Professional Documents
Culture Documents
September-October 1962 19
operation of the fuze test samples had circuit so that it could not be fired.
been checked only by firings in which The wall of the inner chamber was a
the radio waves that triggered the diaphragm of relatively porous
fuze were reflected from the water as material through which the mercury
the shell returned to the surface on could pass under centrifugal force
the downward leg of its trajectory. A generated by the post-firing spin of the
test that more accurately represented projectile, thereby removing the short
a shell approaching an aircraft was in the primer circuit. The purest
obviously needed. This was done for mercury obtainable commercially was
the first time at Parris Island in procured for this use, but it was
April 1942, when a full-scale aircraft nevertheless subjected to additional
target suspended from a balloon distillation before it was considered
triggered the fuze . Later, chicken to have the required purity. Selected
wire replicas of full-scale aircraft samples of the thous ands of switches
were suspended between two towers, manufactured daily were then spun
and test fuzes were fired at them for at a rate to produce the centrifugal
determination of operational per- force resulting from the proj ectile
formance. Tests of production fuzes spin after firing. The time required
Colonel H. S. Morton and Drs. L. R. Hafstad
were then conducted against drone for the mercury to pass through the
and M. A. Tuve (1. to r.) examine early VT
targets in Chesapeake Bay from the diaphragm was accurately d etermined fuzes for use in Europe.
USS Cleveland. The three drones and, for acceptance, had to lie within
allotted to this series of tests were specified limits. Rough handling With quantity production of a fuze
destroyed on the first day of firing by tests of the switches followed, with for the Navy's 5-in. guns getting
four proximity bursts. Because of this each checked by X-ray to insure that underway in the fall of 1942, a very
success, these realistic tests were it met the prescribed standards. Under urgent problem which had already
considered a final " dress rehearsal" a regime of such supervision and been recognized came to the fore.
for the shell radio fuze before its first testing it is easy to see why safety This was the need for appropriate
appearance in a theater of combat. provisions proved so successful. steps to be taken to indoctrinate the
From these results, specifications for combat forces in its proper handling
Military Demands and use. A necessary follow-on of
a quantity production fuze were
crystallized and production began. In the spring of 1941 , priontles utmost importance was to build up
had been established to meet require- their confidence in its capabilities so
High Priority of Safety ments of the armed forces in the that they would overlook no oppor-
For the many models of the shell following order : U. S. Navy, British tunity to use it in action. Once they
radio fuze that were manufactured Navy, U. S. Army, and British had seen results, it was felt by those
and/or tested, exceptional care was Army. Because of the optimism that who were engaged in the develop-
taken to safeguard personnel against had grown in the Section T program, ment and test program, and by those
bursts in handling or in the bore of the the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff con- of the Navy who had followed this
gun, and to insure delay in postfire sidered the matter of time and place program closely, that the users would
arming. The standard of safety set up of introducing the fuze into the be enthusiastic.
as a requirement was no more than various areas of combat operations. The proximity fuze did not present
one muzzle burst in a million rounds. The above priorities reflected the the kind of breakthrough that would
Not only in the design of the safety viewpoint of the Joint Chiefs in their at once demand a change in either
and arming element was such care concern lest the fuze fall into enemy the strategy or tactics of the allied
taken , but also in the inspection and hands shortly after its initial use in forces. Rather, it gave promise that
test program. An example will show combat. This would have made it pos- the strategic plans already in effect,
the painstaking care used to preven t sible for the Axis powers to develop and the tactics being employed,
accidental bursts. The mercury un- counter-measures to reduce the effec- could be confidently adhered to
shorter switch was designed to pre- tiveness of the fuze and/or to develop with the exp ectation of a decisive
vent operation of the fuze during their own versions of the fuze. If either victory. Without the new fuze, on the
handling and loading and to insure had resulted, the advantage to the Allies other hand, revision of both strategy
that the shell could not be exploded of sole possession and use of this new and tactics at the appropriate levels
until it had traveled a certain distance weapon would have been substantially might be forced upon the Allies
from the muzzle. It was cylindrical reduced. Aside from the fact that the because of their losses to attacking
in shape, slightly over 0.25 in. in U. S. Navy had assigned the highest aircraft and the German V born bs.
diameter, and about 0.4 in. long. priority to the shell radio fuze and Experienced officers in the Navy
Inside an outer chamber or sump, was supporting its development in Bureau of Ordnance who had close
which was empty prior to high-speed every possible way, there was, of contact with the fuze program were
spin of ·the projectile, was an inner course, the obvious fact that use of the quick to see that indoctrination of the
chamber filled with mercury. In this fuze by naval forces afloat would fighting forces in its capabilities and
location the mercury maintained an greatly reduce the likelihood of its use was of utmost importance if the
electric short in the cannon-primer being recovered by t he enemy. full benefits of this new weapon were
September-October 1962 21
d esigned to "play" for a few moments!
