Muzzle flash colour

[Adrian Harris]

I never did Chemistry at school but I know different things burn with different colours, so I would be interested to know what the correct colours should be for Allied and Axis muzzle flashes.

Did they use the same basic propellant charges ?

Could you tell them apart on the battlefield by the colour of the flash ?

Should the flash be red, yellow, orange, white; or a mix of all of them ?

Adrian.

[Tim Bowman]

Hi Adrian

The only film footage I have seen of WWII armor (both allied and axis) firing their main gun has been in black and white. I think it's safe to say the propellent used was similar.

Here are some nice photos of modern armor at work. Probably more 'umph' then their WWII predecessors but looks pretty impressive.

M1A1 Abrams






Leopard II


M10 near St Lo June 1944


Tim

[Adrian Harris]

Crikey - you'd be missing more than an eyebrow if you were too close to those muzzles

Thanks for finding and posting them Tim - I think my flash will be bright but not quite that impressive

Adrian.

[phil fitzpatrick]

Hi Adrian
The reason I chose Halogen for my Flash was for the White,Yellow
and red colours and I liked the way the Halogen light decayed from white to a mix of yellow to red.
I put some little vidios in my Comet postings,3 at dusk but with
some shots with the gun against the bright late sunlight and one at
night.
Some of the links Phil Woollard put on were in colour but I think
they were the Cheiftain or Challenger firing but you could see
the colours and these went to other links on You Tube.
The first vidio I did was with 20W Halogen and I tried right up to
100W,but the optimum was 50W because of the timing,I also
tried 12 and 24 volt Halogen.
I have to use an adjustable delay off timer which I found the timing
is different for each Wattage 20w beeing the fastest,50W is aprox
3/4 of a second,and a seperate delay off timer for my recoil.
Cheers
Phil

[Dennis Jones]

I put a couple of layers of orange sweet wrapping paper over my flash tube. looks pretty good but you obviuosly couldn't do that with a halogen bulb. I used that instead of paint because if it looked wrong then easy to change.

Dennis.

[Adrian Harris]

> The reason I chose Halogen for my Flash was for the White, Yellow and red colours and I liked the way the
> Halogen light decayed from white to a mix of yellow to red.

Interesting - I'm using a variety of LED colours to try and get a nice bright but rosy effect - the brilliant white LEDs are too close to UV, which makes them painful to look at.

One of the reasons I don't like LED car lights is they come on too quickly - at least with halogen/tungsten you get the warming up period so that they aren't so startling when they come on.

Adrian.

[phil fitzpatrick]

I did the same,I got a selection of leds red yellow and white and
some optical cable,then one day I turned my dining room light
on and straight off too quick by accident,and I liked it
I chose the modular system for my Gun workings because I am
still stuck somewhere between Radio Valves and Transistors.
I down loaded the Picaxe manuals after seeing your Sherman
postingof your recoil refurb,for future study.
Since then I have found a system called "Arduino"with a programmable micro proccessor for easy learning of electronics
by playing about with it.
Seems good when I got the starter set,its probably the Picaxe
for "Dummies" so it will suit me
Cheers
Phil

[Adrian Harris]

Arduino et al are very much a cut above the PIXAXE chips, but for the recoil etc the PICAXE seems to be have just enough speed and program memory to do the job.

The best way to learn programming is to have a specific goal and work towards it. The problem is that if you ever get close to the goal, you start to see other things which you could do

For instance, it wouldn't be difficult for the PIXAXE to intercept the main gun fire signal from the receiver, play an MP3 of someone saying "Fire!" (or "Feuer!" for that matter) then pass on the signal onto the TBS system, so the command was carried out.

Adrian.

[Adrian Harris]

Two quick 'n' dirty videos showing my LED based muzzle flash system, installed in a Sherman gun tube.

This video was shot indoors:



And this one was shot outdoors:



If I say so myself, the muzzle flash is a whole load brighter than it appears on these videos

I will be bringing my Panzer III flash and recoil system to TankFest, along with a flash only system for the JagdPanther and King Tiger

Adrian.

[phil fitzpatrick]

Nice Adrian
I like the colour you have created for your Sherman muzzle
flash
Cheers
Phil

[Nick Farrugia]

Hello Adrian
like the colour of the muzzle flash looks bright enough to me
great job, is that right they are only led lights,it looks very
good
best wishes
nick

[Adrian Harris]

Yep, just three LEDs.

They are illuminated in sequence but with random timings, so as give a bright but flickering effect.

Adrian