17-7-20 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

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[Ovidio]

Wow, nice picture!!!

[Bob Womack]

Wonder if the photographer was thinking that or "OH CRAP!" and checking his drawers?

Bob

[CINDERS]

Great action shot, when the Americans deployed the VT fuse for the first time against German infantry it was in very low visibility the stuff was called in from a FOP onto the advancing infantry all of a sudden the Germans were being decimated by the shells bursting at the correct height for the most lethality stopping the advance on the spot.
That fuse was a complete game changer as no longer would the rounds bury themselves forcing most of the explosion upwards reducing its affect, I watched a doco on the development of this item and it is amazing the technical input into this to get it going as they did not have printed circuits or stuff that could handle the firing and subsequent G's in acceleration and rotational forces.

There was a printed circuit developed in WWII but it was by the Germans in their aerial mine called "George" info on it is contained in the book Softly Tread the Brave By Southall.

[13Echo]

Well that is most definitely not an airburst.

Fuze VT was an amazing piece of engineering. It basically was a radar fuze that would cause the explosive train to function when it received a return signal at a set interval which put the round about 20 yds above the ground when it burst. Just about perfect. It was vacuum tube technology that had to stand the acceleration of the gun firing and start functioning almost immediately. The battery was dry with a packet of electrolyte that ruptured and flooded the cell on firing to almost instantly produce power and give essentially unlimited storage life.

It was easy for the FDC to adjust. Just get on target with fuze quick, throw in 20/R and fire for effect. No fiddling with adjusting the setting on the mechanical time fuzes.

Jerry Liles

[CINDERS]

Funny thing about explosions this from one of my books called Strike from the Sky about the aerial blitz on London;
A factory had been targeted by the German bombers from memory women were working there along with men the air raid sounded and whether it was too late or they chose to ignore it some workers were caught in the bombing of the plant.
The rescuers went in afterwards and were confronted with some pretty bad scenes of one girl it was said she was sitting on a stool operating a machine her hips and legs were there but the torso had been neatly cleaved just above the pelvis by the concentrated blast wave her shoes & stockings intact. Of another girl she was sat motionless like a mannequin on her stool not an external mark on her yet all her internal organs were pulverized and she perished where she sat.
Of a man they found the top of his head gone and the brain completely vacated from the skull so one could look right down onto the top of the spinal column in the neck, the forces from the explosions in a confined area inside a building with differing internal structures caused the shock waves to act in mysterious ways. Not so mysterious that it killed people though.

Pretty grim reading but fact of what the Londoners put up with in those dark early days..........

[Bob Seijas]

That fuze added the terms "Up" and "Down" to the FO/FDC adjustment jargon. "Add" to increase distance, "Up" to increase height.

[13Echo]

Actually we were adjusting height of burst with the old powder train and the more modern mechanical time fuze well before the Fuze VT became available. Fuze VT just made it unnecessary to adjust the time ring on the fuze to get the proper height of burst.

To conduct an airburst mission you would get on target with fuze quick (contact fuze), add 20/R to the quadrant elevation and calculate a fuze setting. Shoot it then adjust the fuze setting based on the observed burst by the FO. With fuze VT just add 20/R and shoot.

Now Fuze VT also had a time setting to keep it from functioning till it got close to the target. Kept it from blowing up a rain cloud or flock of geese or stray airplane along its trajectory.

[BEAR]

.....or stray airplane along its trajectory.

No laughing matter
Attachment 86004

BEAR (BDY)

[CINDERS]

Thats pretty nasty