WWII big gun tracers, dye
Norm Koger
battles around Guadalcanal in 1942. So far I've just begun to refresh
my memory with a bit of reading, but I from years ago I remember
references to dye (green marker dye in the Japanese rounds on at least
one occasion at Savo Island) and tracers on guns 5" or larger. In one
of my books around here I even have a very cool untitled photograph of
a US naval vessel doing shore bombardment, leaving bright triple
tracer trails (fire from _something_ mounted 3 to a turret, so
probably 6" or larger) extending to the point of impact.
Does anyone know where I might be able to find information on WWII
USN and IJN big gun dye and tracers?
Regards,
Norm Koger
Software Developer
http://home.austin.rr.com/normkoger/
Dale Farmer
Norm Koger wrote:
I don't have a source handy. But it was common practice to put different
colors
of dye in the bases of the shells for different ships so as to color the
splashes of
the misses. That way when multiple ships were firing on the same target, they
could tell the difference between their own salvo and others. This was only
for the main battery. I recall one of the accounts from one of the small boys
of taffy-3 ( Possibly 'Small Ship, Big War'. ) that mentions the colored water
washing over their ship from a near miss.
I never heard of tracer shells in anything larger than 40mm in regular
service.
( all sorts of weird stuff happens at the ordinance research and development
bases. ) I don't really see how tracers on large shells would really buy you
anything, as they are only useful for local optical control. 40mm was used
for shore bombardment roles. Set the fuses so they air-burst as they arrive
near the target and you have a rather effective anti-personnel barrage.
--Dale
Norm Koger
>colors
>of dye in the bases of the shells for different ships so as to color the
>splashes of the misses.
I am familiar with the practice, although I don't know how much
variety there was in the dyes used or how apparent the effect of
coloring the splash was.
> I never heard of tracer shells in anything larger than 40mm in regular
>service.
I do not know if it was ever common, or if it was done at all. I am
inclined to believe that tracers were not commonly used because I
would expect to see them mentioned in battle accounts. But things like
this can be left out of accounts by folks who take them for granted.
I just don't want to miss the obvious graphic appeal of adding tracer
effects if indeed they were used.
>I don't really see how tracers on large shells would really buy you
>anything, as they are only useful for local optical control.
It's a mystery to me as well, although I suppose it might serve the
same purpose as splash dye - particularly if the splash color wasn't
easy to make out at night.
Dale Farmer
Norm Koger wrote:
Yeah, but by the time that night battleship battles were being seriously
contemplated radar targeting was coming into practice, and you no longer
needed to spot your own salvos and distinguish them from others, as the
radar gave you accurate range and bearing all the time. Pre-radar night
battles was envisioned as using binoculars and searchlights as the primary
targeting tools, which meant knife-fighting range for battleships. Cruisers,
destroyers, and torpedo boats trained for night engagements, as they
would have operational roles guarding or attacking the battleships at night.
Battleships would train for night action, but the emphasis was on getting
the secondary armament going to knock out the attacking torpedo
boats, as no other weapon carried by cruisers and smaller was regarded
as a serious threat to a BB.
Of course, I'm no expert.
--Dale
B F Lake
> of my books around here I even have a very cool untitled photograph of
> a US naval vessel doing shore bombardment, leaving bright triple
> tracer trails (fire from _something_ mounted 3 to a turret, so
> probably 6" or larger) extending to the point of impact.
>
photography tricks where they show the track of moving things in pictures
like a street at night and car lights are streaks of light all the way down
the street?
Regards,
Barry
M.J.Powell
<nos...@nospam.com> writes
Would the base of the shell be red-hot?
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Norm Koger
>Would the base of the shell be red-hot?
I think not. There is a tremendous amount of thermal inertia in a
large caliber shell. Several hundred to several thousand pounds of
metal makes for a pretty good heat sink, and the base of the shell is
only in contact with the propellant gasses for a brief time. The
_sides_ of the shell might be fairly warm from engagement with the
tube, but the total amount of heat dumped into the shell is probably
small.
The only other thing (besides a tracer) I can think of is that the
bases of these shells may be fairly reflective, and the "tracer"
effect in the photo I originally referred to might actually be light
reflected by the bases of the shells from searchlights directed toward
the target. I've seen something like this myself. A few years back I
was doing a bit of target shooting with a 9mm pistol. It was near
dusk, with the sun at my back, and I could actually see the rounds
going downrange by reflected light.
DKD
"Norm Koger" <nko...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:hb2kguc3q0r31loj9...@4ax.com...
