CONTENTSHeavy Anti-Aircraft Guns ofWar II

Cannone da 75/46 C.A, modello 34

Camoneda90i53

Anti-Aircraft Fire Control

Type 88 iS-mm anti-aircraft gun

The French 75-mm guns

Bofors iS-mm and 80-mm Modei 1929 and Model 1930

8,8-cmFlak 18 and Flak 37

8,8-cmFlak4l

The 88 inAction

I0,5-cm Flak 38 and Flak 39

I2,8-cmFlak40

0rdnance, QF,3 in 20 cwt

0rdnance, QF,3,7inAck-Ack in the Battle of Britain

0rdnance, QF, 4,5in, MMk II3-in Antiaircraft Gun M3

90-mmGunMI

The Soviet 85-mm Ens

Armed Forces of the WorldUS Manne Corps (Part 4)

Published byOrbis Publishinq Ltd@ Aerospace Publishing Ltd 1984

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Picture aclcrowledgementsCover photognph: Impeial War Museum llSt-ttgg: lmperial war Museum 1200: R F (iii): US Marne Corps (iv): US Alr ForceruS Marrne Corps.

.',Po-e*'''Tt '--

IForthmmrng issues feature:

Axis Subtnuines of World Vttu IIModem Naval SAlvls

Canier Aircraft of the 1960s

Supersonic Fighters

Modern Wheeled APCs (Pafi 2)

rFt7u0t

h*re-

of we-- d\hrllThe dranratic rise in the power of aircraft between the warsew metny ateas formerly safe from battle come uttder tlueat.While the major counter to high-altitade honbing was thede fending fighter, ground forces also had a part to play,notably centred arowrd the anti-aircraft gm.','.-::-C War II was both the heyday of and the sceae for the last large-.':-e use of the heavy anti-aircraft gn:n. The weapon had been born: -:-rg World War I, but by 1939 the heavy anti-aircraft gnrn was basically.,-.= same as that used in 1918, along with the fire-control systems which.',::e little more advanced in 1939 than they had been in 1918, But. :.:ugh the guns appeared to be similar to the World War I weapons:.:,' had in fact been considerably advanced in performance: more: ,',','erful charges fired larger and more effective projectiles to greater..=-;his than before and at much higher muzzle velocities. Their car-:.=;:s had also been updated.

---ere and there some left-overs lrom World War I survived, especially-:-,ng the French 75-mm (2 95-in) gmns, But by 1939 many olthe gnrns in:=:.':ce were no longer the hasty improvisations of 1918 and earlter, but: -:icse-designed and purpose-buiit weapons of considerable power,',':,r

them feil the brunt of the defence of cities and fleld armies against

=-: l:iack, and the same guns defended the rmportant centres of com-:.-:.rcation and production. At many and diverse locations these gunss . - : C and waited for an enemy whrch often never arrived, but elsewhere-.-.= enemy came rn droves and the heavy anti-aircraft gmns were in=::-:n for as long as their crews could load them.

The Battle of Britain encompassed allthe many varieties of air defences.Eeneatfi fft e Spitfires and Hurricanesof F ighter C ommand, thou s ands ofmen andwomenlaboured to sewethe anti-aircraft batteries of Britaintor hours and even days at a time.

Among the gmns drscussed here is one that has by now become almosta legend, namely the German '88'. This famous gun earned its reputationoutside its design spectrum as an antr-armour weapon, but all its detailsare prbvided here along with accounts of its use in action, But as will beseen, the '88' was not endowed with magical powers; nor did it have aspecification that made it differ from many other weapons mentioned inthts book, It was simply the way it was used that attracted so muchnotortety, Many other guns could have been used in a similar wayagainst armour but their owners were erther not so inclined or notorganrzed to use antr-aircraft gnrns against land targets, They were usedinstead for the role for which they were designed, namely the engage-ment of aircraft targets in defence of a localrty or installation, Most ofthem were able to carry out this task more than adequately, and certain-ly as well as any German '88'.

A G erm an he avy b attery in action in N ovember I 9 39. The I 2. 8 - cm F lak 40gans are tiring simultaneously to allow their heavy shells to'bracket theirtarget. Later in thewar suchcombinationswereradar-directed, and as manyas 16 heavy weapons would concentrate their fire upon a single Juck/essbomber.

