The Secret Invention That Changed World War 2
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2024
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Credits:
Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Animator: Mike Ridolfi
Animator: Eli Prenten
3D Model: Stijn Orlans
Sound: Graham Haerther
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster
References:
[1] www.history.navy.mil/research...
[2]maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index...
[3] ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/sta...
[4] nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jre...
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Thank you to my patreon supporters: Abdullah Alotaibi, Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Hank Green, William Leu, Tristan Edwards, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Thomas Barth, Johnny MacDonald, Stephen Foland, Alfred Holzheu, Abdulrahman Abdulaziz Binghaith, Brent Higgins, Dexter Appleberry, Alex Pavek, Marko Hirsch, Mikkel Johansen, Hibiyi Mori. Viktor Józsa, Ron Hochsprung - Věda a technologie
It's amazing how they manufactured this complex unit for every artillery shell... Thats just utterly meticulous
Available in 3 inch (76mm) , 5 inch , 6 inch (155) and 8 inch (208 ) flavours
@@sherlocksinha2435 The APL brief was to develop 4 initial designs, a 5 Inch AA fuze for the US Navy. a 4.5 Inch AA Fuze for the Royal Navy. A 90mm AA Fuze for the US Army and a 3.7 inch AA Fuze for the British Army with priority of development in that order.
You need to look at it from a logistics perspective, then it becomes a complete no-brainer: A factor of 20 reduction in shells used does not only help you shoot down planes faster.
It's:
- Less overall material use
- Less fuel use (for transport)
- Less storage use (especially important on ships)
- Fewer people/manhours required in logistics
- Less targeting experience required -> lower requirements for who can man the guns
New avenues of automation open up that allow you to not only match the previous level of manufacturing speed but to surpass it
All-in-all you're shifting the workload from the front to the well-protected inland of your own country where there's way more available manpower.
This is why the US has no qualms paying 60k $ and up for artillery rounds, you only need one or two to destroy 500k+ $ military equipment. Meanwhile Russia is running out of dumb shells in Ukraine because it can only count on statistics to hit (which can be somewhat countered by spreading out etc.)
@@ANDSENS very well put!
Lol I chuckled too hard at this
A true wonder weapon.
"As volume increased, efficiency came into play and the cost per fuze fell from $732 in 1942 to $18 in 1945."
"...finally reaching $0.49 when production was moved to China."
...wait, something here sounds fishy...
Today, that cost trend would be Inverse, and rising!🤬
Greedy Corporations today putting Profit over Readiness!
@@Asazym21 You've obviously never worked for a company on a military contract...
@@alphamegaman8847 Actually the problem is that those businesses know that the government will rip them off every time it got a chance. And return the favor. This result is a dysfunctional procurement system where both sides hate each other. (I despised our government rep because she tried everything she could to rip us off.)
Got to the point where I replied with 'no bid' for a part that was absolutely essential to a high priority defense asset. I then passed the word to the people who used that part what I did - and why. (We had a competitor that also made the part but the Air Force mechanics didn't want it. Because our part came with a warranty that it would last twice as long as the requirements in the government specification. And it worked much better.) Yea we charged 25% more for a part that lasted twice as long - but we were still accused of ripping off the government.
Something that a lot of people don't realize is that the defense industries attract a lot of veterans. And those veterans take a lot of pride in their work.
And something else that people don't realize is just how expensive it is to make aerospace grade parts. People look at the price and thing that the company's ripping off the government. No they're not. The materials they're made out of are specialty alloys and making them takes hour on a machine whoce price starts at $1 million. And the person running the machine is making $20 - $30 an hour.
@@colincampbell767 I spent 30+ years in Aerospace, Medical Device, Automotive and Military R&D.
A 25% Markup would be fine for a better part. In the example in the story, the price changed by ~40X.
I understand the costs involved for materials and labor.
Was making a tangential dig at the state of current Military/Government overpricing and monopoly manipulation.
There is NO justification for some of the Ridiculous costs associated with Military Components and Systems.
Would like to see this change, but I won't hold my breath!😁🤬
The VT fuse was a true game changer in the Pacific. The naval 5 inch gun went from being a totally ineffective AA gun to being the most effective practically overnight. One of the greatest technological accomplishments of the war.
Even without the VT fuse the American 5"/38 caliber gun is considered to be the best heavy naval AA gun of the war
Take a look at the rapid fire 76 mm AA guns used on the Des Moines class Heavy cruisers.
@@YoBoyNeptune I remember hearing an eyewitness account of an incoming Japanese plane taking a 5" round right smack on the spinner; it was *atomized*.
Just want to give huge props to whoever did the animations on this one. Not only are they excellent at showing the mechanisms in play, but they're also just downright gorgeous in their finish! I can imagine it took a lot of time and skill to get those so good, not to mentions a buttonne of render power!
I thought the same.
So. Are you related?
It’s crazy how a war that was just six years long led to incredible advancements in technology
The biggest jumps in tecnology was because some war was happening at that time.
@@C0lon0 Technology is constantly being improved, war just means that untested technology would be pushed out as wonder weapons.
