enjoyable video.
Cool video that's interesting to think about.
this channel is badass
Interesting to think what tradeoffs between lower shell HE capacity in the 88 vs 5”, and much easier math problem to hit a 4 engine bomber formation over land vs diving kamakize
Wouldn't the tinsel allied bombers dropped to confuse radar be an extremely good coumtermeasure? At least what it did to the radar screens made it look like it gives out massive radar cross sections. But maybe it isn't as effective with close range radar?
Only the planes actively flying through such a cloud of chaff could hope to enjoy its effects. But that tinsel would probably not be good in an air intake. I don't think chaff would help much more than it already was for VT fuse shells. The shells aren't gojng to be confused much by chaff that is behind and below the target bomber. The gun targeting, if done solely off of radar signature, MAY be confused by chaff.
6:35 What part of the VT Combat Effectiveness mathematics needs to be blurred out after almost 80 years?
Super interesting content. Thanks.
Awesome!
88mm might have been too small. The US 5" shell was 127mm, and they couldn't fit it in their 3" shell (76mm). However, the US did not have a lot of 3" AA guns, which probably reduced the urgency. I wonder how much this affected their plans, and whether that US post-war report took that into consideration.
The 90mm "Triple Threat" was the primary AA gun used by the US in the same role as the German 88 and I've never seen a listing for proximity fused ammo for it, however in 1944 they started using an advanced radar system with it that had an automatic elevation and azmith adjustment slaved into the gun, essentially auto tracking where previous to that the radar was just ranging.
@dukecraig2402 pretty sure US army 90mm guns did receive VT fuzing.
25pdr (88mm) received VT fuses in 1944, with the smallest fuse developed for the 3"/50(76mm) also showing up in 1944.
The standard fuze was No 117 direct action (DA). No 119 (DA and graze) was also used. Combustion or mechanical time fuzes were used with base ejection shells and mechanical time with graze were used with HE. Proximity fuzes were used from the end of 1944 and subsequently replaced by CVT fuzes.
You look at this to much through the lens of the Allies. Had Germany taken this route, given the pervasiveness of 88mm and 105mm guns, a VT fuse for those would have been the top priority.
Also, radar/doppler isn't the only way to achieve the effect, various other ways of varied effectiveness were studied by the different sides.
@@MrZazzles94
Just as an assumption I'd think they did to but I just can't find anything in print verifying it.
I know that they used the 90mm as a field piece extensively and after the Battle of The Bulge they used proximity fuses on infantry caught in the open so I'd assume they used with if but like I said I just can't find it on a list.
I agree with your assessment.
Great video...👍
Is this equivalence of targets between kamikazes and American bombers for calculating VT fuse effectiveness against bombers valid?
VT fuses were aimed at individual Japanese planes flying at much lower altitudes. Would targeting individual B-17s flying at, for example, 25,000’ have been feasible? If the VT-fused shells were fired at formations instead of individual aircraft, would it not have required more shells/kill?
Didn’t the German developed their own VT based on electrostatic principle?
If the Germans had developed a proximity fuse, would it have worked on their air to air rockets? The advantage of rockets is that they have less acceleration than a shell and they have a larger explosive charge than a flak gun's shell.
That biplane footage is awesome.. where is that from?
But they did not have the technology. The proximity fuze was based on a British breakthrough that was beyond German capabilities at the time.
Hearing aid tubes.
Yes absolutely. Germany developed everything EXCEPT the proximity fuse ! You are so right.
Fritz-X style wire guided MCLOS missile with solid fuel rocket motor would have been well within technological capabilities back then and it would have been devastating, I suppose
The Americans deployed an anti ship glide bomb using an active radar seeker.
Ironically late navy Shipboard SAM project in mid-44 actually tried doing just that.
Given the USA had terrible QC problems with VT fuses, the Germans would have needed a LOT of time to perfect it [USA was NOT being bombed and lots of everything; unlike Germany].
It's not that QC was bad. It was that building vacuum tubes that can survive being fired out of a 5" gun is extremely hard.
The initial version they had worked 80% of the time and was ready for mass production. How long would it have taken to make a version that worked 95% of the time? 6 months? A year? More? Could they produce as many of the 95% version as the 80%?
The choice was an 80% reliable fuse now or a more reliable fuse at an unknown future date.
@@Crosshair84 ; what you said is very true. Building submini tubes was not easy and to resist thousands of G's even harder. But the documents from the time indicate the tube QC standards was not being met by the manufacturers.
great vid
when germany used impact fuses on the 88 mm shells th number of downed bombers suddenly tripled! so much for accuracity!
Those documents make it seem as if the US forces knew more about german equipment and tactics then the wehrmacht itself
Good video
Just one thing, as usual with American authors you manage to miss out the small fact that the proximity fuse was invented by the British.
But it was perfected by the Americans. The British never got past tests in UP’s and didn’t know if VT could be developed for cannon shells.
Quite feasible, but imho so would be heat-seeking missiles *if* they had worked on them for as long as they did work on rockets/V weapons (and jets - the engines for which they would NEVER have the materials to produce in quantity). I think your idea is even more feasible.
15 rounds a second ? NO way is that for a Battey of guns?
Thanks for the catch, I pinned a correction as the units should be rounds per minute.
@@WWIIUSBombers Oh.
The 128mm Flak 40 was rated for 10 to 12 rounds per minute off a single mount or 20-24 off the twin Flakzwilling 40/2 mount.
The 128mm round is almost dimensionally identical but more than twice the weight compared to the 127mm/5”/38 used by the US Navy with proximity fuses.
The 128 twin mount on a tracked chassis would be truly scary as an antitank weapon. (The US Army Ordinance Museum has one of the 34 built).
So it took roughly 100,000 lbs of 88 FLAK shells to shoot down a 65,500 lbs gross weight B17? Even with VT fuse, it would cost around 25,000 lbs worth of shells.
Whereas a fighter with pilot, fuel, ammo and all would weight less than 10,000 lbs and likely could be reuse for several times. FLAK really wasn't a efficient anti-bombing solution.
Who would've guessed that mathematics could be useful?
You know the Germans developed a Electronic Eye weapons launching system for their fighters that was triggered from a bombers shadow. I bet this could have also been used as a possible proximity fuse. The author of the book I mentioned came to the conclusion that Germany spread their weapons dev far too thin on just about everything. I couldn't agree more.
If in 1934 Germany had set up a DARPA program and integrated it with their military.... YIKES!
Man, your content is wonderful but you run through it way too fast. Give people a chance to digest the data. Slow it down by precisely 23.6%.
This is another example of germany spending their wealth on wonder weapons instead of on practical things like proximity fuses
I think you should do a study of the effectiveness of the V1 rockets. You will find that they were extremely cost/effective, if they had been available in bulk in the Battle Of Britain they would have changed ww2 dramatically. As it was the V1 rockets diverted for a while almost all allied bombers
Eisenhower suggested had they been fired as they prepared the D-Day landings they would have disrupted the landing preparation.
The battle of Britain was about control of the channel airspace. I'm not sure how the notoriously inaccurate V1 could have affected the outcome if it couldn't hit the fighter airfields.
Very interesting. I wonder what held the Germans back from developing one?
They didn’t have enough men in sheds.
They spent their money on other things, not always in a cost-effective manner.
Incompetence.
This video was on target
or nearly so.
Allies with v-weapons wouldn’t have changed much. Germany with proximity fuses would have been a disaster. 😬
The Allies would have jammed them, just like they Jammed Fritz X and The Hs-293.
@@richardvernon317 and exactly how long do you think it would have taken to figure it out what it was without a captured example? The Japanese certainly never did.
@@2IDSGT Intelligence is something you lack!!! You must be a Wehraboo
Not very long. Signals Intelligence existed!!! Don't even need a jammer to beat this thing. Bucket loads of Window cut to the right wavelength will defeat a WWII radio Proximity Fuze easily. Just borrow some Mosquitos of the British to lay a window cloud above and in front of the Lead US Bombers to protect them, and they and everybody else throw out bucket loads of the stuff themselves. Allied Fighters would have problems however.
The question on whether Germany should have developed a proximity fuze instead of the V-1 or even the V-2 missile is in no way a sensible question. I will explain why;-
To win an all-out war, you have to take the fight to the enemy and destroy the will and ability to fight - defending your own territory is just a part of it. Hence it was sensible to develop the offensiveV-1 regardless of any defensive ack-ack development.
Ack-ack proximity fuzes are completely different technology to V-1 missiles, hence developing and mass producing proximity fuzes would not take resources away from missile development and production.
It is anybody's wild guess as to how effective a German proximity fuze would be.
Basing the kill ratio of VT fuzes on its effectiveness against Kamikaze as done in this video is quite unsound. Firstly, the flight path Kamikaze pilots were trained to use was designed to make shooting them down as difficult as possible. Such a flight path was quite unsuitable for high altitude precision bombing, so on that basis one would expect VT fuzes to be a lot more effective against bombers.
It would have been better if the presenter had looked at the very high kill rate of VT fuzes against the V-1, which essentially could not be shot down by times fuzes. However, the V-1 was a dumb robot that could not take defensive measures, so the effectiveness of proximity fuzing against bombers would be somewhere between its effectiveness against Kamikaze and against V-1.
Is data of VT effectiveness against non-Kamikaze available? It would be worth looking for.
On the other hand, the presenter has assumed that German proximity fuzes could have been as good as American VT fuzes. That seem very unlikely - a lot of intense development utilizing special capabilities the US had went into the VT fuze. Britain could not anywhere near match it, and could not mass-produce it and I don't think Germany could match it either.