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Cannone da 75/46 C.A. modello 34Between the two world wars the Italianarmaments industry produced manygood designs, but not many got to thehardware stage for the Italian eco-nomy was constrained, then as now, byan overall shortage of raw materials ofevery kind. Thus before any newweapon desiqn was rntroduced intoservice it had to be vetted carefully toensure that rt was as good a design aspossrble to justify the expenditure in-volved. So when Ansaldo produced anew anti-aircraft gnrn in 1926 it was ex-amined over a long period before pro-duction was authorized, and it was notuntil 1934 that the gmn was actually in

The new gun was the Camone da?5/46 C.A. modello 34 (75/46 denotingthe calibre of 75 mm and the barrelIengrth of 46 calibres), in overall designthe 75/46 was a sound though unre-markable effort that owed much to theinfluence of the contemporary Vtckersdesigns produced in the United King-dom, This was especially apparent inthe carriage design, with a centralpivot on which the gun saddleswivelled and a folding cruciform plat-form. On the move the platform legswere folded together, leaving the prvotrestrng on a two-wheeled carriagearrangement, When the equipmentwas ready for emplacement, the legswere swung forward and the wheelsremoved once the Ioad had beentaken by the centre of the carnageThe arrangement of the ordnance onthe carriage was very simple andstraightforward, and the fire-control in-struments on the carriage were simplebut adequate.

As always for the ltalian armamentsindustry, the main problem with the75/46 was one of production, Despiteever-increasing demands from thefield, production was slow and erratic.Initially 240 equrpments wereordered, but even by the end of 1942only 226 had been delivered, Not a1l ofthese were used primarily as anti-aircraft gmns, some being emplaced asdual-purpose anti-aircraft and coastaldefence guns at selected points. Thtsmeant that many of the rather anctentAA weapons in use at the time had tobe retained well past their plannedreplacement dates, Things were nothelped greatly by the diversion ofsome finrshed barrels for use insemovente (tracked assault gun)mountings.

Despite thrs dispersion of effoil, the75/46 was spread as thinly as possiblefor home delence of the Italian main-land and the North African territories.When ltalian army units moved toserye on the Eastern Front they took afurther 54 guns with them, leavingeven fewer to defend ltaly. But eventhese gmns were destined to follow avaried sewice career, for in 1943 afterthe ltalian surrender the guns sttllalound were taken over by Germanoccupation forces, The 74146 then be-came the 7.5-cm Flak 264l3(i), but thetype was not used by the Germansoutside Italy other than in some of theiranti-Yugoslav partisan operatlons.Even this change ofhands did not markthe end of the ownership list for the75/46, for following the Allied tnvasionof the Italian mainland numbers werecaptured by the advancing Allied

This Cannone da 75/46 C.A. Modello34 is in action againstAllied aircraftflying over Libya. This Ansaldo grunwas the standard Italian anti-aircraft

armies and eventually r.rsed in a coastaldefence role around such ports as Na-ples

SpecificationCannone da 75/46 C.A. modello 1934Calibre:75 mm (2 95 rn)Weight: travellLnq 44OS kg (9,7 I I lb)and firrns 3300 kq (7,275 Ib)Dimensions: length overall 7.4 m (24 ft

Srun,' it was used on all the I talianfronts and was a good all-roundperformer, butcould not be suppliedin the quantities required.

3 in); width 1,85 m (6 ft 0.8 rn); height2. l5 m (7 ft 0.6 in); lenqth ofbarrel3,45 m(11 ft3.B in); lengthof rifling2844m(9ft4in)Elevation: +90'/*2'Traverse:360"Maximum effective ceiling: 8300 m(27,230 ft)Shell weight: 6.5 ks ( 14.33 Ib)Muzzlevelocity:750 m (2,461 ft) persecond

Cannone da 90/53Of all the anti-aircraft guns In servlcewrth the Italian army from 1941 to 1943none was better than the Cannone da90/53, It was an excellent weapon thatcould stand comparison with any of itscontemporaries, and it was a good.sound and modern design. lt wasanother product ofthe Ansaldo designteam and the flrst examples were pro-duced during 1939. Productron was au-thorized in three marn versions

