T 98 E6 Fuze information needed.

[ron3350]

I have this Proximity Fuze marked T 98 E6 B LOT 89. Green plastic see-thru nose and long proximity body.
Inside is stamped: MK 6 - 2.
4 J 2 6 A B K in red letters can be seen inside the green nose cap. It looks like the whole nose may have wax coated for some reason as part has been left. I was going to remove it all but wait for a reply.
On the body in red letters is - 3.7 1 .

Is this fuze UK or USA. What shell was it used on and approx. what year? All info is welcome. Ron.

 

[HAZORD]

The Army fuzes are usually ink stamped on the straight body below the threads as to the caliber they will work on. Since it is galvanize coated, and the Mod 6, I'm thinking US Navy 3 inch.

 

[ron3350]

I forgot to mention the threads are 2" 14TPI so matches British fuze threads.
I tried it in a 3"/50 cal shell but it has 12 TPI. I think now it is British maybe for a 3.7" AA Shell but still only a guess.

 

[AE501]

The Fuzes VT T97, T98 and T149 were obtained from USA for the Ordnance 3.7" Mark 6 gun and were never produced in UK. The T97 was eventually only for ground artillery use.

 

[ron3350]

I thank you both for your information but I still need a rough year of manufacture or use.
Is it 1950-60's ?

 

[AE501]

Late 1940s - 1950s

 

[AE501]

I was taught that there were such things as VT fuzes and always remembered the three fuzes T97, T98 and T149. We obtained these from US for use with the 3.7 Mk 6 AA Gun for use against high flying bombers.
When there was no more significant threat from high flying bombers the Mk 6 gun was retired and the use of these fuzes was downgraded for use with the 3.7" Mks 1 - 3 AA guns and the T97 was only for use by ground artillery in the ground to ground role.
Probably, these particular fuzes were produced for the UK with 14 TPI thread, instead of the US 12 TPI to fit our shells.
They never, to the best of my knowledge, appeared in any RAOC manual, the only reference was a mention in the 'User Handbook ANTI-AIRCRAFT Ammunition, 1949' which would have been around in numbers when Anti Aircraft Command was disbanded in the early 1950s.
As this book was published in 1949 and they had become commonly used by US artillery, they must have been around for a year or two before that in US (see following text).
I should also say that for the 3.7" Mk 6 gun, only the Shell HE Mk 4/1 to Design D2/L3064/GE/694 was suited to VT fuze use, having a straight through fuzehole to take VT fuzes.
The interior ring for holding in the battery and to hold the gaine has a left hand thread.

 

[AE501]

Ignore the fuze I have put in my thread. It is a much later UK naval Fuze N97 not a US Fuze VT T97.
Somewhere I have got a vertical cut half section VT fuze but I cannot find it at present.

 

[Darkman]

From information contained in

'User Handbook ANTI-AIRCRAFT Ammunition, 1949' the markings 4J26 represent a manufacture date of 26 September 1944. Quite a bit earlier than I would have thought! I didn't realise they used these fuzes during WW2.


​

 

[HAZORD]

The Proximity Fuze and the Nuke were the two greatest U.S. inventions of WWII.

 

[TimG]

I never knew that Sir Samuel Curran and William Butement were American!

Hazord, shame on you.

Granted, Merle Tuve and his team developed and perfected the proximity fuze but the cavity magnetron together with Curran and Butement were products of the British Empire.

It should also be pointed out that in 1944, Curran went to the States to participate in the Manhattan Project.

TimG

 

[Bonnex]

I never knew that Sir Samuel Curran and William Butement were American!

Hazord, shame on you.

Granted, Merle Tuve and his team developed and perfected the proximity fuze but the cavity magnetron together with Curran and Butement were products of the British Empire.

It should also be pointed out that in 1944, Curran went to the States to participate in the Manhattan Project.

TimG

Baldwin's "Deadly Fuze" is regarded as a 'must have' for students of the development of the proximity fuze but Baldwin was hampered in his efforts to extract information from British official sources on UK developments. A very good paper on the British work was written by Professor R W Burns 'Early History of the Proximity Fuze (1937-1940) published in IEE Proceedings-A, Volume 140 No 3 May 1993. Burns comments on the difficulty that Baldwin had in seeking British information:

"Only one book has been published on the proximity fuze, namely, 'The deadly fuze, secret weapon of World War II' (Jane's Publishing Company, 1980) by Dr. R.B. Baldwin. His book is primarily concerned with the realisation of radio proximity fuzes and deals principally with US advances. He endeavoured in 1977 to elucidate British efforts in the field of proximity fuzes but found from his searches in the Public Record Office that the information made available to him 'was too sparse to use'. A year later he received some papers relating to the British programme and used them to form the basis of a short chapter. However, this he considers in a very fragmentary and non-technical way some progress from 1940, and earlier work is not described.
The proximity fuze was a British invention and dates from 1936/37. It was devised as an aid in 'bombing the bomber'. No paper or other publication appears to have been written on the early history of the fuze. This paper has as its objectives the early history of the origin, development, potential applications and limitations of some British proximity fuzes (principally the photoelectric proximity fuze), and of their subsequent replacement by the radio proximity fuze. It is mainly based on unpub*lished, primary source material held at the Public Record Office, Kew, United Kingdom."

Burns goes on to say:


"On the 30th October 1939 the RDF Application Committee considered a proposal from W.A.S. Butement for a guided projectile in which a form of radio proximity fuze would be used. Butement was a member of ADEE where, from 1936, the acoustic PF had been under development. He was asked by the Director of Scientific Research to examine the idea of a radio PF in more detail. Subsequently, at a meeting of the committee held on the 7th May 1940, two possible methods of employing RDF methods to operate a fuze in a 3 inch UP were advanced by Butement."

None of this alters the fact that the British did not have the resources to complete the development of the radio proximity fuze or to manufacture it in the numbers that would be required. So, the work thus far done, was gifted to the US by Tizard.