Feeding these assembly plants
(Crosley, Sylvania, RCA, Eastman
Kodak, McQuay-Norris) were a host
of more than 2000 interlocking
suppliers and subsuppliers. The
Sylvania Company, with 23 plants
in the eastern part of the United
States, supplied over 400,000 tubes
per day; the National Carbon
Company, with a major plant at
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, con-
structed especially for T, and the
A pattern of bursts of VT -fuzed anti-personnel shells over a battlefield in France during Eastman Kodak and Hoover
World War II. Companies were turning out one
APL Keeps Pace with Changing handling and loading equipment, and tenth of a million batteries a day."3
Demands of course in the basic missions for
Production Miracle Reviewed
As a build-up for indoctrinating which each was designed.
the fighting forces in use of the fuze, A m easure of these complexities In view of the many complexities
Dr. Tuve had seen early the desir- is obtained when we note that there of the program, the actual production
ability of instructing Army and Navy were eight models of the shell radio of proximity fuzes assumed the status
personnel in the design , inspection, fuze required for the U. S. Navy, of a miracle, as a few figures will
handling, and functioning of proximity four for the British Navy, twelve for indicate. Assembly of production
fuzes. This was in line with his views the U. S. Army, and six models for the fuzes began in Sept. 1942 and
that the fuze must be closely followed British Army. The modifications that averaged 500 a day during the
by APL right to the field of battle. were needed introduced some fears first month. A little more than a year
The Ordnance Department of the that a modified fuz e might prove later (Dec. 1943), 1,164,000 fuzes
Army, fully appreciating the im- unsafe in its handling, loading, and had been produced for the Navy and
portance of a program to introduce firing cycle; hence, the seemingiy 126,000 for the Army. During 1944,
the fuzes to appropriate Army units, endless program of testing this one a total of 8, 30 1,000 fuzes were pro-
selected 200 officers and men for feature continued to demand the duced. By the end of that year, more
training at APL and at the Bureau greatest care. As if these problems than 40,000 proximity fuzes per day
of Standards. These men participated were not complicated enough, many were coming from the assembly lines.
in certain phases of the development planners and operators in the using Altogether, 22,073,481 fuzes were
work at the laboratories and in field services were changing their minds produced up to Aug. 14, 1945.
testing, as well as in those methods of at frequent and unpredictable inter- The development and manu-
handling the fuzes that were pertinent vals concerning the number of fuzes facture of proximity fuzes was one of
to battlefield operations. The Navy of each model they would need. the best-kept secrets of the war. For
also selected officers and men for The Applied Physics Laboratory reasons already given, it is well that
advanced training in the shell radio was not, of course, in the business of this was the case. The success with
fuze at APL. The trainees of both producing these different types of which the secret was kept seems no
Services contributed in no small fuze. However, APL had the principal less a miracle than the production
degree to the success of the entire responsibility for the design adapta- miracle, in view of the fact that an
program. tions, a responsibility which certainly estimated one million persons par-
With the start of quantity produc- could not be dropped at the moment ticipated in the r esearch, develop-
tion in the fall of 1942, many complica- the modified fuzes were put into ment, and production of the fuze in
tions arose, resulting in part from the production. Without full cooperation the United States, and in its use in
priorities established by the Com- of the many industrial contractors combat. The extraordinary pre-
bined Chiefs of Staff. Many diverse under Section T, this responsibility cautions taken to insure this secret
requirements had to be satisfied could not have been discharged. are a fascinating story in themselves.
within a time scale that would permit The extent of the industrial par- As stated by Admiral Ernest J.
each of the military forces to bring ticipation in the program has been King, then Commander in Chief of
its full weight to bear in execution of succinctly summarized in the official the U. S. Fleet, "the development of
the overall strategic plan. The basic history of the OSRD as follows: the VT fuze was a major scientific
design of the proximity fuze for the "In the months just preceding V-J achievement that has contributed
Navy'S 5-in. guns could not, merely Day (there was no slackening in the greatly toward winning the war for
by a process of rescaling the dimen- work of "T" after V-E Day) the the United Nations."
sions, be readily adapted for use in Central Laboratory at Silver Spring
the vario"lis types of guns in the other was the nerve center of a vast, country- 3 "New Weapons for Air Warfare," ed. by J . C.
Boyce; Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1947,
three military organizations. There wide activity. Five major plants were
172. This is one of a series of volumes of the
were differences in caliber, muzzle rolling out some 70,000 VT-Fuzes a official history of the Office of Scientific Re-
velocity, rate of projectile spin, day-millions of tiny radio sets search a nd Development.