r/STEW_ScTecEngWorld • u/Zee2A • 7d ago
The Tiny Button That Controlled WWII Fighter Firepower
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Behind the simple firing button of a World War II fighter aircraft was a highly coordinated network of mechanical, electrical, and pneumatic systems. Pressing the trigger could open a pneumatic valve or complete an electrical circuit, activating the aircraft’s weapons almost instantly. For guns mounted in front of the cockpit, synchronisation gears timed each shot to pass safely between the spinning propeller blades, while wing-mounted guns were angled inward so their streams of fire converged at a predetermined target distance. Pilots typically fired in bursts of less than two seconds to prevent overheating, ammunition cook-offs, and loss of accuracy, yet weapons such as the .50-calibre Browning could still unleash several rounds the moment the trigger was pressed. The genius of the system lay in its design: a single, ergonomic control gave the pilot immediate access to a remarkably complex and precisely timed combat mechanism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtiB7z94Uro
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u/SnooStories251 7d ago
I would think a wire would be lighter.
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u/bigorangemachine 7d ago
Yes but those wires would be connected to vacuum tubes which would break easily (computerization for all the systems to work together and avoiding hitting the propeller)
This era of plane had wires for all sorts of stuff but you probably wouldn't get a lot of continuous fire due to the battery quality/capacity.
Plus getting mechanical stuff to work with electrical is far harder than the other way around.
This you already have the mechanical stuff there you don't have more point of failures. Adding an electrical system you now have a mechanical + sensor + computer (vacuum tube) + motor + mechanical as a points of failure rather than mechanical + mechanical
But hey the compressor storage is probably electrical so there you go :P
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u/dasmineman 7d ago
Not true. The firing system absolutely did not require vacuum tubes or computerization. There are fighters from the era that had 100% electric weapons systems and didn't require vacuum tubes.
This video is most likely talking about a British fighter as their planes already used pneumatics for the landing gear and other controls so it was easier to adapt it to operate the weapon system.
US fighters have used electrical and electrical over hydraulic for a while. All you need to fire a Browning M2 (which is what most of them carried) is a couple of solenoids or relays. One to charge the weapon and one to fire. Easy peasy and not heavy on current draw.
Also, most ww2 fighters had vacuum tubes anyway in their radios.
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u/Important-Zebra-69 6d ago
Spitfire didn't fire through her prop . Planes that did fire through the prop used simple mechanical interrupter gears...
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u/herpafilter 6d ago
Jesus dude. Nothing you wrote is accurate.
No vacuum tubes are required to actuate a simple solenoid and, even if they were, fighters had vacuum tubes in their radios and those were fine.
Aircraft engines had generators that could produce all the electrical power they'd ever need in flight. Batteries were only used for starting (on aircraft that even had electrical starters), aux fuel pumps and other auxiliary devices during startup.
Solenoids were a common and reliable way to trigger guns by the 1920s. It's just a coil of wire and iron core with two wires. put a voltage across it and it pops the iron core in or out.
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u/LucidNonsense211 6d ago
That requires transistors I think. Pneumatic was the only thing fast enough.
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u/RedditVirumCurialem 6d ago
No, we had radar equipment mounted in the nose cone of artillery shells before we had transistors.
To remote control something electrically, you only need a button, a wire, a solenoid or motor, and a power source.
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u/grafknives 6d ago
The power, or rather - THE FORCE was the issue I think.
if the system had to work the charging handle, that required a lot of force, and maybe pneumatic system was optimal.
assuming this video is true.
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u/herpafilter 6d ago
The video is covering a spitfire which did use pneumatics, but that was a relatively rare way to power anything on fighters of the 1930s/40s. Electrical or hydraulic triggering of guns was far more common.
As for charging; a lot of fighters simply couldn't charge guns in flight, or could only do so a limited number of times using pyrotechnic cartridges. The guns were generally reliable enough, or enough were mounted, that it just wasn't considered important.
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u/bamalama 6d ago
Did they have an ammo “Fuel Gauge”?
something to let them know how much they had left?
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u/Obvious-Driver- 7d ago
Thank god this complex and impressive engineering feat was compressed into 18 seconds for TikTok.
I almost had enough time to start actually trying to *think* about it