German printed circuit board

[Vicvega]

Greetings. I read Rhinemetall-Borsig produced an proximity fuze called "KUHGLÖCKCHEN" for 88 and 128mm shells; which is a further variation of KUHGLOCKE. I saw a lot of late war german developements about multicavity magnetrons, PPI and stuff, but never about Printed Circuit board made for a fuze.
Any on info about this ? Thanks.

 

[ThomasP]

The Germans used printed circuit boards in several devices during the war. I know that they were used in a variant of the magnetic mine fuze and in a very late-war IR vision device.

The German 'Clock' series of proximity fuzes (ie Kuckuck, Kuhglocke, etc.) for AA weapons never made it past prototype stage, but it is possible/probable they used PCBs in the design.

 

[swampyankee]

PCBs predated WW2 by about 2 decades (see http://www.rapidpcb.com/history-of-printed-circuit-boards.html); Germany seemed to start using them seriously in about 1943.

Interestingly, they were used in some consumer goods pre-WW2, but I suspect that they weren't used in military equipment before the war because of a) low production numbers and b) conservative purchasing processes.