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#3241171 - 03/21/11 11:14 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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sascha Offline
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Ha! I love the internet.

Found an excellent LW-site with tons of original German documents and manuals in pdf form.


Homepage

Look under "Archiv"

They have incredibly detailed subpages for every German WW2 aircraft-gun, with tons of high-quality pictures, diagrams and descriptions. Here's the page for the MG FF and MG FF/M.

Anyhow: On that page, there's an official document dated May 30th 1940. It was intended to prevent accidents that might have occured due to crews treating an MG FF as an MG FF/M and vice versa.

The document is right here: Click me!




Now, when you scroll down to page 2, section "B. Munition" you'll find it's split into 5 points (1 - 5) for five different ammo types. Types 1-3 were only to be fired from MG FF ("heavy ammo") since the FF/M had a lightened mechanism to allow cycling with the lighter Minengeschoss. The FF's heavier action wouldn't have cycled had you fired the Minengeschoss from it.






And the description of ammo-type 1 reads (translated):

"2cm Explosive-shell, Tracer-FF (134g)
The projectile of this shell is fitted with a fuze and explosive charge and will either detonate shortly after impacting the target or it will self-destruct after having travelled 750m through the air."

Now, that's for ammo used with the older FF-model. Descriptions for ammo-types 4. and 5. for the FF/M are simply given as "see ammo type 1 - 3", read: Their properties (including self-destruct-fuze) are identical.

So, I'd call this pretty hard evidence that at least by May 1940 the Zerleger (self-destruct-fuze) was in widespread use by the LW and consequently there's no reason to believe it wasn't used in the BoB.



S.

Last edited by sascha; 03/22/11 10:04 AM.

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#3241188 - 03/21/11 11:37 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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Winter Offline
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Sascha lays the smack-down. Thanks for the history lesson! love it.


III/JG11_Winter
#3241223 - 03/22/11 12:23 AM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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Blackdog_kt Offline
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Originally Posted By: sascha
Quote:

The effectiveness of the M-Geschoss was somewhat reduced by the fast-acting fuze, which detonated instantly rather than inside the target's structure, (...)

Delayed-action fuzes for the German shells were introduced in 1941



IMO delayed-action-fuze =! self-destruct-fuze.

The way understand it, a delayed action fuze would be activated on penetration and then detonate the charge an instant later ("delayed") to ensure the charge is set off *inside* the target, *not* upon impact. Whereas the Zerleger is simply a fuze that auto-detonates after a preset amout of time to prevent a live grenade from falling to the ground.




That's how i understood it as well, given the context of that quote. They talk about how shells exploding upon contact did reduced damage compared to the ones exploding on the inside, so it makes sense that they tried to improve them somehow: a few milliseconds of delay between impact and detonation, to give the shell a chance to detonate after penetrating the enemy airframe.

Impressive research on your part as well in confirming this.

So apparently, it seems it was a dual action fuse:
1) If the shell flies without any sort of contact, it self-destructs after 750m. This fuse is triggered right after firing.
2) If the impact detonator is triggered, there is a small delay between impact and detonation to allow the shell to penetrate the enemy airframe before exploding. This fuse is only triggered in the event of contact with another object.

#3241452 - 03/22/11 10:02 AM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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sascha Offline
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Quote:
If the impact detonator is triggered, there is a small delay between impact and detonation to allow the shell to penetrate the enemy airframe before exploding.



Hmm.. You may be implying too much, but that's pretty much how I understand it as well. Otherwise they would've written "beim Aufschlag" (upon impact) and not "kurz nach dem Aufschlag" (shortly after impact). That's no hard proof I guess, but since the Minengeschoss and FF/M were already in development by 1937/38 ( official quarterly progress-report dated Q2, 1938 ) the guys at weapons-development were definetly aware that it needed to detonate inside a target, not on contact. Since the M-Geschoss relies on gas pressure, not fragmentation, it wouldn't cause any significant damage if it detonated on contact. So the need for a delayed-action-fuze was certainly recognized well before the BoB ever started, I guess.

Did they really use it in 1940? Both the quote in the ammo-document and common sense lead me to believe that they did. After all: Nobody is arguing that they had the Minengeschoss in the BoB, but the Minengeschoss would've been useless/pointless without a delayed-action-fuze.


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#3241497 - 03/22/11 11:39 AM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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Aces High 2 Offline
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Hi mate,

A nice find that document. If I'm correct in thinking that they've modelled the bf-109e3 equipped with the MGFF and not the MGFF/M then they can't be firing m-geschloss ammution and thus the explosive power of the 20mm ammunition should be roughly half of the m-geschloss shell.

As I understand it the whole point of the m-geschloss shell was that it contained much more high explosive and not that it was equipped with any delayed action fuse. I've seen pictures of M-geschloss ammo both with and without the green band denoting Zerleger type. so I think there's been some confusion regarding the operation of the m-geschloss round and the seperate rationale for self-destruct ammunition and the delay fuse is another thing again and this didn't come in until 41 for this type of ammo.

