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Unknown Fuze

D

Duvalz

New Member
Hello All,

This is my first time posting... I have a fuze and having troubles identifying it with 100% certainity.

Marked: Fuze, Rockets, VT, M403 (Hard to read) ... the manufacturer year appears to be 2-48 (1948)

After googling... the best I can find is http://64.78.11.86/uxofiles/mulvaney/techdatasheets/5-IN-HVAR.pdf but it does not show photos of the fuze.

I am wondering why an aircraft rocket would have a Variable Time fuze... and when would it be set? I had one co-worker advise that maybe it was used for anti tank... to explode above the target. But I am thinking it was used for an aerial bomb... but cannot find it or maybe I am wrong and it is indeed for the HVAR.




DSCN1619.JPGDSCN1618.JPGDSCN1620.JPG
 
Any assistance is appreciated. It also has a propeller which is why I was thinking an aerial bomb Fuze.
 
VT for air burst above the ground as rocket approached, very common and this fuze was pretty much like its sister VT used it bombs too. Basically detonated above target to send down a load of frag. Even in 2.75" rockets there was a VT fuze. FVI you won't find VT fuzes used in anti tank projectiles or rockets, they will always be impact fuzes.
 
a VT is a proximity fuze which explodes when it senses a target.VT was a code used for these very advanced and secret fuzes during ww2.people thought it stood for variable time but it never did.there is a very good book called the deadly fuze by ralph b Baldwin,very detailed all about the development of this fuze.they used to shoot it straight up in the air so they could recover it for testing.they stood under a very thick piece of steel plate!sometimes the projectile would land on the plate but most times drifted off up to 50 yards.
 
kiwieod said:
a VT is a proximity fuze which explodes when it senses a target.VT was a code used for these very advanced and secret fuzes during ww2.people thought it stood for variable time but it never did.there is a very good book called the deadly fuze by ralph b Baldwin,very detailed all about the development of this fuze.they used to shoot it straight up in the air so they could recover it for testing.they stood under a very thick piece of steel plate!sometimes the projectile would land on the plate but most times drifted off up to 50 yards.
Click to expand...

During my training I was told that `Variable Time' was the phrase used, to mislead an enemy or potential enemy as to how the fuze was designed to work.
 
I agree with Kiwieod about Baldwin's book on the proximity fuze but Baldwin was unable to cover adequately the work that was done in the UK on acoustic, photoelectric and radio proximity fuzes before, and during, the war. To his credit he tried to find information on the British work but received very little support.

For anyone with access to the electronic library of the IET there is a paper by R W Burns in the Proceedings of the IEE entitled "The Early History of the Proximity Fuze (1937 - 1940)" dated May 1993. In the paper there is a table showing the number of VT Fuzes supplied to the UK by the US during the war (total 1.29 million of T97, T98, T100 and T149 at 4 pounds 13 shillings each).
 
A few more examples. The first marked for rocket, the next two marked for bombs.

DSC_5430 M407.jpgDSC_5437.jpgDSC_5438.jpg
 
Hallo N.,
I have Baldwin's book and I'm very much interested in the early work done in the UK regarding the different sensing techniques, so as to compare it with the many (near to 20) projects in germany at that time. Baldwin mentions that british scientists at the time (1940) opted for the radar system as the best road to success for the US to work on. In Germany the many different programs continued and none made it to the final production stage. Could you please name some archival source reports and where I can access those ?
Regards,
Bellifortis.
Bonnex said:
I agree with Kiwieod about Baldwin's book on the proximity fuze but Baldwin was unable to cover adequately the work that was done in the UK on acoustic, photoelectric and radio proximity fuzes before, and during, the war. To his credit he tried to find information on the British work but received very little support.

For anyone with access to the electronic library of the IET there is a paper by R W Burns in the Proceedings of the IEE entitled "The Early History of the Proximity Fuze (1937 - 1940)" dated May 1993. In the paper there is a table showing the number of VT Fuzes supplied to the UK by the US during the war (total 1.29 million of T97, T98, T100 and T149 at 4 pounds 13 shillings each).
Click to expand...
 
Bellifortis said:
Hallo N.,
I have Baldwin's book and I'm very much interested in the early work done in the UK regarding the different sensing techniques, so as to compare it with the many (near to 20) projects in germany at that time. Baldwin mentions that british scientists at the time (1940) opted for the radar system as the best road to success for the US to work on. In Germany the many different programs continued and none made it to the final production stage. Could you please name some archival source reports and where I can access those ?
Regards,
Bellifortis.
Click to expand...

There are quite a few source documents in The National Archives. If you use their 'Discovery' portal with a search string of 'radio proximity' and another of 'variable time' and another of 'photoelectric', you will be returned a couple of hundred references. I am not sure how many of the documents have been digitised, not many I expect.

DTIC in the US has some reports that mention British work on proximity fuzes.

Finally R W Burns has written two papers on the subject:

1. Factors affecting the development of the radio
proximity fuse 1940-1944
R.W. Burns
IEE Proc.-Sci. Meas. Technol.. Vol. 143, No. 1, January 1996


2.Early history of the proximity fuze (1937-1940)
R.W. Burns, CEng, FlEE
IEE PROCEEDINGS-A, Vol. 140, No. 3, MAY 1993
 
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