The way I see it capitalism is a war between companies, some of the biggest competitors are inside the same country. If they worked together and coordinated like in war time progress would be even faster.
Necessity is the mother of inventions
War probably slow down advancement in the long run. Just the death toll of millions of people during war is a waste of brain power for innovations and society development.
A little side note, the naming VT Fuze (Variable Timed) Fuze was used to throw off the enemy. For if the Allies used the name Proximity Fuze it could have caused the Axis to take another look or put more effort to steal the plans that went into the development of the VT Fuze.
That is absolutely correct - deception at every level of the war.
It was also a play of words, VT can also be vacuum tube...
@@loochan325 VT is a military term for a fuse that detonates the shell about 15-25 feet above the target. Typically used against infantry in the open or troops in entrenchments without overhead cover. It's also used to cover armored fighting vehicles in the offense. The shells will keep the enemy under overhead cover while causing little more than cosmetic damage to a tank. This allows your tanks and IFVs to drive through the enemy fortifications, turn around and attack them from behind.
Even so, it's still kind of a boring name. They should've called it, like, "THUNDER EXPLODERS" or something.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 less is more
An old boy that I used to work for was heavily involved in the development of the proximity fuze. He wrote a book about it called They never knew what hit them. His name was Ralph Baldwin. There is a documentary about this also.
This was a truly interesting video. As an electronic technician and nuclear submarine veteran, the miniaturization of the thyratron, oscillator, battery, safety interlocks, and other components during the era of vacuum tubes is amazing. Like the Manhattan project...a project leader would have to oversee the theory, testing, miniaturization, development, and manufacture of each of the teams tasked with with a particular obstacle and device.
They made a difference, especially in conjunction with the “predictors” (analog mechanical targeting computers and electromechanical relays to automatically aim the gun). Once these were implemented, the crews didn’t even look at the targets. It was just load the gun, and keep the pointers aligned. One pointer (under control of the gunner) showed where the gun was actually pointed, the other (under the control of the computer) showed where it should be pointed. The crews never even had to look up. The seemingly obvious step of removing the gun crew and turning the aiming over to the computer didn’t happen until the 80’s though with the advent of the CIWS gatling gun antimissile system.
how can you conclude this informational video that was uploaded a few seconds ago?
@@bumsiltech8197 i study military history, especially technology.
I'm really disappointed real engineering missed this. The predictors are my personal favorite invention of world war 2.
All this fire control paired with the fast firing 6 inch guns in the US Navy leads to a machine gun of lead down range . Some of the late war USN cruisers could dish out 120 shells per minute
Indeed! hopefully we will never see the need for anything like these systems ever again.
Oh man the CG animations and the sounds were so on point and incredibly well done!
I’ve been following you for YEARS; and every video, the production value of you and your team just keeps setting the bar higher and with the CG coupled with the amazing sound designs!
You have assembled a professional production company, and I can’t believe your tiny team can pump out ULTRA quality educational and entertaining content for pretty much free.
Thank you Brian and your amazing team for making these for us!!!
I was thinking the same! It really went to the next level. The scenes of the planes dodging through flak clouds must have taken a lot of time and skill to make.
Its very impressive 👏.
I suspect with AI, in 5yrs. All of us will have access to the ability to produce this quality as well. Not saying we could do it. But access to the tools will be much simpler & easier for the novice.
I agree. The quality has taken a leap with this video.
I thought he reached the limit in the Spitfire video but he's just climbing higher
so true, i'm finding hard to listen to the essay as i'm just so amazed by the animations, the lighting, coloring. i haven't this much quality in a video essay. i have to keep rewinding. this is amazing work
I lived near a bunker where Sylvania worked on the radar fuse. There were tons of rumors about the "secret base" on the hill in the middle of an island neighborhood, so I asked some vets I knew. It was a test lab for this project. They picked the spot because it was a perfect granite bubble that was innocuous, close to research universities and industry, but totally physically insulated from outside electronics and vibration. But locals still insisted there were nukes behind the one steel door unguarded on a public street.
the design of that wet cell battery is absolutely amazing, making use of the spin of the round to control the release of the battery mechanism and also designing the cell in a way that makes it needed for it to function to prevent accidental detonation is amazing. It really showed a lot of creativity and awareness of the conditions that the round was going to be used under. It's also amazing how they managed to develop the cell considering that they couldn't really have any "lab" experiments of it in action, if it only worked when it was fired out of a barrel, then the system would have been hard to troubleshoot to really finish it.
I can't speak for British AA targeting systems, but I imagine they had similar methods to the Germans. Flak targeting was actually a fairly well-developed affair and not as imprecise as one may think.
German Flak batteries were directed by the Kommandogerät (Command apparatus). An analog electro-mechanical computer that used parallax to compute a firing solution. The device relied on a stereoscopic rangefinder, which was manually aimed at the approaching aircraft by an operator. Two images of the same aircraft would be visible through the eyepiece, and a knob was rotated until the two images merged. This merging was accomplished by the knob causing a deflection of the optics of one of the viewports of the stereoscopic pair. The computer then used elevation + optical deflection of the viewport to calculate altitude and distance trigonometrically. The operator maintaining the aircraft in view and focus also provided speed.
