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The third largest US military expense in WW2 was on computers both mechanical and electronic. The US perfecting the proximity fuse was probably one of the singl

The third largest US military expense in WW2 was on computers both mechanical and electronic. The US perfecting the proximity fuse was probably one of the single most important advancements during the war and was a major factor as to why allied artillery was so much more effective. I wonder how many people realize that artillery shells in WW2 had bloody vacuum tubes in them, or that the US had targeting computers for their naval AA guns that (combined with proximity fuses) lowered the average the rounds per kill from a few 1000’s to under 100… by the end of the war US naval AA could shoot down a Japanese aircraft with an average of 30 rounds fired. The Brits weren’t too shabby either, Bletchley Park the Chain Home early warning radar and much more. In fact the Brits pretty much invented modern radar… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-controlled_interception https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-controlled_intercepti... The truth was that Germans really didn’t managed to compete with the Allies when it came to technology despite the popular depiction of them in some circles of popular culture. They Nazi’s “dejewification” of science and the pursuit of “German science” reeked havoc within their scientific community breaking down the scientific method and its core institutions and many of the scientists from the Great War and interwar period who remained either weren’t supporting the German war machine or were actively sabotaging it.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
> They Nazi’s “dejewification” of science and the pursuit of “German science” reeked havoc within their scientific community... Wreaked havoc. It also "reeked" (stunk). So what you said, while it was a mistake, it was also perfect.
mzs 5y ago
VT Fuzes For Projectiles and Spin-Stabilized Rockets , OP 1480, 1946 https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm
62951413 5y ago
"didn’t manage to compete" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262? the V-2? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229 ? The A-bomb seems to be the only technology they failed to build. But it played no role on the European theatre in WWII anyway. Don't forget that American reliance on foreigners led directly to leaking the atomic secrets to the Soviets.
- p_l 5y ago
  Well, they first had to steal the A-bomb project from British Empire (ok, technically the theft happened post-war, when they stopped brits from taking back their notes) As for the above examples - Nazis were a bit behind on jet engine technology, and most importantly got lost in trying to get some super weapon while their designs and production lines were hamstrung by stupid ideas
  - onecommentman 5y ago
    The Brits might have been able to field a Los Alamos during WWII, but not a Hanford or Oak Ridge/TVA, especially not in the British Isles while under direct fire. Also, in the very improbable event of a successful Nazi island invasion, nice to keep such projects an ocean away in the US. The UK couldn’t have afforded an expanded post-WWII atomic program at the level the Soviets eventually fielded, at least not while transitioning back to a civilian economy. The US could and did. The big challenge for the UK to meet at the time was decolonization, a challenge they met with aplomb and whose successful achievement was and is under-appreciated by the global community.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  The Allies had fielded jets earlier than the Germans. WW2 arguably slowed down jet development not accelerated it as most of them were pre-war designs. The Brits didn’t had the industrial capacity to produce jets in large numbers and for the US the early jets were a logistical nightmare. Early jets couldn’t fly off aircraft carriers in fact it would take quite a while for the navy to get jets working and for close air support the navy still had prop aircraft until early Vietnam. Jet bombers weren’t viable during WW2 and the limited range of jets their fuel, landing stop and other logistical requirements meant that it was far harder to support them from frontline airbases. So it’s more of the case that the US simply couldn’t use the jets of the time effectively if they could they would’ve built more of them and some even earlier than 43-44. The Me-262 was built in relatively large numbers but did absolutely squat to change the tides of war as the Allies found a very simple solution to go after the air bases. Unlike most prop aircraft of the time that could take off and land in a field and could be serviced in a barn jets needed proper runways and maintenance facilities.
mvcalder 5y ago
If you visit Massachusetts, and go to Battleship Cove (https://www.battleshipcove.org/ https://www.battleshipcove.org/) in Fall River, inside the USS Massachusetts you can get up close and personal with a WWII era firing control computer. It looks both very sophisticated and antiquated at the same time.
rjsw 5y ago
One of my grandfathers was working for Metrovick [1] at the start of the 30s. His boss suggested that he go get a PhD and hopefully there would be more work when he had finished. He chose to go to Aachen [2] and learned German well enough to get his Dr Ing. Back at Metrovick he worked on high power radio transmitters, one he designed for the Rugby Radio Station [3] became the basis of the one for the Chain Home system and he was in charge of production of them by Metrovick. Because he spoke German he was a member of the Allied Control Commission immediately after the war and went round all the German electronics companies to find out what they had been doing. He found that he knew all the senior people who had been working on competing technology from when they had been students together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technische_Hochschule,_Aachen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technische_Hochschule,_Aachen [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station
rjsw 5y ago
Probably worth pointing out that one person [1] worked on delivering both the proximity fuse and the Atomic bomb. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sterling_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sterling_Parsons
chernevik 5y ago
Also, the deployment of radar, which (among other things) played a large role in finding German U-boats.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Yep probably one of the most important and under discussed military operations of the war was one without a single bullet fired https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission
pjc50 5y ago
If I remember correctly, the shells with the tiny radar set for proximity triggering were only for AA use - and there were strict orders to only use them over water to make sure no dud shells were recovered and reverse-engineered, since the advantage they gave was so huge. It was an incredible achievement to fit a battery and some glass vacuum tubes into a device that would be fired out of a gun at 1000G. I would also attribute some success to the Allied choice of pragmatic effectiveness over technical superiority most of the time. This allowed the effective arming of a huge force over a huge area with adequate replacements, whereas the "superweapon" approach fell to limited availability of parts and special alloys (due to Allied targeted bombing!). And the V2 program was a huge waste of resources for Germany. Good for the subsequent American space programme, though.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  The science behind building a proximity fuze in 1942 is just mind boggling. Even though they infinite money at their disposal it's still insane that they were able to computerize a shell moving with 16,000-20,000 G-Forces in the days of vacuum tubes.
- daltont 5y ago
  I read "12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon" recently. Never knew about the advantage it gave the Allies. James Van Allen as in the "Van Allen Belt" was part of the effort.
- danielvf 5y ago
  You were right that it was just AA for most of the war, due to the desire for secrecy, but starting at the battle of the Bulge in late 1944, proximity fuses were used by US artillery, on land. Otherwise, I strongly agree with you.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    It wasn’t just secrecy it was also production capacity pretty much as soon as they could produce enough of them they started to use them on land as well. The proximity fuse was key to the US war in the pacific as well. It’s probably the main reason for why the US has dominated the electronics industry through the 20th century. The miniaturization required and the ability to mass produce electronics required the development of new production techniques. The proximity fuse was the first use of PCBs in mass production.
shortstuffsushi 5y ago
Could you link to anything about the vacuum tubes? I am one of the people that didn't realize that was a thing.
- mzs 5y ago
  You can see in the diagrams toward the end that likely four tubes per fuze were used in WWII. https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm
- dogma1138 5y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

