[Milsurplus] Re: GB> I Beg Your Pardon. The Japanese DID have the Proximity Fuze.

[Hue Miller]

----- Original Message ----- 
(H.M. : )
> > Altho i have read someone else saying Japan did have the 1.5 volt
> > miniature tubes in WW2, like our 1L4 series, i have never seen one,  
you would maybe think if they had smaller tubes, they would  maybe
> > prefer to use one in a weather balloon. 

(N2EY) 
> Not really. Size isn't nearly so important as weight. Weight wasn't as 
> important as using something that wasn't needed for a more-urgent war purpose. 
> Weather balloons would have a high loss rate, too.
 
> It's not so much about size but about ability to withstand the shock of 
> firing. Submini tubes were existing prewar technology - they were used in hearing 
> aids. Japan could have imported thousands before the war, as they did with many 
> other things. 

(HM) Size relates to weight and mechanical flexing and that's why i rule out the
fuze being built with standard sized tubes. Okay, the dropped-bomb fuze: you
could use any size tubes for that.
As for they depending on stocks of imported submini tubes, let's judge that 
unrealistic.

(N2EY)
> I recall at least one story of an American unit overrunning a Japanese radio 
> installation fairly intact. The ham in the unit was amazed at the use of 
> American tube types like the 860 that he considered obsolete. 

(HM) 
Japanese military electronics, most sets appear developed in the mid to late
1930s. You can kinda get a clue from the nomenlature for the sets:
Type 94-6 walkie talkie, Type 99-2 Aviation, Type 00 Aircraft. Replace this 
is slightly like our nomenclature "M1911" for example. Those numbers 
represent the calendar from the founding of the Japanese Empire, so "94"
represents 1934 in the C.E. calendar. All of the Japanese equipment i have
looked at, and i'm no authority, uses tubes from the 1930s, like 7 pin
types, 6 pins, etc. I have only seen two sets using tubes as small as octals.
Oh, let me correct that: they did have acorns too. So- it would be no surprise
to overrun some installation and find tubes such as 6D6, 6F7, 807, and 860.
( "Rust In Piece" has a photo of a Japanese main radio transmitter room
discovered beneath Rabaul ( i think...). The transmitters in that photo are the
olde-1930s style using this kind of large triode, 860 tube.  ( These transmitters
are still there but i don't think in real good shape...altho "maybe" restorable? )
 
(N2EY)
> > > He said it would have been a bloodbath for the AAF if the
> > > war had continued, and thanked the Lord for the atomic bomb.

(HM)
"Somewhere" in my books is a book titled something like "Thank God for the 
Atomic Bomb - and other essays", dating from around 1980?

(HM)
> > No- not a bloodbath for the USAAF. ( "Army Air Force" ). EVEN IF Japan
> > developed the proximity fuze, couldn't chaff be used against it?  1/2 wave
> > strips of aluminum foil?  

(N2EY) 
> Maybe. But the lead plane in a formation would be unprotected because chaff 
> falls behind the plane. Shoot down the leader, then the second plane, then the 
> third...

(HM)
In practice, i don't think such difficulties actually applied, in real life. You have more
than one plane distributing chaff, and the chaff REALLY does distribute  over the
area well, and it takes a good long while to come down!

> Of course, once the US dropped that, the secret
> > 
> > might be out, before all eyes: it would be obvious everyone had the 
> > proximity
> > fuze.

(N2EY) 
> Nope. Chaff was in wide use by the end of the war; it was used against 
> gun-aiming radar. In fact, it had been developed to the point where a receiver would 
> listen for enemy radar, then a device would automatically cut the chaff to 
> the right length for the frequency the enemy was using. 

(HM)
I didn't know that. I will have to update my knowledge on that subject. 
Certainly before that time, it was just prepackaged and dumped out the door. Possibly
just anything longer than 1/2 wavelength would give radar reflections. ( My father went
into a crash landed B-24 in 1943, and found it loaded with packages of chaff. I don't know
how the packages were opened as they were dropped....)

N2EY:

> My dad flew 13 missions against the Japanese in a B-24. He told this story 
> about getting overseas in the early spring of 1945:
> 
> The new crews were brought into a large building for their 'welcome to the 
> war' briefing. There was a big pile of footlockers and duffel bags at the end of 
> the hall, and while waiting around for the CO they all went over to find 
> their stuff. But none of the names were familiar.
> 
> When the CO came in and they had all been told to sit down, he explained that 
> the piles at the end of the hall belonged to crews who weren't coming back. 
> The odds of a crew surviving the required 40 missions over Japan weren't too 
> good, even that late in the war. I think Dad said that even then, one in three 
> B-24 crews in his unit were not expected to survive the war.

(HM) I'm kinda surprised that management didn't make efforts to insulate the
newcomers from these rude facts til they'd been there a while....