The firing solution from the command apparatus was then sent through cables to each of the battery's guns. Dials on each gun indicated the elevation, azimuth, and necessary time delay required to reach the target, all the gun crew had to do was match the dial readings. The system even accounted for the error introduced by the varying distance between the guns and the central rangefinder.
AAA was still a primitive affair back in WW 2 and pilots on either side flying at altitude simply had to avoid flying at the same altitude and speed for more than 30 seconds at a time to completely negate AAA of the time. That is how far ahead of the flight you had to aim so it was simply a matter of don't be where the shells are going to be when the bombers were flying at altitude.
The video saying that it worked better at low altitudes is common sense. Much less lead required of the shots at low altitude thus much harder for the pilots to dodge.
Also they used radar for targeting 128mm flacks (on flacktowers at least).
Even more interesting about the German system was the ability, just as in Berlin, to link multiple flakturm and other installations so that the batteries were synched and could keep the flak “box” squarely enveloping the bomber formations as they moved. The early war days of flak chasing formations or putting the box in the path of the bombers forcing them to fly into it was deadly enough, but the ability for German flak to literally put sometimes hundreds of guns on a formation and track them with pinpoint accuracy the entire time they were within range was absolutely devastating.
Understandably, flak doesn’t look so bad in the old photos and videos and even modern representations…but with how dense the flak could often be, it’s almost unbelievable that any ships made it home. Countless vets recalled it could be so heavy that the sky was black and it seemed they could literally get out and walk atop the black puffs. Scary stuff.
@@HE-162 why i cant expand your commentary old way? Did yt changed something again?
@Big Fan Ah, just a bug. Thx
Wow, the design with the glass ampule breaking and the round spinning to prime the battery is just so elegant! Very nice video, really enjoyed it - The graphics explaining the tech is just excellent, well done! I totally agree on the pivotal importance of this invention, war drives innovation, maybe you could do a video on that sad fact?
The battery was a smaller copy of the hertz horn used in contact naval mines. You know the big spikey cartoonish looking mines.
Oddly enough jet engines were developed quickly due to how much they could borrow directly from steam turbine manufacturing and turbo charger manufacturing.
"Elegant" indeed. Any engineer or designer would be justly proud of this Fuze.
As an engineer, my first thought given the problem statement would be to insert a separately delivered battery when loading the gun, not unlike the past practice of adding gunpowder at that time, with the further benefit that separate dry ZnC batteries are robust and make excellent shrapnel, their insertion can be mechanized in the AA gun using a magazine storing multiple 24V batteries, one per shot fired .
Similarly, in the absence of plentiful electronic fuses, a mechanism could be devised that mechanically turns timer rounds to a value set on the gun according to load, distance and altitude, eliminating manual adjustment during battle (such a mechanism, though electronic, is in some modern guns) .
I'd probably frame it as "humans naturally want to invent things - why are so many of the famous inventions related to war? what's suppressing inventions the rest of the time?" but yeah it's pretty messed up.
Outstanding video again. I've seen already a lot of videos about engineering supporting army innovations, but this channel always finds a good story about something I didn't know about. It is endless.
I love seeing how your animations get better with each video ❤
The engineering on the VT-fuze is nothing short of genius. Whoever came up with the idea of the wet cell must've rested very easy every night, knowing they've saved thousands of people.
I mean it's extraordinary. I would love to hear the process that was gone through to come up with this. I imagine it was a collective endeavour.
Do we know the names of the engineers?
The Americans never contributed anything to WWII! They just stole resources and ideas from others! Like the Atom Bomb and the rocket!
And then he said use surface tension and centrifugal force 🤯Genius
and killed thousands of others
I didn't realize that this tech was invented in WWII. It is a really impressive feat of engineering to pull off and applying it to artillery shells to increase rate of fire and effect of fire must have been devastating. It also makes me wonder how much harder the Pacific theater would have been without it, especially when the Kamikaze attacks started, if they would have even been resorted to without such accurate and rapid fire from the US ships' AA guns.
Heat seeking missiles too. It's incredible they were able to build stuff lile that back in the 1940s
I'd always wondered how those proximity fuses worked. I had a much better understanding of torpedoes, probably because the books I read as a kid explained them fairly well, but not much seemed to be said about AA fuses.
Really excellent video. First rate in every way, content, film footage, narration. Definitely will give your Nebula channel a try.
Fantastic work.
Props to your graphics team.
This is my favorite video of the entire year so far. (including every other creator I watch)
Your team absolutely nailed it. Keep it up!
This was your best episode to date! The music, the animations.. etc WOW!
That was such an incredible, detailed, precise and well-illustrated video !! Damn, wow !!
Analog solutions are just so much more interesting and satisfying than digital ones😬👌🏼
Usually way less effective.... But so much more creative and interesting to learn about.
@@ltcuddles685 not necessarily less effective, it depends on the type of problem.
"analogue"?
That word was hardly ever applied to physical devices before personal computers became common.
The correct word would simply be "mechanical".
