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ladajo
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Post by ladajo »

Roger wrote:
ladajo wrote:The Japanese had radar..
According to my Dad..... (he told some stories, some that were a little "tall" if you get my drift)... the Japanese tubes were hand made, well the metal inserts that formed the interior contours.... From the experience gained at Coral Sea and Midway the USN was well on its way to utilizing the info gained from radar, although at Guada Canal the carrier CAP in the first major carrier attack by the IJN, was run fron Enterprise, the person in charge of the group CAP set all 55 Wildcats at 6k ft. the Zeros Betties and Vals approached at 20k ft.

After the war my Dad taught USN electonics at IIRC Pennsicola.

Since the Wildcats had a horrible climb rate they completely lost the advantage of USN radar spotting the Japanese flight dozens of miles out, Big "E" took 3 bomb hits, probably because of lax CAP protocal. Fletcher had spread his CAP out between different altitudes and had relative good fortune at vectoring his CAP at Coral Sea and Midway to Japanese attacks.

This may or may not be a relection of Spruances staff issues repeating its Midway failures..

One thing I think the US did very well was to try different stuff, get new ideas and get those into production, like the High Freq Direction finder was vital in the convoy Escort carrier anti sub efforts in the Atlantic.

Germanys sub CO made many assumptions, one was to oder his subs to be careful using radar, he thought the USN would track the radar, but we were tracking RF, via Huff Duff. And Vectored bombers from Carriers at attack U boats with some effacacy by late '42. By the time the radar equipped Wildcats saw service of off Escort carriers in the Atlantic, Allied convoys were fairly safe.

Diogenes, my Dad had some tall sories, an interesting one is working with some engineers on a V-2 rocket. They were to measure the distance between molecules of atmosphere at hi alt. Problem was theory said the distance was more than the width of the V-2. Circa summer of '47.
They made a lot of stuff by hand. Quite the artisans. Unfortunately, later in the war a lot of the facilities they were using were either completely trashed or well on the way from bombing.

Both the Japanese and us had airborne radar. Although ours was better. The use of airborne radar and night patrols made it almost certain death for submarines that were used to being able to recharge batteries at night. All submarine users lost boats this way. The Germans certainly took the brunt of it, as we used the ASW Fusion centers to pull all the intel together and then vector the radar assets into the correct zones to do the final hunt and prosecution. One of the reasons the Germans did not pick up on this was that they did not consider the fusion aspect. They focused on individual lanes of information. One of our best kept secrets.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

Diogenes wrote:
ladajo wrote:
Roger wrote: In WW2 the US used a proximity fuse utilizing radar IIRC, very effective. (Maybe the 105mm Howitzer M-4 platform and naval 5 inch AA?) This replaced a timer system with adjustment rings IIRC.

But of course were talking about way more than a few thousands yards with these rail guns.
Yes, I am very familiar.

Interestingly enough, the Japanese though electronic fuses were impossible. They never considered that we could have done it and fielded them. It cost them a lot of aircraft. They did however try to come up with some rather interesting designs to try and solve the problem.

I have actually been kicking around the idea to do a paper on VT Fuses and Electronic Warfare's use and impact on the outcome of WWII. A very understudied and generally unknown area largely ignored by historians.

Most folks have no idea we were fully engaged in electronic warfare in those days, as well as using electronic radar proximity fuses (VT) for anti-air and ground campaigns.

We still use VT fuse variants today.

If you have not, you need to READ this book.

Image


It covers your topic of VT fuses in good detail. It is an excellent read.
Book in hand. I will give it a read as soon as a finish the one I am on.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

Roger
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Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 2:03 am
Location: Metro NY

Post by Roger »

ladajo wrote:Book in hand. I will give it a read as soon as a finish the one I am on.
I checked out the first 10 or so pages available on the internet, looks like it could very interesting - a sort of look back.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.

ladajo
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Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

Just took a skim through. Read some of the front, and then used the index to skim through for Proximity fuses. Did not find a chapter, but did find some interesting discussion on how it came to be, as well as use and effectiveness. Furthered some of what I already knew.

I will continue with the full read later. A small sense of inrony in reading it as related to my relationship with Lincoln Labs, an outgrow of Building 20.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

Not exactly sure where to put this, so this looks like as good a place as any.

Spitfires buried in Burma during war to be returned to UK



Image

Twenty iconic Spitfire aircraft buried in Burma during the Second World War are to be repatriated to Britain after an intervention by David Cameron.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... to-UK.html
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

Imagine this as a Rail Gun module in a few years...

https://www.gdbiw.com/sites/default/fil ... NewGun.jpg

For those that do not know, the pic is of the Advanced 155mm gun for DDG 1000. The shot was taken at BIW in Maine.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Post by DeltaV »

Look at what those ants can do when you pour a few billion dollars into their nest.

GIThruster
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Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 8:17 pm

Post by GIThruster »

The AGS is an impressive machine by anyone's standards. The largest fully automated magazine in the world, it can fire 10 rounds/minute and has access to 38 pallets that weight 6,000 lbs each and hold 8, 230 lb. projectiles and 8 propellant charges.

They're calling it "unmatched, sustained long range firepower".

I have no idea what is the standard rate of fire for guns like this but it's noteworthy the Zumwalt class has about half the number of sailors aboard because of this sort of automation.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

5 inch guns (Mk45) run at about 20/minute dependant on mixing rounds or not. The Mod 4 is particularly nice kit.

3.5 inch guns (Mk75 76mm) can run in excess of 80 rounds per minute. I clocked one personally at 96, and that was not at max rate. If the barrell had been further elevated, it would have clocked faster (shorter trip for the rocker arms). There is a variant that can run up to about 120/minute.

The issue is magazine depth. Sustained fire is an arguable point. Some would maintian that sustained fire is shooting out the loader drum. Others would argue it is the rate of fire with rounds being loaded continuously from the magazine itself via the lower hoist, into the drum, upper hoist and fired.

The point of the arugment is that once you shoot the drums/rings, you then introduce a level of manual handling in existing systems in the magazines to sustain fire.

Field artillery shoots at about 1 round/minute.

Of note is that the 76mm is a composite round, while 5 inch is a 2 part charge and round.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Post by Diogenes »

Navy Experimental Rail Gun to Fire GPS-Guided Projectiles



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The U.S. military has been looking for ways to smarten up its dumb projectiles for years--look no further than this GPS guided mortar round recently fielded by the army--hoping to increase lethality while reducing collateral damage. The Navy is no exception to this trend, and the seaborne branch is looking for precision beyond its current arsenal. The Office of Naval Research wants a guided munition for its experimental electromagnetic rail gun that can alter the course of a 5,600 mile per hour projectile in flight.


http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl ... rojectiles
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —


ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

93143
Posts: 1142
Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 7:51 pm

Post by 93143 »

Most of the complaining about laser weapons (especially the FEL) seems to revolve around space/mass/power difficulties, and railguns seem to have continuous-fire issues too. With both lasers and railguns becoming important, does anyone think it remotely plausible that battleships might make a comeback? I'm not an expert on naval doctrine, obviously; I just thought I'd ask...

Skipjack
Posts: 6805
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:29 pm

Post by Skipjack »

I think railguns and lasers have different uses. Lasers against approaching cruise missiles and planes. Railguns against enemy ships and targets on shore.

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