(N2EY) 
> It wasn't just enemy action, either. Dad told many stories of crews killed by 
> the simple hazards of flight in those days. They routinely flew with the 
> planes overloaded way beyond what the book said they would carry. He said they 
> used every inch of a 6000 foot runway to get the B-24 off the ground, and would 
> fly in a straight line for 50 to 100 miles before the plane would have burned 
> enough fuel and gained enough altitude to be able to turn. Lose an engine at 
> the wrong moment on takeoff and it was all over.

(HM)  Yes. Young people, with not years of flying experience + equipment failures
+ equipment limitations + having to fly in all kinds of weather = a frightening 
accident rate...

(article:)
> > > "The Japanese were also introducing their own proximity fuzes in bombs
> > > and rockets (a more stable platform than cannons). In June, 1944, the
> > > Japanese bombed an airbase on recently captured Saipan, with a
> > > single1700 pound proximity bomb, which exploded 35 feet above the
> > > airfield, destroying or damaging scores of parked B-29s, (the most
> > > advanced bomber of the time), which were to be used to begin bombing
> > > raids on Japan."

(HM)
> > This does not say Japan had a proximity fuze small enuff to fit an AA shell,
> > which i believe would not be smaller than 90mm gun anyway.  The proximity
> > bomb allegedly used against Saipan: US bomber aircraft did the exact same
> > thing, to great effect, via parachute delivered bombs, and frequently. 

(HM) My point is that to use a proximity fuze on a bomb, wouldn't seem to have
offered a massive advantage over whatever the Allies were using to detonate
their parachute dropped weapons. Except maybe it could be delivered without
having to come in low. Maybe. 
Another point is that a Japanese 2 engine plane loaded with such a weapon would
be a "sitting duck" against the Allied fighter screen....

(HM) 
> >   Also, Japan
> > did not have the dense flak screen that Germany did, and notoriously lacked 
> > in
> > artillery weapons, that could have put to use the proximity fuze to the 
> > extent the
> > US did.

(N2EY) 
> Those I've known who flew daylight raids against the Japanese would disagree 
> with that 
> assessment......

(HM)
I have to yield on this, as i'm not prepared to prove anything. However, i do know
that in the Reich, the AA arm was almost a whole industry to itself. You had 
hundreds of thousands of teenagers and war prisoners assisting on the flak guns.
You had thousands of concrete gun platforms. The flak towers even had their 
own interphone system, with headphones and throat mics, sometimes mistaken
for Panzer equipment but actually built for flak crew use...

(HM) 
> > This unqualified statement is so BIZARRE that it makes me wonder about the
> > reliability of the author's other narrative of Japan's progress.
> > By mid-1945, how much was left of Japan's submarine fleet?
> > How many submarines left with aircraft carrying capability?

(N2EY)
> There were still several Japanese submarines operational at the end of the 
> war. The Japanese had arguably the best submarine technology on earth at the end 
> of the war. How effectively they used it, and how much of it they had, is 
> another issue.

The key word here is "several". Plus, we were "reading their mail", so any radio orders
sent to their vessels were decoded, and the ships intercepted, or at least searched for.
Recall that incident where Japan sent submarines out to some place like Kwajelein to
set up a series of screens, and almost every submarine was sunk as it arrived on position?

(HM) 
> > And how many bombs could be delivered by  the small observation planes 
> > carried
> > on SOME FEW Japanese submarines? A couple hundred pounds of bombs from
> > an occasional raider airplane, and a very slow airplane at that.
> > That's less than a mosquito bite against the enemy empire.

(N2EY)
> Shutting down the Panama Canal would have been a smart move, had it been done 
> a lot earlier. So would attacking West Coast refineries and other resources. 
> But it was only tried once or twice on a tiny scale.

(HM) 
Problem of resources.
Shelling of west coast by a submarine or two caused more anxiety than damage.

(HM)
> > On the other hand, maybe this citation IS correct, and just another example 
> > of the
> > Japanese military's unrealistic magical thinking, faith in a miracle that 
> > would save them.

(N2EY)
> Plans are one thing, putting them into action another. 

(HM)
Plans that have no basis in reality, like not  having a Plan-B (oops, i guess that
is now a trademark name! ) are just dreams....

(N2EY)
> > 12,000 anti aircraft shells, in the progress of a war, is nothing - NOTHING 
> > !!
> 
> Not when they're shooting at *YOU*!
> 
> Remember that by 1945, the trip from factory to gun was a very short one for 
> the Japanese and a very long one for the Allies. Consider that it could easily 
> be six months from US factory to the war theatre. 

(HM)
What i was thinking was, consider the number of AA sites, then divide the 12000
by the number of sites, and then the "kill ratio" of number of shells expended to
downed plane. Even given a generous ratio of 10 shells to down a plane, this 
dispersal of the weapon means that each site had a quite limited supply.
Actually, near the end of the war, i think Japan defenses had not much left to
defend...industry had kind of ground to a near halt...numerous weapons were hidden
away, however, against a possible invasion...

As for evidences of the proximity fuze: yes, i admit these could have been destroyed,
even by Japan: i think there a quite a few examples of non-strict compliance with
Allied orders for the surrender: "special weapons" and paper records destroyed, for
example...