@@Tinker1950 Analogue computers were also built with things called 'op amps'. Valve and transistorised differentiators and integrators came to replace mechanical ones in solving calculus equations but were still analogue in nature - the variables were continuously variable within limits unlike digital which has discrete, albeit very small steps. I know, I studied them back in the early 1970s.
Okay, but here's the thing: digital solutions are virtual analogs of analog solutions. And I'm not just doing the "omg look at how smart I am" thing characterized by putting together some random, cool-looking words to form a sentence that has no clear/falsifiable meaning.
It is amazing how such elegant solutions are so extraordinarily difficult to develop and optimize. It really goes to show that "the hardest thing in the world is to make something look effortless"
the animation is so smooth 🙌
I became acquainted with the VT fuse, as our artillery often fired that fuse, unless we were firing in the rain. I didn't realize until seeing this and similar videos that the development of this fuse was primarily for antiaircraft fire, while it is now most used to make effective airbursts easier to achieve.
We've got missiles for that now; aka self-propelled, self-correcting proximity shells. ;)
@@5peciesunkn0wn And the missiles still use proximity fuses.
@@5peciesunkn0wn Missiles are more expensive than artillery shells and take up more room than shells do. One of the reasons the idea of firing missiles from tank main guns went away was because of the ammunition stowage issues (one missile displaces 3 conventional rounds).
Also the anti-drone technology that's being developed won't need a lot of further development to make it effective against battlefield missiles.
@@allangibson8494 did you miss the part where he literally called them "self-correcting PROXIMITY shells ;)"
@@SuperCatacata Proximity fuses are also used on anti drone cannon systems now too…
Amazing. I've been a fan of yours since I first stumbled across your channel a few years ago. Full marks - you have really stepped up your presentations recently. Well done, sir! I learn a lot from you even when I don't fully understand the physics or engineering involved. - your work is so engaging it sticks with a layman like myself. Thank you 👍
Do we all agree it was not only deeply immoral for nazis in WWII to target civilians, but a war crime ...?
If so ... in what way are TODAYS (Ukrop) NAZIS bombing & shelling their own citizens for 9 years now not also a war crime ... and JUSTIFICATION for the very "unprovoked invasion" for which THIS CHANNEL, the US, NATO, UK ... are all supporting these war criminals ... and if you claim you didn't know about their targeting of civilians for 9 years ... what did you call their utterly useless killing of Russians just bc they were in Russia..? Oh, those were just "patriotic Russians" ...? Then how did they get the freaking weapons that the US & NATO gave to the Ukrop Nazis..? And BTW ... even the NYT admitted that the people who orchestrated this were nazis. BTW, why is it you can't seem to find Ukrainians who are NOT NAZIS to go on these crusades do you think ...? No idea..?
Astonishing work on the animations! You are raising the bar on educational effectiveness. I hope such quality becomes a widespread trend.
Great overview of the proximity fuse!
This was an incredible video. Thanks RE. I knew about the VT fuze and how revolutionary it was but I didn't quite understand just how genius the manufacturing was. The way they managed to make it effective and safe to handle and yet only function when fired is mind blowing!
Also there's a great story involving them that when they were first given to US Navy AA gunners undergoing training in the US they managed to shoot down a Navy target drone. That doesn't seem all that crazy on its face, but NOBODY and I mean NOBODY had managed to shoot down one of the target drones! They had been damaged sure but NEVER shot down before the introduction of the VT fuze!
Also worth noting that the US military was only willing to adopt these fuzes if the engineers could achieve a 50% reliability rate. Such was the need to get them into mass production that the military was willing to accept 1 in every 2 rounds to fail. Which also played a big role in their decision to only allow their use at sea where they could fall harmlessly into the sea if they failed. The head of the design team for the VT fuze took the attitude that whatever they came up with, they could NOT wait until it was perfect. His name escapes me atm but the quote rings in my head, "I want 80% ideas, not perfect ones."
Do we all agree it was not only deeply immoral for nazis in WWII to target civilians, but a war crime..?
If so, in what way are TODAYS (Ukrop) NAZIS bombing & shelling their own citizens for 9 years now not also a war crime (which the US, UK, NATO, etc. are all supporting)... and JUSTIFICATION for this "totally unprovoked invasion" ...? Ah, you claim you didn't know about their targeting of civilians for 9 years..? What about the utterly useless killing of Russians inside Russia just bc they are Russians..? Oh, those were just "patriotic Russians" killing Russians...? Then how did they get the freaking weapons that the US & NATO gave to Ukrop Nazis..? BTW, even the NYT admits the orchestrators of this were nazis. Odd that they can't seem to find Ukrainians who AREN'T nazis to go on these crusades, no..?
Here is a little known fact. One of the people responsible for the proximity fuse was Heddy lemar an actress and pin up girl.
This is it. This is the video that convinced me to sign up with Nebula. Just incredible.
Real engineering and Mustard alone makes it worth it.
