Originally Posted by
Grob Queen
Ghengis and chums,
This is something which I can speak from a knowledge base on as i'm a 20th C Military historian by profession!
You're absolutely correct, we did of course have interrupter gear on aircraft during WW2. But perhaps you may not know that it went back to WW1 - namely 1915. During WW1, the development of fighting aircraft was huge. Triple Alliance and triple Entente each developing their technologies to be one up on the enemy.
Germany were the first to use interrupter gear. In May 1915, the Germans produced a new and fast Fokker which was equipped with the new interrupter gear which enabled the gun to fire through the orbit of the revolving prop without the risk of hitting the blades. The Germans were therefore able to inflict heavy casualties on Allied aircraft and regained air superiority.
If in doubt, ask a specialist historian
...you may all be able to out gun me on the Private Flying forum...
but I can come into my own on this one
GQ
Sorry
Grob Queen, but to a large extent you've given the right answer to the wrong question.
Fokker indeed invented the interruptor gear, I think around 1912 - and both the British and Germans knew how to do it by 1914, but it wasn't a viable piece of technology until about 1915 when the consistency of firing times of ammunition became good enough that the interruptor gear had a chance of working. The German amunition manufacturing technology was better, earlier. Prior to that, either the gun was placed well away from the propeller, or the propeller was fitted with deflector plates or wedges. I can only imagine what it felt like to fire through a propeller and feel the response through the airframe as bullets hit the propeller deflector wedges and the ability to actually use interruptor gear must have been revolutionary.
However, we're not talking about WW1-style interruptor gear, we're talking about either an interruptor cam (which prevents firing when a gun tracks across a piece of ship structure) and is used, for example, on goalkeeper, which is a system use to "stop" incoming missiles on Royal Navy ships, or we're talking about a deflector cam, which was used around bomber gun turrets to simply stop the gun pointing at bits of the aeroplane.
Three quite different solutions. Interruptor gear is only relevant to not hitting a regular moving target (a propeller), not a target that is stationary relative to the gun (a ship or an aeroplane). [Let's gloss over for a moment that the term "interruptor gear", which I'd argue only really applies to WW1 technology, got re-used for different technology during WW2.]
Take care historian. In your BA you will have covered a a moderate amount of information and a moderate amount of analysis about some discrete periods of history, whilst on your PhD you'll have done a lot more information an a very high degree of analysis about a very narrow topic. You should not underestimate the massive breadth and depth of knowledge held by a great many amateur historians. Your skill as a historian should be in adding the analysis, and being good at weighing likely conflicting sources of information. As you'll recall, a PhD is really just a research licence that teaches you those very important skills, and a BA was really no more than a primer.
Take care of amateur historians, they may well trump you regularly on their detailed knowledge. Also in a forum like this, you'll find a lot of people who have actually used this kit, providing direct personal knowledge that as a historian you can tap into, but are unlikely to have through your book-learning. You can hopefully play a role in turning some of these recollections into published history.
G