The most nurnerous version of the90/53 was supposed to be the modello4IP intended for statrc emplacementonly; 1.087 examples of ths verstonwere ordered..A further 660 examplesof the towed modello 4lC wereordered, while another order was for aflrther 57 guns to be mounted on avariety of heavy trucks (autocarnonida 90/53). A Iater order requested yetanother batch ofbarrels (30) for mount-ing o! self-propelled tracked mount-rngs

Ordering these weapons was onething, but producing them was quiteanother, and the final productionfigures never reached the originaloptrmistrc totals, By July 1943 only 539weapons of all variants had been deli-vered, but by then the production linewas rn German hands and conttnuedfor German use alone. German forma-tions in North Africa had already hadthe 90u 53 rn therr servtce for some time,for they recognized it as a very goodgmn comparable with their own'BB'. Atfirst srght the 90/53 resembled the B.B-cm (3,465-in) Flak 18 and FIak 37weapons, but there were many differ-ences and the similarities were only

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superf,cral. The 90/53 had a pivot car-rrage mounted on a cruciform plat-form, but on the carriage itself thearrangement of the fire-control instru-ments was qurte different from those ofthe German guns and the banel was ofone-prece constructron instead of themulti-sectron arrangement of the laterGerman guns.

The Italians used the 90/53 as a multi-purpose weapon on occasion, butsome were emplaced as dual-pwposeantr-aircrafvcoast defence weapons.At times they were used as long-rangefield gmns and the performance of thegmn was such that it could match theGerman 'BB' as an anti-armor[ weapon.Numbers were also diverted to the lta-Iian nalry, The Germans valued the 90/53 so hiqhly that following the ltaliansurrender of 1943 they impressed asmany 90/53s as they could find. Many ofthem were sent back to Germany forthe defence of the Reich as the 9-cmnak 4l(D though the offrcial designa-tion was 9-cm Flak 309/1(i), and by De-cember 1944 315 such equipments arementioned in German records, thouQthmany of these would no doubt havebeen emplaced in Northern Italy,Numbers of 90/53s also fell into Alliedhands during their advance norththrough ltaly and many of these wereimpressed for the coast defence roleby British coastal batteries around themain captured ports.

SpecificationCarurone da 90/53Calibre:90 mm (3.54 tn)

Weight: travellinqB9S0 kq (19,731 lb)and hrins 6240 ks (13,757 lb)Dimensions: Ienqth 7,60 m (24 ft11,2 in); width 2.30 m (7 ft 6,5 in); height2.50 m (B ft 2.4 in); lengrth ofbarrel4.736 m ( 15 ft 6,5 in); lengrth ofrifling4.046 m (13 ft 3,3 in)Elevation: +85'l-2"Traverse:360"Maximum effective ceiling: I 2000 m(39,370 ft)Shellweisht: 10.33 kq (22.77 lb)

This Cannone da 90/53 is renderedmobileby mounting on aAutocarroPesante Lancio 3/RO heavy truck.Tfie gun is seen here fitted with aprotective shield for the gan crew inaction, andvery noticeable are theoutriggers used to stahilize the gunwhen firing. Only a few of thesecom bin ations were made.

Muzzle velocity: 830 m (2,723 ft) persecond

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Anti-Aircraft Fire ControlI t may seem strange, considering tfi e resources devoted toground-based defences duringWorldWar II, but thechancesof an aircraft actually being hit by a heavy anti-aircraft shellwereremote. Strenuous effortsweremade to alter thissituation, notably in the area of tire control and targeting.

One of the most difficult of all artillery targets to hit is an aircraft in flight. Thereare several reasons for this, not the least being that the aircraft is f ree tb move inany one of three planes as its pilot wishes. Another is that projectiles fired fromany gun take time to reach their destination and by the time they anive at thepoint at.which they are aimed the target may well have moved f rom its previouscourse in any direction. Thus the anti-aircraft gunner has to use a gredt deal ofspecial equipment in order to get his weapon, the projectile, as close to histarget as possible.