The V-2 was a boffin's indulgence, but Germany very nearly had a war winning weapon with the V-1. Fortunately the VT fuze was made available in the nick of time, and British manipulation of a German spy tricked the Germans into disabling the V-1's accuracy.
It's a good job Germany never managed to develop them in time.
You forgot to mention the "Kommandogerät 40" , a targeting or fire control computer . A Flak battery had four 8.8 Flak guns and one computer , wich measured the enemy bomber and sended data for gun elevation and time fuze to the guns . Up to 12km altitude and 18km away/range , so they were pretty accurate . They fired not just stupid in the air , 15 shells per minute . So there was maybe no need for VT fuze , they never thought about that .
Not a valid point, the US and the UK armies also had targeting computers, but a proximity fuse is still more effective, because you can't shoot at a specific plane, you aim for the center of the formation and hope it explodes close enough. With a radar fuse it would only explode if close enough and well aimed, but with timed fuses you can only aim well and hope to be lucky with the exact timing.
@@MrSam1er And you can tell me more about these two systems right ?
@@5co756 Look at the other videos on this chanel, it's pretty well researched. There is also the number of 3000 shells for one bomber with timed fuses, and 2000 shells for one bomber with contact fuses, this suggests that even contact fuses are better than timed fuses (these numbers are for german FLAK against allied bombers). So now replace these contact fuses with proximity fuses and every close call becomes a hit, this gives you a way better success rate than timed fuses.
@@MrSam1er First I wanted to know how these UK and US targeting computers were called , so I can research them .
And second this were US numbers from WW2 and against kamikaze fighters in the pazific war . They never shoot at enemy bomber formations 10km up in the air , so it's hard to compare this .
Germany was ten years behind on electronics research. They were good at metal bashing but that was about it.
Actually wrong, they were on a par with the Allies in a lot of ways and ahead in some. Problem was their Electronics Industry pushed development and the Military couldn't work out what they wanted to do with it. There was infighting within the Industry about Patents and Licences, plus infighting between the Navy and Air Force about companies building stuff for the other service. The UK had the Military pushing Development within the Service Research Establishments, who did talk to each other, but only bought the Electronics industries in to build parts of systems until the war started. After this Information was shared between the Industries and the Establishments with a tri-service Co-ordination authority making sure that all three services (Navy, Army and Air Force) were aware of the latest developments. Patents and Licences were put on hold. USA started out the same way as the Germans, but after the British showed them what they had in 1940, they pretty much followed the British Example in at least sharing information between the various labs (plus talked to the British).
@@richardvernon317 Really? So they did have a proximity fuse all along? Or are you just making an unsubstantiated claim like all the wehraboos do?
@@annoyingbstard9407 Germans had Proximity Fuzes in Mines and Torpedoes. They could have easily put them in rockets (they did have 5 projects on the go in 1944/45 that used noise of bomber engines as a passive trigger). They did build a production standard radar with a 20 Km range before anybody else in late 1935. The German Electronics Industries and Engineers were no worse than any other people involved in the development of Electronics. Where the Difference happened as regards Military electronics was integration of the Civilian Science and Engineering sides of system development with the Military users. In Germany it didn't happen. In the UK and US it did.
@@richardvernon317 You’re a little confused. They had magnetic mines and torpedoes, and quite primitive ones, as did every nation in the war. They’re really not the same thing as is being discussed here. Please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to any more of your comments.
@@annoyingbstard9407 They are Proximity Fuzes as by the Definition of the term, just as a Homing Torpedo is a Guided Weapon. Your Stupid comment was that the German Electronics industry was 10 years behind the Allies. It wasn't!! (P.S, I'm a Brit, did 30 years in the RAF on Air Defence Systems Maintenance and the first equipment's I worked and Trained on were not much more advanced than kit built during WW2. Plus I've written histories about Radar Development for a Museum that covers the subject). The British systems were mostly lashed up out of Off the Shelf equipment. Except for the first 5 Chain Home Equipment's, most of the rest of the CH network were built out of whatever equipment was available. None of the first Chain Home Low Radars were of a standard design, again lashed up out of what equipment was in good supply. The US had not got anything to a production standard by the start of the war in Europe. Germans had 50 completed Freya Radars sitting in the Factory waiting for the Luftwaffe to get around to training the people to use them.
This is a contradiction - see cargo on submarine that surrendered at the end of war 2 in USA
The Germans tested their proximity fuzes in April, 1945. The average number of rounds per aircraft shot down was 320.
The Germans didn't not use radar proximity fuzes, so they were unjammable.
Sorry I did reply but my posts keep getting deleted by the YT secret police.
algorithm
Can you cover another hypothetical scenario in which Germany uses ac 130 gunship as bomber destroyer
GAU-88 😂