What if the Axis had captured and duplicated US proximity fuse technology

Found this on another site and thought this was a far more realistic "What If?".

1. What if the Axis had captured and duplicated US proximity fuse technology early enough to get it to their forces by mid-1944? Proximity fuses gave US anti-aircraft guns a major advantage because a shell didn’t actually have to hit a plane to damage it. The shell just had to get close, detect that it was close and then explode. The US took extraordinary care to avoid having proximity fuses fall into Axis hands, but let’s say a dud shell lodges in a Japanese or German plane or lands on a Japanese or German ship. An alert ordinance-disposal person realizes that he has something out of the ordinary on his hands and the technology is looked at and reproduced, at least by the Germans. I’m not sure if the Japanese would have the technology base to do that. In any case, German anti-aircraft fire gets a lot more effective in mid-1944 and Allied bomber losses get heavier. Ground combat gets more bloody also because proximity fuses can be used to in artillery shells to more easily create airbursts.

World War II Scenario Seeds

 

It may slow down the Allied bombing offensive, but not cancel it, also proximity fuses does nothing on the issue of the ground offensive, unless the Germans can overcome this, the Soviets still march into Berlin.

This would give the Third Reich a few weeks maybe, but nothing was going to save the Third Reich bar developing an arsenal of atomic weaponary.

 

This one wouldn't have happened. Even if the Germans got a fuze or several intact they lacked the industrial basis for producing a copy. First they would have to actually develop and put into production miniture tube technology. Next, they would have to break the grip Krupp has on Tungsten and Tungsten Carbide to allow manufacture of said tubes.
Given that the German electronics industry was already grossly overstreached in 1941, let alone 1944, there was little prospect of them being able to produce equivalent technology and a VT fuze on a useful scale prior to the end of the war.
Look at the Rotterdam project as an example of this. The Germans captured H2S technology in mid 1943. It took them almost a year to produce a prototype set of their own. From there they took nearly another 9 months to produce working prototypes of millimeter wave radars of which they managed to actually produce only a handful of operational sets prior to the end of the war.
One might note that the Japanese already possessed this technology and Germany overlooked it simply because of racial elitism. The same occured with many British and American inventions that eventually fell into German hands where the later was stunned to find that Britain and America had left them in the dust technologically.

 

It's unlikely that the Germans could have mass produced the necessary components. Many countries, including France, Britain, Germany, and the US, were aware of the theoretical advantages of proximity fuses prior to WW II, and were working on the problems of a workable proximity fuse. Britain had developed a practical proximity fuse for rocket projectiles, but could not solve the technical and engineering problems inherent in mass production of proximity fuses for gun-launched projectiles. Germany wasn't even close to solving these problems, although they were fully cognizant of the theory involved. Only the US had the technical and engineering ability to develop and mass produce practical proximity fuses. Capturing an example of a US proximity fuse would simply have confirmed for the Germans that it was technologically feasible, it wouldn't have conferred the actual ability to produce a fuse.

 

Thanks again for the imput . Interesting "What If?" though. IF the Germans had the ability to copy and produce them do you think it would have made a difference in the bombing raids?

 

Probably not. The US was fully aware that the Germans might get this technology in service on their own or through other means. As a precaution they developed and tested a jammer for proximity fuzes. This was done at Wright Air Field in Ohio using a B-17 with a crew of volunteers and a 90mm AA battery firing live ammunition!
The tests proved that the jammer would set off the VT rounds too far from the aircraft to damage it (no doubt to the relief of the six men aboard!).

 

Now that is news to me !!!! I didn't know that they were prepared in that aspect to jam the fuzes. And to go that far to test it LOL.

 

Not quite right. The proximity fuse was very useful vs ground targets. It was first used as such by the US during the Battle of the Bulge as I recall.

 

Quite right lwd. And wrong Von Rundstedt. It was used during the Bulge with devasting effect against troops in the open by the 492nd Field Artillery Battalion, 11 Armored Division for example.

 

It was quickly realized the US artillery was not using traditional mechanical time fuzes for these airbursts. A theory circulated amoung the Germans that the US had a infrared sensing fuze that was tiggered by the body heat of the soldiers.

 

Holy sh**, Terry, now that's confidence !

 

An interesting page on Crosleys involvement with Proximity fuses. http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-075.htm

 

'The Deadly Fuze' by Ralph Baldwin has much detail on the US side of the proximity fuse development and deployment.