Much of what is contained here has now been rendered obsolete by theadvent of radar, the guided missile and the silicon chip, but the gunner of WorldWar ll initially had none of these. ln their place they had to relybn a number ofmechanical contrivances, all of which relied on one basic precept: that for theguns to have any sort of a chance of hitting anything the target had to remainflying on a set course at a constant speed. lt is very rare for ai-rcraft to fly in thisfashion and even massed bomber formations tend to leave some leeway forind ividual aircraft to bob and weave, but there was no alternative for the gu nhersbut to make this'constant path and speed'assumption.-. Nearly all but the largest anti-aircraft guns had some form of on-carriagefire-control system in the form of a simple 'cartwheel' sight for use whenoperating in isolation or in an emergency. Under such conditions range informa-iion was derived from a simple form of portable range-finder, buifor usefulaccuracy the optical base of such an instrument has to be as wide as possible, soeven in the early days range data were usually derived from a wide-baserangefinde_r located in the centre of a gun position and shouted or telephoned toihe guns. Once this central position was an accepted fact it then became easierlo conceive the idea of using this central position to derive other gun-controlCata. Thus i1 place of the on-carriage sight the predictor was developed. ln theea.rly days of World War ll this was a purely mechanical device into which targetnformation (range, heading, wind speeds etc) was fed manually. The resultantfrre-control data could then be read off from dials and fed to the guns by voic6,either simple shouting or by telephone. As time went on the predictors 6ecame'more complicated and cables were used to transmit the control data direct tolhe guns. There it was initially read off from dials and then applied to the guncontrols but even this was eventually bypassed, first by a system of 'follow-the-oointer' or the alignment of f lashing lamps, and then by a f ully automatic systemn which the gun layers had little to do other than supervize the operation. Again,I time this data transmission was extended to other factors such as Tusesetting. Most anti-aircraft projectiles were HE shells that relied on a time fuse toset off the main charge when it was near the target, the chances of hitting anaircraft target being too remote for anything else. But in the time it took to settnese time fuses manually the target information might well have changed, soihe 'dead time' it took to set the fuse and to load and fire had to be as short asoossible. ln time this was reduced by the use of centrally-controlled or automatic'use setting machines first on the gun carriage and then actually on the loadingtray so-that the fuse was set only as the round was fed into the gun breech.

The fuses themselves were small wonders of manufacturing sklll and wereexpensive to produce, even when mass produced. Early in the war most relied

on some form of clockwork, but later some electrical and even electronic timerswere in service. For real technological wonder the best of all the anii-aircratifuses was the proximity fuse, foi which the body of ttre-iiel;;i; il;mrnrature radar transmitter.and.signals reflected from the target were detectedby the fuse itself. lf these signals ieached a certain level the tErqet wasin ranqeand the shell detonated. Ay the use of such fuses the V 1 f ly;"ng OomUs weiefinally.defeated, but even without such fuses the V-1s form'ed"a pe*"-t antiaircraft gunner's target. They flew along a fixed course at a constant altitude andspeed until the final moment before fa-iling. and were thus ideal candidates foithe well-established predictor/rangefindei methods of fire controi

By the time the war ended both the Allies and the Gern ans were usinovarious forms of radar for fire control. Radar took a lot of the guesswork out oTtarget prediction as it could accurately track both course and a"ltitude. while theadvent of what we now know as the electronic computer made ored ction asaccurate as it could be. But by then the aircraft targets were f ty ng n,gner andfaster and no matter how high the muzzle velocity of'the gun beiarr"e ;ist it toolan appreciable time for the shell to reach the taiget altiilde li was a problemthat couh only be overcome in the usual mannerlthe applicat,or- o. r,-asses offire a.nd large projectrles that could carry as powerful an explos,ve pavioad aspossible.

, lt was a,problem that was not solved until the advent of the guided rr ss,ie Bythe time that the last anti-aircraft guns for large-scale defen6e were rer.ovedduring the 1960s there were large--calibre guns'that could fire massrve sheils tounprecedented heights at the raie of at least one per second, but sorneno\.v theattacker could still survive it all statisticallv.

The simple wiresigfi t, seen iere on a French 75-mm gNn, was standard onmost AA weapons, for use in emergency or when operating in kolation awayfrom more sophisticated fue conhol equipment. With aircraft llying everfaster and higher, new methods had to be developed.