> I am doing a bit of research for animations of parts of the naval
> battles around Guadalcanal in 1942. So far I've just begun to refresh
> my memory with a bit of reading, but I from years ago I remember
Norm, I cut my teeth on your games on my old 64. What are you putting
together now?
Dennis
Jack Smith
wrote:
> I recall one of the accounts from one of the small boys
>
>of taffy-3 ( Possibly 'Small Ship, Big War'. ) that mentions the colored water
>
>washing over their ship from a near miss.
>
[stuff snipped]
Morison, History of US Naval Operations in WW II, vol II (Operations
in North African Waters) discusses colored water from near misses:
Context is operations off Casablanca on 10 November 1942.
"A couple of large, yellow circles appeared on the sea ahead of
Augusta and quickly developed into geysers of yellow-dyed watter some
sixty feet high. These were from Jean Bart's 15-inch main battery..."
...
"Augusta immediately reversed course, ten 2-gun salvos from the French
battleship following her out from 19,500 to 29,000 yards; and the last
three salvos were close straddles. Officers on the bridge and even
"sky forward" were drenched with yellow-dyed sea water."
Sea Skimmer
use them in large guns, it would throw off the fire control gear by a
good margin.
Norm Koger <nko...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message news:<hb2kguc3q0r31loj9...@4ax.com>...
Andrew Chaplin
>
> Tracers alter the ballistics of a shell. There's no way you would ever
> use them in large guns, it would throw off the fire control gear by a
> good margin.
Your initial assertion is correct, but tracer of a size to be useful
in a large calibre gun would have a predictable effect and could be
compensated for, as is done in tanks and AD guns. The question that's
begged here is whether they would have any use when the shell could be
tracked on radar. I am not sure what state the Japanese radar was at
at the time of the engagement in question, but German and RN radar
observation of shells was already being done by December 1941, IIRC.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger."
out, and change "home" to "rogers".)
TMOliver
> Sea Skimmer wrote:
>>
>> Tracers alter the ballistics of a shell. There's no way you
>> would ever use them in large guns, it would throw off the
>> fire control gear by a good margin.
>
> Your initial assertion is correct, but tracer of a size to
> be useful in a large calibre gun would have a predictable
> effect and could be compensated for, as is done in tanks and
> AD guns. The question that's begged here is whether they
> would have any use when the shell could be tracked on radar.
> I am not sure what state the Japanese radar was at at the
> time of the engagement in question, but German and RN radar
> observation of shells was already being done by December
> 1941, IIRC. --
I suspect another issue may be critical. I recall no references
to tracer in large naval guns (above 40mm or so), and I suspect
that RoF may have been a consideration. Tracer serves well for
a rapidfire "automatic' weapon, allowing the pointer/trainer to
adjust fire on to the target, but is relatively useless in
adjusting for slower rates of fire (unless a target is DIW)
where Range finders (optical or radar) and fire control systems
are de rigeur. Firing larger guns in "local control" remains
one of those semi-futile exercises occasionally engaged in to
bolster morale. Tracer has a terrible downside (reinforced by
those TV images from Baghdad). Those great curving arcs in the
sky represent just how ineffective tracers are at assisting in
hitting high speed targets. Where the target's going to be is a
long way from where your tracer fired several rounds ago is....
I recollect certainly firing .50bmg tracer in USN service and
have seen 20mm Oerikon tracer rounds, but don't recall any 40mm
tracer around in the 60s (although it did exist during WWII,
used by USArmy light AA Arty units and maybe/likely? as late as
Viet Nam where the track mounted twin 40mm was employed). IIRC,
most 40mm was "AACommon"(fuse set for range). I don't recall
ever actually seeing 40mm VT.
TMO
While there was 5"/38 "illuminating" and I'm sure still some
smoke and Willie Peter available, I don't reacll ever hearing of
"tracer".
TMO
Andrew Chaplin
> I suspect another issue may be critical. I recall no references
> to tracer in large naval guns (above 40mm or so), and I suspect
> that RoF may have been a consideration. Tracer serves well for
> a rapidfire "automatic' weapon, allowing the pointer/trainer to
> adjust fire on to the target, but is relatively useless in
> adjusting for slower rates of fire (unless a target is DIW)
> where Range finders (optical or radar) and fire control systems
> are de rigeur. Firing larger guns in "local control" remains
> one of those semi-futile exercises occasionally engaged in to
> bolster morale. Tracer has a terrible downside (reinforced by
> those TV images from Baghdad). Those great curving arcs in the
> sky represent just how ineffective tracers are at assisting in
> hitting high speed targets. Where the target's going to be is a
> long way from where your tracer fired several rounds ago is....