TECHNICAL DESIGN POINT: VT fuzes had a small, especially-shaped antenna wrapped around the battery and oscillator radio source for transmission and reception. The antenna had to be configured as designed. However, when a glowing base tracer element was used to allow the gunners to see where the shells were going and adjust their aim, this burning tracer was ionized and electrically conductive, leaving a long invisible trail of electrified air behind the shell. This acted like an extension of the antenna in the fuze and short-circuited its operation. Thus, VT-equipped shells had to have their tracers removed, To fix the aiming vision problem, every so many shells would be an old powder or clockwork time fuze with a tracer installed. The smallest shells that could fit a VT fuze in WWII was a 3" (75mm) gun projectile, with 4-5.25" being used in the majority of US and British naval guns. Against German troops in Europe and Japanese-held islands, larger guns from 106mm through 203mm Army guns and up to 16" naval guns had HE shells with VT fuzes.
This was one of the British technological crown jewels included in the Tizzard Mission to the US in late 1940. It included ideas & designs for the Photoelectric fuse & the Radio fuse. It also included the Cavity Magnetron which was quoted by the historian of the American OSRD as "the most valuable cargo to ever reach our shores".
Absolutely. The impact of the cavity magnetron alone cannot be overstated.
So did we give the Yanks a working proximity fuse or was it just a concept?
@@ayrplanes They had a working fuse for rockets; but couldn't get it working for shells. They gave them a number of ideas to work with.
@@ayrplanes As I understand it working at PYE in Cambridge after the war was that that the basic design originated in Cambridge. The design was sent to America because they had the heft to put it into production and miniturise it..I remember visiting the home of the Cheif mechanical to get some facts I read in his papers that going to a meeting on the fuse that on the return jouney they realised they had left all the details in a pub where they had stopped for dinner. They drove back very fast indeed.
Dude, your videos and animations keep getting better and better! This is an amazing and really cool video!
While I can not say for certian, my Grandmother worked for John Hopkins during the war, She had 12 patiants for artillary shell fuses and helped with the fuseing of the frist atomic bomb. So I have no doubt that she had a hand in this. Sadly she is never meationed because of her clearance. She Passed away in 1998 at the age of 98, so i guess it is safe to talk about it now.
No! It must remain secret! Only sharer with Moscow, like Brits gave turbojet engines and radar systems to the bolshevicks... ;)
She had 12 patients for artillery fuses..?
Must be some new LGBTQRSTUV reassignment surgery. :)
My guess the post owner does not know Patents and Patients is completely different things.
@@1014p No I am just a bad speller.
It's unfortunate that the role of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in the development of the VT fuze wasn't mentioned in the video
secwww.jhuapl.edu/techdigest/Content/techdigest/pdf/APL-V02-N01/APL-02-01-VTfuze.pdf
I am Argentinian and I watched many videos in English on CZcams. Thank you very much for continuing to do jobs like this and also translating them into Spanish.
My grandfather worked on the Proximity Fuse project, he had an example (minus explosives) as a paperweight in his office many decades later. He was a radio guy, and mentioned the difficulties of engineering a radio that can survive 20,000g's coming out of an artillery cannon.
I love stories like this. Something that seems insignificant and unknown had a huge hand in turning the war. Thanks for sharing this
This episode is very informative and interesting. Thanks Real engineering.
This is a fascinating video. Thank you so much!
Excellent work excellent animations this is a great addition to my history sites keep up the amazing work
I had the good fortune of having known one of the engineers who worked on this, unfortunately I never asked much about the project before he passed. Thank you for providing more insight into this project.
Absolutely fascinating. I am a Mission Crew Commander Air Battle Manager on AWACS (airborne radar) and prior to being in charge of the whole crew I was an Air Surveillance Officer or the guy in charge of the radar signal, changing modes, and identifying aircraft, and before that I was an Air Weapons Officer or one who read the radar screen and told pilots who to kill, where friendlies are, and hook them up with tankers and just control every military flying asset from all services and allies. All of that took 9 months of ground training to understand the radar signal before I could even start my airborne crew training. We had to follow the signal from COHO to STALO and went over doppler shift vs the doppler notch on planes could hide from radar. I'm also a WWII buff and never new about our proximity fuses and certainly didnt know about artillery/anti-aircraft shells using a radar pulse. Before I even start Air Battle Manager training I was a nuclear missile maintenance officer in Montana and much to the way our missiles work were created by brilliant minds using rudimentary methods like the one mentioned here with the liquid being dispersed by centrifugal force and therefore making it safe otherwise. Out Minuteman III missiles have many rudimentary but clever failsafe devices similar but different to this video. These sliderule guys with no computers always found a solution and some were very mechanical as long as it got the job done. Great video.
This proximity fuse is amazing.
Wow...that was a video I had no idea of.
Nice content.....
Subbed ! 👌
...battery design is nothing short of genius, but tailoring radar sensitivity to match the fragmentation pattern is the move when the pawn takes a king...:D
It's amazing to look back and figure out how these things worked. However I cannot wrap my head around they, at-that-time, envisioned and came up with something like this. Such amazing creativity and wit.
This was awesome. So much good information. Excellent and intelligent explanations. Great animation to pull it all together. This is an impressive video.