> They Nazi’s “dejewification” of science and the pursuit of “German science” reeked havoc within their scientific community... Wreaked havoc. It also "reeked" (stunk). So what you said, while it was a mistake, it was also perfect.

mzs 5y ago

VT Fuzes For Projectiles and Spin-Stabilized Rockets , OP 1480, 1946 https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm

62951413 5y ago

"didn’t manage to compete" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262? the V-2? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229 ? The A-bomb seems to be the only technology they failed to build. But it played no role on the European theatre in WWII anyway. Don't forget that American reliance on foreigners led directly to leaking the atomic secrets to the Soviets.

p_l 5y ago
Well, they first had to steal the A-bomb project from British Empire (ok, technically the theft happened post-war, when they stopped brits from taking back their notes) As for the above examples - Nazis were a bit behind on jet engine technology, and most importantly got lost in trying to get some super weapon while their designs and production lines were hamstrung by stupid ideas
- onecommentman 5y ago
  The Brits might have been able to field a Los Alamos during WWII, but not a Hanford or Oak Ridge/TVA, especially not in the British Isles while under direct fire. Also, in the very improbable event of a successful Nazi island invasion, nice to keep such projects an ocean away in the US. The UK couldn’t have afforded an expanded post-WWII atomic program at the level the Soviets eventually fielded, at least not while transitioning back to a civilian economy. The US could and did. The big challenge for the UK to meet at the time was decolonization, a challenge they met with aplomb and whose successful achievement was and is under-appreciated by the global community.
dogma1138 5y ago
The Allies had fielded jets earlier than the Germans. WW2 arguably slowed down jet development not accelerated it as most of them were pre-war designs. The Brits didn’t had the industrial capacity to produce jets in large numbers and for the US the early jets were a logistical nightmare. Early jets couldn’t fly off aircraft carriers in fact it would take quite a while for the navy to get jets working and for close air support the navy still had prop aircraft until early Vietnam. Jet bombers weren’t viable during WW2 and the limited range of jets their fuel, landing stop and other logistical requirements meant that it was far harder to support them from frontline airbases. So it’s more of the case that the US simply couldn’t use the jets of the time effectively if they could they would’ve built more of them and some even earlier than 43-44. The Me-262 was built in relatively large numbers but did absolutely squat to change the tides of war as the Allies found a very simple solution to go after the air bases. Unlike most prop aircraft of the time that could take off and land in a field and could be serviced in a barn jets needed proper runways and maintenance facilities.