Unless you get that desired effect, the ka-BOOM! There's supposed to
an earth-shattering ka-BOOM, then you switch targets. (Thanks,
Marvin.)
> I recollect certainly firing .50bmg tracer in USN service and
> have seen 20mm Oerikon tracer rounds, but don't recall any 40mm
> tracer around in the 60s (although it did exist during WWII,
> used by USArmy light AA Arty units and maybe/likely? as late as
> Viet Nam where the track mounted twin 40mm was employed). IIRC,
> most 40mm was "AACommon"(fuse set for range). I don't recall
> ever actually seeing 40mm VT.
No, the fuze was an impact type (Mk 259, IIRC) it was the tracers --
SDT -- that blew it up at range (~5,600 m). As a system, L40/60 was
heavily reliant on tracer observation for correcting aim. There were
prox fuzes introduced for L40/70 in the 1970s, but not L40/60, AFAIK.
(All the HE-T I ever used was naval issue, and I was a soldier
defending an airfield of the ATAF supporting CENTAG in Southern
Germany!)
Ken & Laura Chaddock
> Norm Koger wrote:
>
> > I am doing a bit of research for animations of parts of the naval
> > battles around Guadalcanal in 1942. So far I've just begun to refresh
> > my memory with a bit of reading, but I from years ago I remember
> > references to dye (green marker dye in the Japanese rounds on at least
> > one occasion at Savo Island) and tracers on guns 5" or larger. In one
> > of my books around here I even have a very cool untitled photograph of
> > a US naval vessel doing shore bombardment, leaving bright triple
> > tracer trails (fire from _something_ mounted 3 to a turret, so
> > probably 6" or larger) extending to the point of impact.
> >
> > Does anyone know where I might be able to find information on WWII
> > USN and IJN big gun dye and tracers?
>
> I don't have a source handy. But it was common practice to put different
> colors
> of dye in the bases of the shells for different ships so as to color the
> splashes of
> the misses. That way when multiple ships were firing on the same target, they
>
> could tell the difference between their own salvo and others. This was only
> for the main battery. I recall one of the accounts from one of the small boys
>
> of taffy-3 ( Possibly 'Small Ship, Big War'. ) that mentions the colored water
>
> washing over their ship from a near miss.
> I never heard of tracer shells in anything larger than 40mm in regular
> service.
I've fired 3"50 tracer, only burns for a few seconds but quite visible and
quite useful for engineering studies...we were testing the accuracy of MDIs
(miss distance indicators) by video taping projectile flight against a towed
(aerial) target and comparing the output of the MDI with A scope (range)
and calibrated visual miss distance. The tracer a regular service round...
...Ken
jlb
I'm not so sure that friction in the tube doesn't significantly heat the
shell up.
Look at it that way: a gun tube is vastly more massive than a shell (I
would say by a factor of several hundreds) and it DOES heat up. If you
assume that shell and tube each get roughly half of the heat dissipated
by friction, then the shell when just out of the tube should be as hot
as its gun would be after firing continuously for as many times as the
ratio of mass between shell and tube, hotter in fact because the shell
doesn't get as much opportunity to cool down.
I don't know wether that would be enough to make it glow in the dark,
though.
About dyes: wasn't there an article on British shell dyes on warship1.com?
Derek J Decker
Dale Farmer wrote:
I hesitated to mention this, as I don't have a precise cite handy, but I
haven't
seen anything on specific IJN dye colors posted yet.
When I was a lot younger and thinner, I recall reading an account of taffy-3
in Naval Institute Proceedings (this would be late '70s or so) that mentioned
dye
colors in this context. IIRC, the article mentioned that the US dyes tended
to be bright primary colors - bright yellow, orange, lime green - selected
for high visibility and ease of recognition.
The IJN, on the other hand, used dyes that were more pastels - lilac, subtle
pinks, etc. I recall chuckling at How Very Japanese that was - probably why
it's stuck with me.
Hope that helps,
-Derek
--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Derek J Decker de...@decker.net Decker Automation |
| |
| http://DeckerAutomation.myiglou.com |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
William
news:5189920.02061...@posting.google.com...
> Tracers alter the ballistics of a shell. There's no way you would ever
> use them in large guns, it would throw off the fire control gear by a
> good margin.
