Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

"Descent to a height of one thousand meters."

This order from the air commander immediately aroused strong dissatisfaction from other pilots. You must know that for bombers, an altitude of one thousand meters is already quite dangerous. It is no exaggeration to say that it is equivalent to one foot stepping into hell.

But the air commander had no choice but to give them a fatal order before setting off, telling them to crash or destroy the German pontoon bridge. But in this blinding night, you can't see the target and you can't hit it even if you want to. You can only lower the altitude first to find the target and then drop the bomb.

Although full of complaints, the pilots could only obey the order and descend the flight altitude. After all, no one wants to be saddled with the crime of escaping in battle, which in wartime is a serious crime punishable by death.

Suddenly, a lamppost shot up from the ground, tearing through the darkness with a dazzling light and rushing towards the sky.

Then came the second, third, fourth...

When the light is weak, the pupils will automatically adjust and enlarge, allowing more light to enter so that the eyes can see more clearly. This sudden bright light gave the pilots who had been flying in the dark for a long time no time to adjust their eyes, and they were almost blinded. The vision was completely white and they could not see anything clearly.

"Damn! It's a searchlight, spread out immediately!" the air commander warned loudly. He knew very well that once covered by these lights, violent artillery fire would follow.

As soon as he finished speaking, the air defense positions on the ground started firing fiercely.

Although more advanced fire control radars have not yet been put into use, existing air defense radars can still accurately mark the direction and altitude of enemy aircraft, helping anti-aircraft artillery troops calibrate various design elements in advance.

The most effective way for anti-aircraft artillery to perform air defense operations is to form a dense barrage, making it impossible for invading enemy aircraft to avoid it.

How to increase the density of barrages? Before the emergence of proximity fuzes, there were only two ways. The first was to increase the rate of fire of anti-aircraft guns; the second was to increase the number of anti-aircraft guns when setting up anti-aircraft positions.

Because of this, every time the anti-aircraft artillery unit conducts air defense operations, the amount of ammunition consumed is quite terrifying.

During World War II, there were several types of fuzes used in anti-aircraft artillery shells, namely trigger fuzes, time fuzes/height fuzes and proximity fuzes.

Trigger fuzes are generally provided for use by small-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Because artillery shells using trigger fuzes must hit an air target to be effective, but it is very difficult or impossible to hit a target that is small and fast-moving at high altitude, so this trigger fuze, It is only used by small-caliber anti-aircraft guns against low-altitude targets.

The time fuse is a mechanical clock-like dial inside the cannonball, powered by the elastic potential energy of the spring. There is a circle of scale on the outside of the fuze, which represents the length of the delay. Before launching, the artillery crew needs to observe and measure the altitude of the enemy aircraft group, and then calculate the corresponding delay time. Before firing, a special wrench is required to adjust the fuze to the corresponding scale. When the fired cannonball flies for a preset time, it will explode and cause damage to nearby targets.

The principle of height fuze is similar to that of time fuze. The detonation height of the shell is set before firing. Anti-aircraft artillery shells equipped with these two types of fuzes are mostly fired by larger-caliber anti-aircraft guns.

If these settings are wrong, no matter how accurate the aim is, it will not be effective due to premature or late detonation. Because the chance of hitting is small, when using these two types of fuse shells, anti-aircraft artillery must fire a considerable number to create a barrage where the target may pass, which will increase the chance of shooting down the target.

For example, during the Battle of Britain in World War II, the British air defense force used 4,200 rounds of large and medium-caliber anti-aircraft artillery shells to shoot down a German aircraft. The air defense cost of these anti-aircraft guns and shells was probably several times the cost of shooting down the aircraft. When the US military's 127mm high-level dual-purpose gun uses shells equipped with time or altitude fuzes, it needs to fire 2,000 rounds to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

Later, proximity fuses appeared, which did not require complicated calculations. They only needed to launch the shells equipped with such fuses in the target direction. When the artillery shell approaches the target, or the distance between the artillery shell and the target is lower than the set limit in the fuze, the artillery shell will automatically detonate, which greatly improves the efficiency of the anti-aircraft gun. A 127mm high-level dual-purpose gun that requires 2,000 rounds to shoot down an enemy aircraft only needs an average of 500 shells to shoot down an enemy aircraft when using a proximity fuse.

This radio proximity fuze is a prototype developed by the United Kingdom based on the principle of radar. It was later improved by the United States and the Mk53 fuze was developed, which is mainly used on 127mm anti-aircraft guns. After the artillery shell equipped with a proximity fuze is fired, the safety device is released, the fuze starts to be energized, and the vacuum tube is made into a radio frequency circuit to emit electromagnetic waves of 180-220MHZ.

When approaching an air target, electromagnetic waves will be reflected back and produce a frequency shift of hundreds of hertz due to the Doppler effect. At this time, the shell itself forms an antenna to receive the reflected electromagnetic waves, and filters and amplifies them through filters and amplifiers. When the amplified current reaches the threshold (meaning that the distance to the target has entered the effective killing range), the trigger can be completed.

However, this kind of fuze was limited by the level of electronic devices at the time. At that time, the US military could only install it on the 127mm anti-aircraft gun. The smaller-caliber Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun and 28mm anti-aircraft gun could not be used.

In fact, Germany also studied proximity fuzes during World War II, but due to poor electronic technology, they were unable to develop a radio proximity fuze. Instead, they developed acoustic proximity fuzes, magnetic proximity fuzes, electrostatic proximity fuzes, and other messy things that were not very effective.

The principle and structure of the electrostatic proximity fuze are very simple. It only requires two dry batteries, a spark arrester, an electric igniter and an electrical stage insulated from the fuze shell. The electromotive force of the battery is selected to be slightly smaller than the discharge voltage of the spark discharger, and no current passes through the electric igniter until it is close to the target.

When the artillery shell approaches the target, a potential difference is generated between the electrode and the fuze shell, and is fed back into the circuit. Due to the existence of the potential difference, the voltage added to the lead of the spark arrester will increase, and will be proportional to the approach of the target. increases until a certain distance is reached, the high-intensity electrostatic load released by the target causes the total voltage of the spark arrester to reach a sufficient value for the electrical spark discharge, and finally triggers the electric igniter and ignites the explosive in the warhead.

The principle of static electricity on objects that can be seen everywhere and an ordinary static electricity receiving circuit can create a very lethal electrostatic proximity fuse. For an object like an airplane that can generate thousands of static electricity loads due to warning at any time, static electricity proximity fuses The explosive fuse is used for its purpose.

It just has a shortcoming, that is, the sensing range is too short, far inferior to the radio proximity fuze, and its practicality is too poor; but it is such a useless thing, but the top German military officials regard it as a treasure, and it will not be used as a top-notch precision missile munition. Such fuzes will be installed.