Pretty awesome video and great research on your part. Two things: the variants used on fin stabilized projectiles and rockets functioned slightly differently from the spin versions due to the lack of centripetal force. And the term VT was assigned as a means to conceal the existence of proximity fuzing at the time. “Variable Time” was thought to sound far more ambiguous and wouldn’t tip off to listening ears that sensing fuzes existed.
Much enjoyed, I'm a weapons engineer specialising in large calibre gun systems and ammunition - you nailed the technical details. Quality content!
I'm glad you mentioned the use of the VT fuse in cannon shells against the V-1. That made it possible for a very high interception rate, which otherwise would have resulted in a lot more V-1's landing around London and causing far more damage.
My understanding was that spitfires played a huge part in countering the V1s. A desperate pilot discovered that he could disrupt the gyros of the rocket with his wings striking the underside of the V1 wing. Yarnhub did a video on it if I’m not mistaken. Both approaches claim to be what saved Britain hmmmmmm….
@@peaksofblue actually, most of the intercepts of V-1’s were done with coastal battery guns using shells fitted with proximity fuses.
@@Sacto1654 Good point. Looks like the planes tracked down those that got close to higher population centers. Supposedly, ~1000 were brought down by planes, which was a decent chunk of what made it through AA batteries, which culled~ 75% of the 10k v1s launched over about 80 days.
@@peaksofblue Your understanding would be wrong then. The spitfires usually get all the glory for it though, so it's understandable why you would view it that way. The daring maneuvers pilots pulled off to take them down was much better for propaganda, and the VT fuse was still top secret, so it could not be widely advertised.
Also it's obvious that the UK is going to give more credit to their own men for morale, rather than a Yank invention.
I have to say this is THE BEST short documentary I have seen on any invention from WW2. Really well done!
As always, wonderful content, these are the documentaries of the future
damn the quality of those videos goes through the roof lately! many thanks
Hey nice video! I wanted to ask how many members were on your team and do you work on several projects at once? Because the quality and consistency of these videos is quite amazing
You can see who worked on the video in the credits
there's about 6-8 people working on them not counting patreons
@@clf400 Thank you!
Great video & as ever very well explained! 🙂
excellent video, I didn't know about the VT fuse, thank you!!!
Most excellent video, coupled with amazing animations.
As a USN Veteran that now "Serves" onboard USS IOWA BB-61, we Mention the VT/Proximity fuse when explaining the "smaller weapons" onboard the ship.
Thanks for the posting!!!
Excellent overview, with good detail. I learned a lot!
Great production...thanks.
That's insane innovation. Great video.
Great video like always! Analog engineering is always so awesome!
Very interesting topic and enjoyable vid, thank you :)
Great video, thanks!
With the Oppenheimer movie coming out next month. Do you have plans on doing a video on the Atomic bombs and/or the engineering it took to create them?
I don't remember which writer got detailed instructions by mail on how to manufacture atomic bombs just by inquiring about them.
Which makes sense. Only an entity with a very large industrial capacity could produce a functioning nuke. So yeah, I hope they make that video and make it detailed 👀
Amazing episode about so small but so important piece of tech!
Thanks!
The Americans never contributed anything to WWII! They just stole resources and ideas from others! Like the Atom Bomb and the rocket!
Thanks for these super interesting insights!
By far the best explanation of how the fuse works I have seen. Thanks.
The British Technical and Scientific Mission [also known as the Tizard mission] travelled to the U.S. in September 1940 during the Battle of Britain. The technology Britain passed to the US included the greatly-improved cavity magnetron [which the American historian James Phinney Baxter III later called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores"], the design for the proximity VT fuse, details of Frank Whittle's jet engine and the Frisch-Peierls memorandum describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. Included in the other technologies given to the US were: designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gunsights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and plastic explosives.
Amazing what you can do when your industry is not being bombed day and night by the enemy...... and you are given the tech as well.....
Sonar/ASDIC was invented in France. US aircraft, except P51B's and up and two variants of P40, used turbo chargers. Self-sealing fuel tanks had been around since WW I, they would not be standard on RAF aircraft until after the Battle of France.
"given" As of 2006 Britain still owed the US 4.4 billion 1934 USD in WW I debt. "First and foremost, they note that they have written off the main body of Lend-Lease, amounting to something of the order of £4,000,000,000 to £5,000,000,000 (16 to 20 billion USD) net"
below 678
Hansard ANGLO-AMERICAN FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS HL Deb 17 December 1945
@@nickdanger3802 So the P51D had turbocharger fitted to its RR Merlin?
Heavier than air flying machines have been around since long before WW1, that doesn't mean that the technology had not advanced by WW2 on various aviation fronts.
Not that it has any relevance, but On 31 December 2006, Britain made a final payment of about $83m (£45.5m) and thereby discharged the last of its war loans from the US. Also In 1952, the London Agreement on German External Debts assessed the final reparation figure at $3 billion. Germany has yet to pay off its debts for World War II.
Brits take credit for everything 🙄
Couldn't even give the Poles credit for decrypting the Enigma Machine
@@gnosticbrian3980 "US aircraft, except P51B's..."
Allison engines in everything EXCEPT P38's had a single stage supercharger, P38's used a turbocharger as the second stage. Radial engines in combat aircraft had superchargers and turbo chargers.