The Anterican l20-mm M I anti-airctaft gun had two gun aimers. One layerwould be concerned with the elevation control (on tfie left in the photqiraph)and the other with the traverse (on the right). On some similar gruns an-othlr'Iayer would be controlling the fuse setting machine.

fipical oI many WorldWar II rangefinders is this Japanese example with atwo-metre optical base. This would be used by one pe$on, with anothercheckingreadings and transmitdng them verbally to a central frre controlpoint. These expensive instrunentswere usually distributed one to a battery.

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.JAPAN

o Type 88 75-mm anti-aircraft grun

-re 75-mm (2.95-in) Type 88 MobileField AA Gun was a Japanese armY',',:apon introduced into service in- :28 At that period the Type 88 was as

;rod a gmn as any in service, and was'.';ell capable of tackling the aerial:argets then likely to be encountered.3ut rt was soon overtaken by increases-n arrcraft performance, to the extentihat it could at best be described as anefficient but indifferent performer.

The Type BB design was chosen af-ter an examination ofother current andprospective anti-aircraft gnrns, and wasan amalgam of some of the betterpornts of several weapons, The barrelwas a single-piece design with a slid-ing breech and mounted on the then-fashionable central pivot. The firingplatform had five legs which foldedfore and aft for transport, and to assistthe overall balance on the move thebarrel was partially retracted, In ac-tron each outrigger legwas supportedon an adjustable foot for levelling andthere was another adjustable footunder the central pivot. A central pairof wheels was used to tow the gunalonq roads, these being removed be-fore flring,

Lrke so many other contemporaryJapanese weapons, the TYPe BB wasdifficult to produce as virtually every-thing on the gnln had to be hand-madeIt gradually became the standardJapanese army anti-aircraft gun and atone time or another was used bY everyarmy fieId formation, startinq in Chinaand Manchuria during the 1930s, It wasalso widely used during the earlyJapanese advances in the Pacific.However, once the Japanese mainiandcame rncreasingly under threat of airattack from 1943 onwards the Type 8Bswere gradually withdrawn from themore outlying island garrisons andsent to the home rslands. Their placeswere taken by a motley arraY of di-verse weapons, mainly ex-navalpieces dug into improvrsed land em-placements,

Back in Japan the Type BB soon de-monstrated that it suffered from a low

maximum effective ceiling (the alti-tude to which the projectiles could befired to engaqe an aircraft target for auseful amount of time), For the Type BB

this was about 7250 m (23,785 ft), andon many occasions Boeing B-29 bom-bers could operate at well above thisaltitude. But for the Japanese it was theTYpe BB or nothing, for as always theylacked the larqe manufacturingr baseand design experience to Produceanything better in the time availableInstead they had to impress all mannerof modified naval gmns for the homedefence role and even resorted to theuse of simple mortars for low-level de-fences in some areas,

The Type BB is mentioned in someAllied intelligence reports as havinglan anti-armour role, but there appearsto be little (if any) evidence of the TypeBB being used in thrs role, A specialarmour-piercing projectile known asthe Type 95 was produced for use bYthe TVpe 88, but the usual high explo-sive projectile was the TYPe 90.

SpecificationType 88Calibre: 75 mm (2.95 in)Weight: traveliing 2747 kg (6,056 lb)andflrinqr2443 kq(5,386 lb)Dimensions: lengrth travelling 4.542 m(t4 ft 10,8 in); width 1.951 m (6 ft 4.8 in);height2.019 m(6 ft7.5 in); lengrthofbarre]3.3i5 m(I0 ft i0,5 in); lenqrthofrifling 2,578 m (8 ft 5,5 in)Elevation: +85"/-0'Traverse:360'

Maximum effective ceiling: 7250 m(23,785 ft)Shellweight:6.58 kg (14,5 lb)Muzzlevelocity: 720 m (2,362 ft) petsecond

Above : The mount of a caPturedTYpe 88 75-mm gntn is examined inthe Pacifrc. Notice the five legs oI thefiring platform and the detachedbarrel at the bottom left of thephotograph.