Sometimes the alteration is a good thing. One type of
extended range/velocity round uses a gas generating base
to smooth the airflow behind the shell. This significantly
increases range while maintaining accuracy. (Unlike a
rocket booster which adds more range but screws up the
ability to hit a target because burn and thrust aren't
predictable enough. Also, a rocket large enough to do any
good severely encroaches on the explosive payload.)
As far as I know these hadn't been developed until well
after W.W. II, though, so they wouldn't apply to the OP's
question.-Wm
William
> use them in large guns, it would throw off the fire control gear by a
> good margin.
Sometimes the alteration is a good thing. One type of
Andrew Chaplin
news:3D0DBE3E...@pelnet.com...
> I'm not so sure that friction in the tube doesn't significantly heat the
> shell up.
>
> Look at it that way: a gun tube is vastly more massive than a shell (I
> would say by a factor of several hundreds) and it DOES heat up. If you
> assume that shell and tube each get roughly half of the heat dissipated
> by friction, then the shell when just out of the tube should be as hot
> as its gun would be after firing continuously for as many times as the
> ratio of mass between shell and tube, hotter in fact because the shell
> doesn't get as much opportunity to cool down.
Only the driving/obturating bands would really be heated by "friction" and
they are usually a bronze-phosphor compound like bore brushes. The bourrelet
is in contact with the lands of the rifling, but there is sufficient windage
that no significant heating occurs. I think most heat would come from the
propellant gases in contact with the base (and boat tail) of the projectile.
There may also be some aerodynamic heating in high velocity guns, too. What
I know for sure is that a fresh shell fragment is frequently hot enough to
raise a blister.
David P Benjamin
I read an eyewitness account from the nighttime Battle of Surigao
Strait that included the detail of glowing shells passing over the heads
of the cruiser/destroyer screen en route to the Japanese.
--
David Benjamin
Andrew Chaplin
> I read an eyewitness account from the nighttime Battle of Surigao
> Strait that included the detail of glowing shells passing over the heads
> of the cruiser/destroyer screen en route to the Japanese.
Hmm. I have seen literally thousands of shells (155 and 105) go
downrange in daylight, but no sign of one at night other than muzzle
flash and the results of fuze action.
TJ
>in Naval Institute Proceedings (this would be late '70s or so) that mentioned
>dye
>colors in this context. IIRC, the article mentioned that the US dyes tended
>to be bright primary colors - bright yellow, orange, lime green - selected
>for high visibility and ease of recognition.
>
>The IJN, on the other hand, used dyes that were more pastels - lilac, subtle
>pinks, etc. I recall chuckling at How Very Japanese that was - probably why
>it's stuck with me.
>
reading a similar account. I recall a passage where a sailor popped a
look out to see what the action was like and commenting in amazement
that the Japanese were shooting at them in technicolor.
Funny how odd stuff stays in the corners of the brain to fall out at
the oddest times.
CU
TJ
Derek Lyons
>I know for sure is that a fresh shell fragment is frequently hot enough to
>raise a blister.
In addition to any heat gained from the tube, a shell fragment has
also been heated by gases from the explosives contained within.
D.
Andrew Chaplin
Exactly. :^)
Peter Skelton
<abch...@yourfinger.home.com> wrote:
>Derek Lyons wrote:
>>
>> "Andrew Chaplin" <abch...@yourfinger.home.com> wrote:
>> >I know for sure is that a fresh shell fragment is frequently hot enough to
>> >raise a blister.
>>
>> In addition to any heat gained from the tube, a shell fragment has
>> also been heated by gases from the explosives contained within.
>
>Exactly. :^)
A shell fragment is not so much heated by contact with the
explosive charges as by the dissipation of the energies of
deformation and fracture.
____
Peter Skelton
Hemlock Soames
(David P Benjamin) wrote:
>
>I read an eyewitness account from the nighttime Battle of Surigao
>Strait that included the detail of glowing shells passing over the heads
>of the cruiser/destroyer screen en route to the Japanese.
It is well known that the eye can follow the flight of the
shells when conditions are suitable.
Could the shells fired at night be illuminated by the blast of
the gun that fired them?
"Never Mind World Peace, Visualize Using Your Turn Signal"
Andrew Chaplin
news:3k0vgu8n6mgbr6bak...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 17 Jun 2002 21:14:17 +0000 (UTC), ben...@mail.auburn.edu
> It is well known that the eye can follow the flight of the
> shells when conditions are suitable.
>
> Could the shells fired at night be illuminated by the blast of
> the gun that fired them?
Conceivably, but not very far from the muzzle and not for very long, and the
flash would tend to wash out anything else the eye would see.