United States: War Loans to UK
HL Deb 27 May 2002 vol 635 cc126-7WA127WA
§Lord Laird asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they owe money to the United States Government as a result of World War Two debt: if so, how much is owed; when it will be repaid; and what representation they have made to the United States Government concerning the debt being cancelled. [HL4422]
§Lord McIntosh of Haringey Under a 1945 agreement, the United States Government lent the United Kingdom a total of $4,336 million (around £1,075 million at 1945 exchange rates) in war loans. These loans were taken out under two facilities:
(i) a line of credit of $3,750 million (around £930 million at 1945 exchange rates); and
(ii) a lend-lease loan facility of $586 million (around £145 million at 1945 exchange rates), which represented the settlement with the United States for lend-lease and reciprocal aid and for the final settlement of the Financial claims of each government against the other arising out of the conduct of the Second World War.
Under the agreement the loans would be repaid in 50 annual instalments commencing in 1950. However, the agreement allowed deferral of annual payments of both principal and interest if necessary because of prevailing international exchange rate conditions and the level of the United Kingdom's foreign currency and gold reserves. The United Kingdom has deferred payments on six occasions. Repayment of the war loans to the United States Government should therefore he completed on 31 December 2006, subject to the United Kingdom not choosing to exercise its option to defer repayment.
As at 31 March 2001, principal of $346,287,953 (£243,573,154 at the exchange rate on that day) was outstanding on the loans provided by the United States Government in 1945. The Government intend to meet their obligations under the 1945 agreement by repaying the United States Government in full the amounts lent in 1945 and so no representation has been made.
Amazing explanation! I always wanted to understand how those AA guns worked 😮
Utterly fascinating, thanks so much. I've always wondered how they worked.
Best narrative I’ve seen on the VT fuse! Thanks!
The amount of technology innovation that occurred during the second war is mind boggling. Necessity is the mother of invention
It is just fascinating what America accomplished in winning this war. Surely, there was some help, and massive loss of life, but it just makes you so proud of our country and its allies for fighting so hard and achieving so much.
I remember as a kid seeing surplus military gear on sale everywhere. Spent hours prowling through this fascinating stuff,
And not just Allied inventions. The V2 rocket was the basis for the Saturn V that sent men to the moon.
One other classified electronic item was the phantistron, a highly linear sweep circuit for radar which allowed American navy ships to accurately determine target distance for naval guns. The Japanese avoided naval battles at night against American battle ships.
They are still used throughout the military.
We (Navy) still use them, mainly for 5 inch, but used to use them for 4.5 - still called Variable Time (VT) and were throughout my time in.
While we can use a few different fuses (PC, TM etc) , and have a variation of round type, VT is by far the most common fuse.
For practice, we use just solid projectiles for surface (can score visually by splash), but we used to use "practice flash" for AA practice. That was expensive, as the VT fuse is the most expensive part of the shell. The round explodes, but only a "puff of smoke" to show a practice hit. HEVT (High Explosive , warshot) would destroy the target.
We now use the same solid unfused projectiles for AA practice, as the target has the "proximity" detector, so don't have to waste money on fuses.
But warshots are normally HEVT. When I was on station in the Gulf (on gun console) I always had an almost full drum of HEVT ready to go in the gun.
Of course, they are solid state, and no longer use valves. But other than that, essentially the same thing.
Thanks, I knew the story of this amazing design, but your presentation gave me a deeper understanding.
The 3D cutaways are getting ridiculously good.
I have nothing but admiration and respect for this creator.
Absolutely incredible. I had never heard of this. Thank for the excellent video. Amazing.
Fascinating. This channel is a true gem.
One of the thing I really like about @RealEngineering is that it actually give you some of the formulas.
Built amplifiers with JAN NOS shell tubes. Worked well and they are of very high quality and switch almost like a Kryton
We still used the VT fuse when I was in artillery in 2000, I have no idea if they are still in this format but I saw this fuse and they never explained how they worked even then. I was just told "know what it is, use it if you're told" I would say "how does it work?" And the reply was "don't worry about it"
We were still using PRC 77's until at least 2005 when I retired from the Corps... lol I went to work as a contractor a few years later (2007), and NOBODY even knew what a PRC 77 was!
Thanks for this . I was aware of the VT fuse and its effectiveness, but i have often wondered how it worked . That spin activated power cell was ingenious .
Excellent presentation, thank you !
Bill P.
This was a wonderful video with one glaring omission: there is no mention of men and women of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which is a real shame because they're the folks that ultimately got the VT fuse working.
I second this! My father spent his career at JHU-APL, so I knew about this invention for sometime. The lab's into Defense, Space, Biomed, Computing, you name it!
This VT fuse was developed by the Crosley Corp. Crosley was the earliest firm to manufacture broadcast radio receivers. This kinda invented radio listening for the USA and the world. So they had experience in inventing and manufacturing radio sets and radio components. Located in Cincinnati, the Crosley Brothers eventually owned The Cincinnati Reds Baseball team, whose games were played in Crosley Field.
