The American Ship Gun That Shot Down Planes Without Ever Seeing Them

In the desperate air-sea battles of World War II, U.S. Navy ships faced swarms of kamikaze planes diving from sun-blinded skies—often undetected until it was too late. Then came a revolution cloaked in secrecy: the VT (Variable Time) proximity fuse, a tiny radio-powered marvel hidden inside a 5-inch anti-aircraft shell. Unlike traditional fuses that required a direct hit or perfect timing, the VT fuse detected enemy aircraft mid-flight and detonated the shell automatically when it sensed a target nearby—turning near misses into deadly explosions.

So classified that it was banned from land use early in the war (for fear of dud shells falling into enemy hands), the VT fuse gave Allied ships an invisible shield. It increased kill rates by up to 700%, shredded Luftwaffe raids over Europe, and helped stop the kamikaze onslaught in the Pacific. Admiral Halsey called it “one of the most important inventions of the war.”

Discover how a miniaturized radar device—smaller than a softball—rewrote the rules of anti-aircraft warfare and made American guns deadly even in darkness, fog, or chaos.

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