... We can see that the final outcoming was to saturate of fire all the entire sky.
No. There's a lot of firepower put out but it's a long way from "saturating the sky".
Are we speaking of shell fragments? Or may be of quantity of shells flying around?
Or of both?
In every case, it is becoming kind of bizarre discussion about semantical terms more than a discussion about antiaircraft fire doctrines.
....The clock fuses were not only “psychological impact” weapons, they were perfect for saturate skies with fragments which could be from dangerous to lethal for the bombers without using VT fuses.
In order for them to be lethal they had to burst fairly close to the bomber.
It is the same way of work of the VT proximity fuses. They need to detonate very near to the bomber to damage it. I still don’t see that “abysmal” difference between both two types of fuses if they are properly attached to last generation radars and well trained crews.
One of the real problems with timed fuses is the timing is extremely critical. If the shell is moving at 500 m/sec and has a 25m diameter lethal sphere then you have to get the timing right to .1 sec to have any hope at all of damaging the plane.
Well, that is not much problem taking in account that those “old” clockworks measured in the 0, 01 seconds range and the fuse could be set up to this degree of accuracy.
BTW, the direct impact delay system in the fuses of the APCBC-HE naval shells were regulated to between 0,003 to 0,05 seconds of delay when they were activated by the impact in the plate to ensure detonation post-penetration.
but apparently the Germans did a study that indicated that they might be better off just using contact fuses
Did the Germans manke a study concluding that they might have been more proficient just only relying contact fuses? It’s far from credible.
Can you provide the title of the exact document? I am very curious. It could be a break-trough for the study that I am working about arillery and armour.
The problem with a clock work fuse is that if it goes off early there is no chance of hitting the target.
Yes, but the problems related to a proximity fuse are much more than this one:
- It can/could be easily jammed when you know the working frequency (Düppeln/windows and other systems).
- It can/could detonate prematurely when it finds clouds and storms.
- It was very fragile as the spinning shell creates centrifugal forces of more than 10000 Gs, and those proximity fuses were made of electronic valves which were manufactured of mica or glass (one reason why Germany was so reluctant initially to use proximity fuses in guns, preferring them for missiles and rockets) making the shell a complete dud.
- Initially a lot of those VT shells detonated too early when fired because they received spurious echoes from the sea.
- They corroded fairly fast with salt water and humidity.
- They degraded very fast because of the batteries which they carried discharged quite fastly.
And some others. The proximity fuse, even being a big leap, was not the panacea.
No one is questioning that. The question is how effective timed fuses were and the statistics indicate not very.
Can you provide those statistics which prove that the clock fuse was ineffective?
In all the books and documents which I own, They speak fairly well about them.
What makes you think the allies didn't have a good one?
Probably they had good ones, but… The fact that Anthony G. Williams (among other authors in other books) in his book “Rapid Fire” have stated clearly that when Great Britain could obtain a German clock fuse They carbon-copied it as They were classified the best and most accurate in the world, (and, obviously they passed samples to United States) you can start to think that those initially were not good enough.
Do you need more proof? I have much more stating that German clock fuses were the bests in the world.
How are you differentiating a "clock" fuse from a timed fuse?
Do you know how works a clock fuse opposed to a conventional timed fuse? Those are very different. I can assure it to you.
Curiously enough, today the VT fuse is working on pair with digital clock fuses. The VT fuse haven’t been capable of substitute them.
I'd like to see some support for that one or at least for a bit more on what you mean.
The actual AA guns use both kinds of fuses, among other ones, like the Oerlikon-contraves (Now Rheinmetall owned
) AHEAD 35 mm AA system and so on.
The clock fuse which is currently used by all nations is digital, and receives the data directly from computers, coupled to the gunlaying radar, been activated at the gun muzzle (even It calculates the erosion of the barrel to determine the actual disperson and MV and re-adjust the data sent to by the radar to the digital clock fuse with these parametres). Obviously, they are coupled in most cases with very advanced kinds of ammunition. You can see those types in the book “Rapid fire” (a very good starting point, and not very expensive one).
The combo SCR584-Proximity fuse (coupled to a good fuse setter) was decisive in the achievements obtained by the allies in destroy V-1 flying bombs before they reached their objectives.
Why do you need a good fuse setter if you have a proximity fuse?
Because as I have previously said, the VT proximity fuse
did not substituted to the “unsuccessful” clock (chronometric) fuse, and also because They had to activate the self destruction systems at a pre-fixed height or time of flight, depending on the type used.
The USN always used timed fuses along with VT fuses because VT fuses don't burst when they miss
I don’t think so. All the fired FlaK HE ordnance (especially the VT fuses, which were “top secret”) had a self destruction system which was activated when It was fired, to avoid “friend fire” damage, and/or to prevent the capture from the enemy, although some, of course, would fail. All the current and almost all the heavy HE AA shells had them in WWII, so I would consider rather silly for the Allies not to have one in the most secret shell which They owned.
By example, an extract from the “"Development of Proximity Fuzes (VT) for Projectiles - VT Fuzes MKS 32 to 60, Inclusive (General Description)." chapter 1 of The World War II Proximity Fuze: A Compilation of Naval Ordnance Reports by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. (Silver Spring MD: The Laboratory, 1950)”:
“The U. S. Army has radio proximity projectile fuses for the Army 90mm gun, the 75mm, 105mm, 155mm, 8", and 240mm howitzers. Models have been developed for the 120mm gun, 155mm gun, and 75mm AA gun.
The AA guns have AA fuses incorporating a self-destruction feature”.
and the timed fuses indicate whether you are close to the target
The Kamikazes were downed by all kind of fragments in the air, not only by the VT fused shell fragments. So It was used also as direct system to deal with the kamikazes, and not only as “range indicators”, unless you fire them without the corrected data obtained fro the rgunlaying radar (which would be a total waste of ordnance of course).
As I have repeated a good number of times, the “magical” VT proximity fuse has been incapable of eliminate the “unsuccessful” clock time fuse.
Regards