The Crosley Corporation manufactured many of the VT fuse but did not develop it. It was developed by physicist Merle Tuve's group at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
@@J36Ops The British had a working VT fuze which went to the US with the Tyzard mission. IT WAS NOT AN AMERICAN INVENTION!!!! Get the history right for f*ck's sake.
There's a great book about the development of this invention called "12 Seconds Of Silence" by Jamie Holmes which is a great read on the people and events behind the development of the proximity fuse.
Finally I have the answers! I've watched other videos that described how effective these antiaircraft shells were against Japanese planes attacking Navy ships. But those videos did not explain all the important stuff including: power source, proximity transmitter/receiver, how these devices survived the tremendous G-force. Well done! I just subscribed. I will be re-watching this and sending a link to others. And I just signed up to Nebula.
5:33 oh my god, rest in peace for all the sailors of that ship.. i think they evaporated instantly and died before they know what happened
one of them was probly taking a shit when he got blown up, rip
I don’t think it bothered them for long
@@hazza2247Wow. You are certainly a deep thinker.
they probably in hell
At least, if they didn't realise what was happening, then they wouldn't feel so much pain.
Being able to mass produce something so mechanically complex is insane, truly shows the power of the american industrial capacity during the war!
How about 1 airplane in 1h on average? This war was over from very beginning.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 Not just any airplane. *a four engine heavy bomber*
It's funny because in HOI4, America is nerfed to hell and back seven times over or else America curbstomps every nation on industry output alone. There's a few mods for 'realistic American industry'. We were building more 14 thousand ton merchants than Germany could make torpedoes to sink them all!
Indeed and not being troubled by hostile action within its own territory, strikes and labour issues along with supply issues such as Tungsten which had to be imported from China were impediments
The scale of American industry in WW2 still boggles the mind. 400,000 trucks, 20,000 trains and 500,000 railcars were sent so the Soviet Union alone.
The Dowding system was brilliant. Looking forward to your look at it. Great job!
3:31 Bomber crews knew that it takes a minimum amount of time for the AA guns to calculate their trajectory and then for the shell to arrive. For example, at 20,000ft it would take at least 20 seconds for an AA shell to be fired upto that height. The AA gun team were calculating where the shell would arrive in 20 seconds time. So the only thing bombers had to do was to change their height and direction every 18 seconds or 15 seconds and it would throw off the AA calculations.
As a German, I was initially surprised how a luffa (sponge) themed video would command such visceral imagery, and that kind of video title.
As much as I love your videos: Please note that the "t" in Luftwaffe isn't silent, but rather important, as it literally splits the words this compound is made of: Luft (air) Waffe (weapon).
Great contents but few more facts for my 2 cents worth;
1. British never abandoned the development of the proximity fuse. The desire to develop such weapon was greater post Battle of Britain not less. They were not able to produce or acquire the small enough vacuum tubes required locally (each fuse required 5 such tubes). They found an American company which were producing small enough vacuum tubes for radios (before the time of transistors!). They placed a significant order and US intelligence services picked up on it.
2. US enquired and Brits were not too clear to begin with. But with Britain being forced to a corner by the Germans, Churchill made a strategic decision to share some of the key technologies. These included nuclear weapon, proximity fuse, artillery projectile calculator (more commonly called a computer), tail rudder for Mach 1 flight stabilisation etc etc. US was able to utilise all of the technologies transferred to them but not returned their side of development (nuclear weapons, supersonic planes etc). The architecture of the VT4 fuse was predominately British (especially using the doppler effect) and design of the final product was almost identical to that of British with minor but important improvements.
It would be unfair to say it was an American invention.
The Americans never contributed anything to WWII! They just stole resources and ideas from others! Like the Atom Bomb and the rocket!
As of 2006 Britain still owed the US 4.4 billion 1934 USD in WW I debt.
"First and foremost, they note that they have written off the main body of Lend-Lease, amounting to something of the order of £4,000,000,000 to £5,000,000,000 (16 to 20 billion USD) net" below 678
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The critical work of adapting the fuze for anti-aircraft shells was done in the United States, not in England.[31] Tuve claimed that despite being pleased by the outcome of the Butement et al. vs. Varian patent suit , which affirmed that the fuze was a UK invention but saved the U.S. Navy millions of dollars by waiving royalty fees, the fuze design delivered by the Tizard Mission was "not the one we made to work!".[32]
A key improvement was introduced by Lloyd Berkner, who developed a system using separate transmitter and receiver circuits. In December 1940, Tuve invited Harry Diamond and Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr, of the United States National Bureau of Standards (NBS) to investigate Berkner's improved fuze and develop a proximity fuze for rockets and bombs to use against the German Luftwaffe.[9][33][34]
In just two days, Diamond was able to come up with a new fuze design and managed to demonstrate its feasibility through extensive testing at the Naval Proving Ground at Dahlgren, Virginia.[35][36] On 6 May 1941, the NBS team built six fuzes which were placed in air-dropped bombs and successfully tested over water.[9]
Sounds like someone got butt hurt over this vid...
Amazing what you can do when your industry and supply routes are not being bombed and sunk by the enemy day and night.....
Brilliant work, thank you very much.
thank you for this very insightful video!!!