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The Automatic Gun-Laying Turret (AGLT), also known as the
Frazer-Nash Frazer Nash was a brand of British sports car manufactured from 1922 first by Frazer Nash Limited founded by engineer Archibald Frazer-Nash. On its financial collapse in 1927 a new company, AFN Limited, was incorporated. Control of AFN passed ...
FN121, was a
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
-directed, rear
gun turret A gun turret (or simply turret) is a mounting platform from which weapons can be fired that affords protection, visibility and ability to turn and aim. A modern gun turret is generally a rotatable weapon mount that houses the crew or mechanis ...
fitted to some
British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...
bomber A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an air ...
s from 1944. AGLT incorporated both a low-power tail warning radar and
fire-control system A fire-control system (FCS) is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer, a director, and radar, which is designed to assist a ranged weapon system to target, track, and hit a target. It performs the same task as a ...
, which could detect approaching enemy
fighters Fighter(s) or The Fighter(s) may refer to: Combat and warfare * Combatant, an individual legally entitled to engage in hostilities during an international armed conflict * Fighter aircraft, a warplane designed to destroy or damage enemy warplan ...
, aim and automatically trigger machine guns – in total
darkness Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low ...
or cloud cover if necessary. The radar warning and fire-control system itself was commonly known by the code names Village Inn and "Z Equipment",Stephen Flower, ''The Dam Busters: An Operational History of Barnes Wallis' Bombs''. Stroud, Glouc.; Amberley Publishing, p. 393. as well as the serial number TR3548. It was intended that all
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
bombers, and other Allied aircraft attached to Bomber Command would have an IFF
infra-red Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
nose lamp, which would allow
rear gunner A tail gunner or rear gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against enemy fighter or interceptor attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane. The tail gunner operates a flexible machine gun or aut ...
s to avoid
friendly fire In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while en ...
. In practice, however, Allied aircraft without lamps often crossed paths with AGLT aircraft and, even when they were fitted and operational, the lamps were not always visible to gunners, for various reasons. As a result, Village Inn was generally used purely as an
early warning system An early warning system is a warning system that can be implemented as a chain of information communication systems and comprises sensors, event detection and decision subsystems for early identification of hazards. They work together to forec ...
. According to the official history of the
RCAF The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...
during World War II, fully automated "blind-firing" was used by gunners in only four out of every 1,000
sortie A sortie (from the French word meaning ''exit'' or from Latin root ''surgere'' meaning to "rise up") is a deployment or dispatch of one military unit, be it an aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining supp ...
s.