Left : An emplaced 7 5 - mm (2'9 5 -in)TYpe 8 8 anti- aircraf t grun. T hislaoanese oun sft ould notbe'c6nfused-with the German 88 , for theJapaneseTYpeSSreferred to theyear otintr oduc tio n ac co r d ingtotheJapanesecalendar and nottothecalibre, aswiththeGermangun;the twohadverylittleincommon.

fl ih" French 75-mm erunsWhen the problem of antr-aircra-ft de-fences arose during World War I theFrench army reacted in its usual man-ner, takinq the ordnance ofthe famous75', the mle 1897 field gnm, and placingrt onto a simple high-angle mountingThere were several of these mount-Ings. one being a simple arrangementoi the gun on a fixed turntable with thecarriage knocked uP from steelassemblies. This simple arranqementwas the Canon de 75 mm anti-aerienmle 1915, but a better arangementwas produced by the Canon de 75 mmanti-a6rien mle 1913, which was anearly attempt to produce a self-propelled anti-aircraft gnrn by mounling a mle lB97 on a truck. Despite theeallv desion date this turned out to bea r6markably good anti-aircraftweapon but it was not the only use ofthe mle lB97 for the role. There wasalso a Canon de 75 mm contreaeronefs mle l9l7 which was a towedpiece but one in which all the fire-tontrol lnstruments were mounted onthe carriage; this was a Schneider de-srgn.

These three equipments were still lnuse in appreciable numbers in 1939

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when World War II began for the sim-ple reason that there appeared to beno real need to replace them; moreov-er, funds for new eguipment for theFrench army were scant while theMagnnot Line was being constructedHowever, by the late l92Os it wasapprecrated that the old mle 1897 fleldgun was being rapidly outmoded as ananti-aircraft weapon and that higher-velocity weapons would soon beneeded. Thus there started a desultoryprogffamme of re-equipping the manyold batteries, Some of the first to beupdated were the fixed batteriesaround such locations as Paris, wherethe old fixed mle 1915 equiPmentssimply had their barrels replaced witha more powerfirl Schneider ordnanceto produce the Canon de 75 mm contreaeionefs mle l7l34. Thts new barrelprovided a much better performancewrth less time-of-flight and improvedservrce ceiling. Similar barrels wereolaced on the old mle l9l3 truck-inounted equrpments and also on thealmost-as-old mle 1917 equipments'but so slow was this grradual rebarrell-inq proctramme that many guns stillna-a iirerr oriqinal mle 1897 barrels in

The Canon de 75 mm mle I 936 was aSclrneider desrgrn produced only insma/Inumbers. This example was

captured in N or th Africa from theVichyFrenchin 1943.

The French 75-mm gruns (continued)

_ 940,Some completely new equipments

',','ere produced dunng the I930s. Us--:ig the new Schneider barrel a com-pletely new antr-aircraft gnrn krown as:re Canon de 75mm contre aeronefsmle 1933 was produced during therrd-1930s. This was an odd-looking;ul mounted in action on a cruciform:latform with the barrel trunnions::rcunted well down the barrel near the::eechi 192 equrpments were in ser-'.':ce in 1940. Another totally newS:hneider weapon was produced in:;o forms as the Canonde ?5 mmcon-tre aeronefs mle 1932 and 1936, which:-fered only in detail, This was a thor-- -.rghly modern weapon designed:rm the outset for mobility. The mle- 332 had a crew ofnine men and could:re up to 25 rounds per minute. On the::ad it could be towed at speeds ofup:: 40 kn/tr (24,85 mph).

When the Germans invaded in May- 1,40, the French army was thus still in as:ate of confusion regarding anti-

=craft gmns. The planned progEaJnme

:: :eplacement of the old weapons was.-:,Ll lar from complete, and many gnrns.-11 had their obsolete mle 1897 bar-::s. There were really too many types:: ;mns in sewice for logistical comfort::: rn the event the advances of May::-.C June 1940 swept the French army:;ay before the anti-aircraft guns:: !d make any rmpact on the Iruftwaf-:: Huge amounts of French 75-mm: 33-in) anti-aircraft equipment were:.:pnued by the Germans, who took:'.'er many for their own use - but not

the old mle IB97s, which were re-moved from their carriages and werelater used as beach defence weaponsin the Atlantic Wall. However, many ofthe more modern Schneider gunswere still in German use in 1944. Thedesignations were 7.5-cm FK 97(f) forthe 75-mm anti-a6rien, 7.5-cm FlakM.l7l34(f) for the mle 17, 7.5-cm FlakM.33(f) for the mle 1933, and ?.S-cmFlak M.36(f) for the mle 36,

