How did soldiers control the altitude at which anti-aircraft ammunition (flak) detonated? How could they know if the flak rounds would go off at 5000 feet, 10,000 feet etc? Were they magnetized somehow to detonate near aircraft? First post. Please be kind. Lol.
In: Engineering
Most shells were time based, you know the speed of the round when it leaves the gun and the distance to the target so the timing is relatively straightforward. A lot of gun systems would automatically set the time on the fuse based off the target that was being followed. There was some variability in the accuracy of the fuse but when they’re throwing up a lot of rounds it actually helps to make a scary cloud that isn’t easy to just fly over because they’re off by a bit.
Later in the war the US started using the AAVT round in their 5″ guns on ships which used some cheats with antennas and receivers to detect when a plane was ahead of it and relatively close and then detonates to hit them with the cloud of shrapnel rather than needing to physically hit the plane which is pretty hard to do. There was also a 90mm version that was used to snipe V1 bombs which moved a lot faster than a standard plane of the era
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