mvcalder 5y ago

If you visit Massachusetts, and go to Battleship Cove (https://www.battleshipcove.org/ https://www.battleshipcove.org/) in Fall River, inside the USS Massachusetts you can get up close and personal with a WWII era firing control computer. It looks both very sophisticated and antiquated at the same time.

rjsw 5y ago

One of my grandfathers was working for Metrovick [1] at the start of the 30s. His boss suggested that he go get a PhD and hopefully there would be more work when he had finished. He chose to go to Aachen [2] and learned German well enough to get his Dr Ing. Back at Metrovick he worked on high power radio transmitters, one he designed for the Rugby Radio Station [3] became the basis of the one for the Chain Home system and he was in charge of production of them by Metrovick. Because he spoke German he was a member of the Allied Control Commission immediately after the war and went round all the German electronics companies to find out what they had been doing. He found that he knew all the senior people who had been working on competing technology from when they had been students together. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan-Vickers [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technische_Hochschule,_Aachen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technische_Hochschule,_Aachen [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_Radio_Station

rjsw 5y ago

Probably worth pointing out that one person [1] worked on delivering both the proximity fuse and the Atomic bomb. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sterling_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sterling_Parsons

chernevik 5y ago

Also, the deployment of radar, which (among other things) played a large role in finding German U-boats.

dogma1138 5y ago
Yep probably one of the most important and under discussed military operations of the war was one without a single bullet fired https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizard_Mission

pjc50 5y ago

If I remember correctly, the shells with the tiny radar set for proximity triggering were only for AA use - and there were strict orders to only use them over water to make sure no dud shells were recovered and reverse-engineered, since the advantage they gave was so huge. It was an incredible achievement to fit a battery and some glass vacuum tubes into a device that would be fired out of a gun at 1000G. I would also attribute some success to the Allied choice of pragmatic effectiveness over technical superiority most of the time. This allowed the effective arming of a huge force over a huge area with adequate replacements, whereas the "superweapon" approach fell to limited availability of parts and special alloys (due to Allied targeted bombing!). And the V2 program was a huge waste of resources for Germany. Good for the subsequent American space programme, though.

missedthecue 5y ago
The science behind building a proximity fuze in 1942 is just mind boggling. Even though they infinite money at their disposal it's still insane that they were able to computerize a shell moving with 16,000-20,000 G-Forces in the days of vacuum tubes.
daltont 5y ago
I read "12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon" recently. Never knew about the advantage it gave the Allies. James Van Allen as in the "Van Allen Belt" was part of the effort.
danielvf 5y ago
You were right that it was just AA for most of the war, due to the desire for secrecy, but starting at the battle of the Bulge in late 1944, proximity fuses were used by US artillery, on land. Otherwise, I strongly agree with you.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  It wasn’t just secrecy it was also production capacity pretty much as soon as they could produce enough of them they started to use them on land as well. The proximity fuse was key to the US war in the pacific as well. It’s probably the main reason for why the US has dominated the electronics industry through the 20th century. The miniaturization required and the ability to mass produce electronics required the development of new production techniques. The proximity fuse was the first use of PCBs in mass production.

shortstuffsushi 5y ago

Could you link to anything about the vacuum tubes? I am one of the people that didn't realize that was a thing.

mzs 5y ago
You can see in the diagrams toward the end that likely four tubes per fuze were used in WWII. https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm https://maritime.org/doc/vtfuze/index.htm
dogma1138 5y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze