Variable Time (VT) Fuze

A proximity fuze (also called a VT fuze) is a fuze that is designed to detonate an explosive device automatically when the distance to target becomes smaller than a predetermined value or when the target passes through a given plane.

The concept originated with British researchers (particularly Sir Samuel Curran and was developed under the direction of physicist Merle A. Tuve at the The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL). The fuze is considered one of the most important technological innovations of World War II. The advent of the proximity fuze contributed massively to the Allied victory in WW2.

It was released for use in Europe just before the Battle of the Bulge. At first the fuzes were only used in situations where they could not be captured by the Germans. They were used in land-based artillery in the South Pacific in 1944. They were incorporated into bombs dropped by the U.S. Air Force on Japan in 1945, and they were used to defend Britain against the V-1 attacks of 1944, achieving a kill ratio of about 79%. (They were ineffective against the much faster V-2 missiles.) There was no risk of a dud falling into enemy hands. The Pentagon decided it was too dangerous to have a fuze fall into German hands because they might reverse engineer it and create a weapon that would destroy the Allied bombers, or at least find a way to jam the radio signals. Therefore they refused to allow the Allied artillery use of the fuzes in 1944. The Germans started research in 1930 but never invented a working device. General Dwight D. Eisenhower protested vehemently and demanded he be allowed to use the fuzes. He prevailed and the VT fuzes were first used in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, when they made the Allied artillery far more devastating, as all the shells now exploded just before hitting the ground. It decimated German divisions caught in the open. The Germans felt safe from timed fire because they thought that the bad weather would prevent accurate observation. U.S. general George S. Patton said that the introduction of the proximity fuze required a full revision of the tactics of land warfare.

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