So the real questions are have they modelled the MGFF or the MGFF/M?, which ammunition have they modelled, m-geshloss or normal HE?, normal for the MGFF or most probably m-geschloss for the MGFF/M?. Perhaps the biggest question is why use Zerleger ammuntion whose only rationale was to avoid ground damage when your flying over enemy territory unless they just had large stocks to use up!?.

Best Regards

Aces

Edit:

I just asked Tony Willaims http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/an_introduction_to_collecting_20.htm

for his oppionion on "Was Zerleger 20cm ammunition used during the battle of britain?" and his answer was "I don’t know but I doubt that any was used. It was developed for home defence, to avoid causing casualties among their own civilians."

Last edited by Aces High 2; 03/22/11 11:50 AM.

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#3241525 - 03/22/11 12:13 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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sascha Offline
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Quote:
As I understand it the whole point of the m-geschloss shell was that it contained much more high explosive and not that it was equipped with any delayed action fuse.



Not really. The whole point of the M-Geschoss was that it used gas-pressure, not shrapnel, to create damage. Thin-walled projectile + higher HE-content. But if gas-pressure is used, it would be pointless to have the grenade detonate upon contact, since the gas pressure would just dissipate outside the target. So the point was to have more explosive power in a thin-walled shell, creating the desired gas-pressure-effect *and* to bring that combination to detonate *inside* the target to create maximum damage.

Quote:
just asked Tony Willaims


As much as I respect Tony Williams and his work, it's hard to argue with original, contemporary LW/RLM-documents. And these clearly state that the Zerleger was being used (at least by May 1940) in both the FF's and the FF/M's ammo.

Now, AFAIK, CoD will ship with the E-3 (MG FF) *not* the E-4 (MG FF/M). Which is kind of weird, since both the E-3 and E-4 were the most common types employed during the BoB.


Quote:
Perhaps the biggest question is why use Zerleger ammuntion whose only rationale was to avoid ground damage when your flying over enemy territory unless they just had large stocks to use up!?.


I could think of other reasons than avoiding *ground* damage. The 109s and 110s were often protecting huge formations of bombers/Stukas. It's unlikely, but not unthinkable, that an unexploded 20mm-shell may fly into your own bomber-formation and hit and damage a Heinkel. Why take that risk if you have the technology to avoid it readily available? Besides: It may just have been common-practice to use the Zerleger. Why confuse the ground crews with another decision they would have to make (use Zerleger-equipped ammo or not?) Simply use it as a general rule for all ammo-types that can use it and be done with it.

Last edited by sascha; 03/22/11 12:14 PM.

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#3241530 - 03/22/11 12:23 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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Aces High 2 Offline
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Hi mate,

Maybe, maybe not, I geuss we'll never know for sure as there doesn't seem to be any conclussive evidence of its usage, its existance yes, its usage during BoB no smile.

Anyway for me it's not really a deal-breaker that one's the lack of an immersive dynamic campaign but that, as they say, is another issue that's been much talked over.

Best Regards

Aces


"IL-2 MAT Manager" program co-dev., Silent Hunter III "Super Turms", "Super Pens", Multi-Skin Bombers dev. for Wings of Victory BDG version 2.10 + various Steel Fury mods. BDG member, "Modder".

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#3241545 - 03/22/11 12:42 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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sascha Offline
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Quote:
that one's the lack of an immersive dynamic campaign but that



Ohh.. I'm right with you there ... don't get me started on this one... smile I did an interview with Oleg at Games-Convention 2006 where he showed the first CoD-tech-demo and I made the mistake of asking if there would be a dynamic campaign. Then the interview almost turned into a debate on principle WRT dynamic campaigns ... wink

Last edited by sascha; 03/22/11 01:00 PM.

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#3241557 - 03/22/11 12:48 PM Re: Fused Cannon Shells? [Re: EAF_92 Whiskey]  
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Aces High 2 Offline
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LOL :), I've been hoping for this ever since the original IL-2 was released, guess I was spoilt with Rowan's BoB campaign, not perfect but pretty good IMO. I really hoped above all hope that we'd get it this time especially after all these years wating but sadly it looks like we never will frown.

If they'd have put in a good single-player campaign I'd have bought it like a shot as well as a new joystick to replace my brokem Cougar but I cannot get excited about a game that I know will leave me empty and unsatisfied once the eye-candy has worn off pretty quickly.

Best Regards

Aces

Last edited by Aces High 2; 03/22/11 12:51 PM.

"IL-2 MAT Manager" program co-dev., Silent Hunter III "Super Turms", "Super Pens", Multi-Skin Bombers dev. for Wings of Victory BDG version 2.10 + various Steel Fury mods. BDG member, "Modder".

Aces' Downloads: http://tinyurl.com/bn2aoqt
Aces' YouTube: http://tinyurl.com/clvy94f
My "Stuka Vor" Film: https://vimeo.com/196439362
CloD Virtual Cockpits Vid: https://youtu.be/Emn2dkYGk74
BoS Bump Maps Vid: https://youtu.be/J24WAVDwo-M
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