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Little known fact from "The Great Patriotic War" (WWII to the western world) The Soviet Union used more artillery than any other nation. The Russian military were dogged artillerymen who would prefer to shell the enemy into submission. Russian armor and infantry were for mopping up after the artillery did it's job. It's a testament to the tenacity of the Wehrmacht that there were so many huge tank and infantry battles on the eastern front in WWII.

Can someone please detail how anti-aircraft flak/other projectiles are made to go off
at certain altitudes?

Also, during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the Germans used artillery that burst at treetop levels.
How did they do this? I always tend to think of artillery as a "dumb" munition that only does its damage upon
hitting the earth. I realize that WWII artillery technology was not as advanced as what's available today.

TIA / SIA

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Can someone please detail how anti-aircraft flak/other projectiles are made to go off
at certain altitudes?

Also, during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the Germans used artillery that burst at treetop levels.
How did they do this? I always tend to think of artillery as a "dumb" munition that only does its damage upon
hitting the earth. I realize that WWII artillery technology was not as advanced as what's available today.

TIA / SIA

VT fuses were very advanced state of the art during WWII.

There were lots of different fuse arrangements. Point detonation usually goes off on contact with something that slows the projectile enough. Other detonators run on simple timers or are in the tail of the shell allowing penetration without destroying the fuse and delayed detonation, but the "tree burst" shells were VT (called Variable Time) proximity fuses, which exploded when close to the target. Allied VT fuses used radio principles while German ones used an electrostatic arrangement which was not as reliable, nor was it truly field adjustable. Most likely the Germans were just using timer equipped munitions and forward observers to correct burst height, and remember, they were in possession of that area for a long time before US troops got there, so a lot of the target area was probably pre-registered.

Our VT fuses could be set (in the field) to burst at a range of distances from the target, and although it is not mentioned much in the history books, our return fire, which did not require forward observers was even more devastating to the Germans than their "tree bursts" because they didn't expect us to be able to set the shells to go off a few feet above the ground without forward observers.

Above ground bursts are much more devastating to personnel than point detonation, because even point det takes a couple of milliseconds to go off, which means that it will have penetrated the ground a little, putting most of the blast pattern well above ground. Point det is great for destroying thins, not so much people.

the usmc send initials trainees to Ft Sill OK for FA and ADA training, Jar Heads do not go to basic at Ft Sill just AIT. they train right along with Army FA trainees. I did MOSQ at Ft Sill and then in Germany for a total of 7 MOSQTs passed all at 100%

Thank you for your responses gentlemen.

SIA