Video: The Battle of LA, Supposed UFO Attacked by US Army, page 3

Originally posted by justanothergangster
well yes but before the vt fuse was mass produced it was widely used in american aa ((i suppose you watched that modern marvels episode on the history channell too)) but considering the hting was lit up the whole time i doubt it was multiple balloons and but with the air ((some 12,000 rounds were fired)) it wouldve been hard for it not to have gotten hit and when in flight lift fails under 160 mph thats why we used a v-12 rotary engine but before the proximity fuse we used a timer with the speed that thing was moving we undoubtedly hit it and flak does explode

Actually, I haven't seen Modern Marvels in ages, and I wouldn't use the History Channel as a source in any serious discussion. My info on flak, and other things military, comes from people like Norman Friedman, Norman Polmar, and other assorted authors and books published by the Naval Institute Press. The VT fuse wasn't 'widely used' *anywhere* before late 1942, sorry to say.

Citation:
Full text here:
VT Fuse Development

Text in question, in case you don't want to leaf through the site:

Throughout all this early development, one important item was that of providing an adequate safety feature to prevent functioning of the fuze until it had traveled a safe distance beyond the muzzle of the gun. The use of an auxdet [auxiliary detonator], of course, provided safety against bore bursts, but was no assurance against bursts just outside the muzzle. This safety feature was to be achieved by incorporating a mechanical clock as one component of the fuze arranged to prevent functioning of the fuze within a time interval of about 3/10 to 5/10 second after firing. All early tests were conducted using fuzes which contained only the RC delay. It was not until the middle of 1942 that a satisfactory safety clock had finally been developed. The design finally developed, known as the Mk 1 clock, was more or less a modification of the Mk 18 time fuze movement. When this development was finally achieved, all the essential components for a satisfactory proximity fuze were available. Accordingly, plans were them made to carry out actual drone firings from a Navy ship.This test firing of proximity fuzed 5"/38 projectiles against drones was carried out in August 1942 aboard the cruiser [USS] Cleveland [CL-55]. Results of this test were entirely satisfactory and accordingly, full-scale production of proximity fuzes was initiated at the Crosley Corporation in September 1942. Early production was plagued with numerous difficulties but satisfactory material was finally produced. This fuze, which was designated the Mk 32, was delivered to the Fleet during November and December 1942, and the first Japanese plane was shot down with proximity fuzed projectiles by the cruiser [USS] Helena [CL-50] in January 1943.

Moving along...I got lost after your comment that VT shells were in wide-spread use before they were mass-produced. If we were looking at the same footage, the object in the spotlights looked to be keeping pace with the cloud bank around it, which doesn't argue well for high speed.

I'm really lost when you bring up the use of V-12 rotary engines in this context. It's confusing me on several levels.
First, what in the name of Curtis LeMay is a 'V-12 rotary engine'? If it's a V-12, it's not a rotary, it's a V-pattern.
Also, the last 'rotary' engines (at least prior to the use of the Wankel) were of WWI vintage. Did you mean 'radial', perhaps? That brings up another problem though, in that as far as I know, there weren't any 12 cylinder radials in US use. Pratt & Whitney made 7, 19, 14, 18, and 28 cylinder (the "Wasp" line), and Wright made 9, 14, and 18 cylinder (the "Cyclone" line).
Finally, what (in the context of the 'battle of LA' was this "V-12 rotary engine" used on? The unidentified flying object in the clouds? Certainly not on the flak shells, nor on the guns that fired them.