Development

The system was devised by a team led by
Philip Dee Philip Ivor Dee CBE FRS FRSE (8 April 1904, Stroud – 17 April 1983, Glasgow) was a British nuclear physicist. He was responsible for the development of airborne radar during the Second World War. Glasgow University named the Philip Ivor Dee Me ...
and designed under the aegis of chief designer
Alan Hodgkin Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin (5 February 1914 – 20 December 1998) was an English physiologist and biophysicist who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Huxley and John Eccles. Early life and education Hodgkin was bo ...
, after receiving a request from the
Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of Stat ...
for such a system in early 1943. Village Inn was evaluated and tested by the
Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organization for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...
(TRE) at
RAF Defford Royal Air Force Defford or more simply RAF Defford is a former Royal Air Force station located northwest of Defford, Worcestershire, England. History Second World War At the outbreak of the Second World War, Croome Court and its surrounding ...
using the Lancaster Mark I
serial number A serial number is a unique identifier assigned incrementally or sequentially to an item, to ''uniquely'' identify it. Serial numbers need not be strictly numerical. They may contain letters and other typographical symbols, or may consist enti ...
''ND712'' Lancaster Mark III ''JB705'' and Mk II ''LL736'' and ''LL737'' and subsequently put into production. The system consisted of a
transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to the ...
/ receiver unit mounted in the navigator's compartment, operating through a
conical scanning Conical scanning is a system used in early radar units to improve their accuracy, as well as making it easier to steer the antenna properly to point at a target. Conical scanning is similar in concept to the earlier lobe switching concept used ...
parabolic aerial attached to rear turrets. It worked on a
wavelength In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tr ...
of 9.1 cm (3
GHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
) with a
pulse repetition frequency The pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is the number of pulses of a repeating signal in a specific time unit. The term is used within a number of technical disciplines, notably radar. In radar, a radio signal of a particular carrier frequency is tu ...
of 660 Hertz. The
magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...
used was the CV186 of approx 35 kW. The electronics sent a signal back to the turret, where it was displayed on a
cathode ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), ...
(CRT) display screen positioned adjacent to the gun sight, the image of which was projected on to the Mark IIC gyro gunsight via a semi-transparent mirror. Initially, ranging information was provided only at the transmitter situated in the navigator's compartment and was read off to the gunner over the
intercom An intercom, also called an intercommunication device, intercommunicator, or interphone, is a stand-alone voice communications system for use within a building or small collection of buildings which functions independently of the public telephon ...
, the gunner using foot pedals to set the target range on the sight. In production equipment the process was made automatic, the range information being fed electronically directly into the gunsight, with the navigator's "running commentary" only being retained for the benefit of the rest of the crew. The gunner simply maneuvered his guns to place the "blip" in the centre of the gunsight's reticle and opened fire when the range was appropriate. Windage, bullet drop, and other factors were already calculated by the gunsight. The first squadron to use Village Inn operationally was No. 101 Squadron RAF, based at Ludford Magna, in the autumn of 1944, followed soon afterwards by No. 49 in the attack on
Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse ...
on September 11/12, 156 and
635 __NOTOC__ Year 635 ( DCXXXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 635 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...
Squadrons. Village Inn was eventually produced in four Marks: * AGLT Mark I — initial design — Airborne Radio Installation (ARI) 5559. * AGLT Mark II — modified, improved, Mark I — soon discontinued — ARI 5561. * AGLT Mark III — scanning aerial mounted remotely from turret. Scan independent of turret's movements — ARI 5562. * AGLT Mark IV — ARI 5632 The system was also fitted to the
Rose turret The Rose turret (sometimes known as the Rose-Rice turret) was a gun turret fit to the rear position of some British Avro Lancaster heavy bombers in 1944–45. It was armed with two American light-barrel Browning .50-calibre AN/M2 heavy machine ...
on at least one
Avro Lincoln The Avro Type 694 Lincoln is a British four-engined heavy bomber, which first flew on 9 June 1944. Developed from the Avro Lancaster, the first Lincoln variants were initially known as the Lancaster IV and V; these were renamed Lincoln I and I ...
B.Mk II, although how many is not known. Some Lincolns fitted with the Boulton Paul Type D tail turret also incorporated the equipment. A similar type of system was produced in the US by the
Emerson Electric Company Emerson Electric Co. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri. The ''Fortune'' 500 company manufactures products and provides engineering services for industrial, commercial, and consumer markets.
of St. Louis, Missouri when an Emerson Model III tail turret was equipped with the Emerson APG8 Blind Tracking Radar and fitted to the
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
-built Lancaster ''KB805''. The system was found to have no advantages over the British system and the project was subsequently dropped.


See also

*
Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organization for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...
*
RAF Defford Royal Air Force Defford or more simply RAF Defford is a former Royal Air Force station located northwest of Defford, Worcestershire, England. History Second World War At the outbreak of the Second World War, Croome Court and its surrounding ...
*
List of World War II electronic warfare equipment A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...


References


External links

{{Commons category, Village Inn (codename)
A photograph of a Village Inn-equipped 635 Sqn Lancaster

Illustration of a 460 Sqn Lancaster I/III fitted with Village Inn

A photograph of a Village Inn-equipped Rose Rice turret on an Avro Lincoln

A photograph of a Village Inn-equipped twin .5 in turret on a Handley Page Halifax

Village Inn
(PDF)
Eyewitness account of Village Inn testing on 460 Squadron
Aircraft radars World War II British electronics World War II radars Military radars of the United Kingdom