SpecificationCanon de 75 mm contre aeronefs mle1932Calibre:75 mm (2,95 in)Weight: travelling 5300 kq (11,684 lb)and firins 3800 kg (8,377 Ib)Dimensions: lengrth travelling 6.95 m(22 ft 9.6 in); width traveliing 1,5 m (4 ftI I in); Iengrthof barrel4.05 m (13 ft3,5 in); Iengrthof rifling3,25 m(I0 ft8 in)Elevation: +70'l-5'Traverse:360'Maximum ceiling: 8000 m (26,245 ft)Shell weisht: 6,44 ks ( 14.2 lb)Muzzle velocity: 700 m (2,297 ft) persecond

TheGermans were always short ofanti aircraft gant and used as manyex-French guns as they could. Thisgun in German hands is a 7 5-mm mle1933formedbyplacingamodernized Schneider barrel onto arevised and updated World War Icarriage. At one tfune the Germanshad 1 60 of these in service.

-:.= widely acknowledged success of-..: 40-mm Bofors gmn has tended to-'.':rshadow the fact that the Swedish::::rpany of Bofors also made a larger--i quite successful 75-mm (2.95-in)

-.:i-aucraft gmn. The Bofors concern:,- always been insistent that thjs gmnr','- evolved by the company alone,:*: rt cannot be overlooked that the::srgn was berng formulated at a time','.':len Bofors was working in close=ssocration with the Krupp team resr-::nt in Sweden as a means to avoid the:=:ms of the Versailles Tteaty, It now::ems almost certain that some form of::css-fertihzation occurred betureen--:.e two tearns, for almost at the same.--itant the Krupp team produced a 75-:-n (2,95-in) gmn that led eventually to:: famous German 'BB'and Bofors pro-::ced its 75-mm (2,95-in) Model 1929,

The Model 29 differed in many de-:= ls from the Krupp 75-mm (2.95-rn):estgn, but the hvo weapons had a'.':ry similar performance. Other simi-.:rltres were that both used a cruciform:rrriage with a central traverse, and::at both gmns used barrels of similar-:nqth and construction. But whereas:re Krupp gmn was rued in only Lmited:.rmbers by the German navy and a:ew South American states, the Bofors::rodel was adopted by the Swedish:rmed forces in two versions,

There were two main models of theSofors gnrn, the Model 29 and Model30 These difered only in detail, but to:cnfuse matters both were produced:cr export rn calibres of 75 mm and:C mm (2.95 in and 3. 15 in). Export ver-srons were sold to Argentina, China,Frnland, Greece, Hungary, Iran andThailand, some in 75-mm (2.95-in) and

some in BO-mm (3, 15-in) calibre. One ofthe largrest customers was Hungary,which received 80 mm guns; thesewere used extensively during theperiod when the Hungtarian army wasallied with the Germans alonq theEastern Front from l94l to 1944, andmore were retained for home defence,In Hungary the Model29 was known asthe 8-cm 29 M. Another BO-mm (3, 15-in) customer was the Dutch East In-dies, but few of these weapons sur-vived after 1942.

The Bofors gun was a sound but un-spectacular performer. It used a cruci-form firing platform that was loweredto the ground from two wheeled axles,which were then completely removedbefore firing, A horizontal breechblock mechanism was fitted, and thiswas virtually the same as that used onthe Krupp gnrn. However, the Boforsgnin did have one thing that the Kruppdesigm iacked, namely an overall sim-plcity of design: the Bofors gmn hadIittle of the complicated fire-controlequipment that was used on the Kruppdesign and proved to be easy to oper-ate, even in the hands of relatively un-trained personnel. Thus when theBofors gmn was used in China it provedto be remarkabiy effective, and thetype was chosen for its overall srmpleapproach by such armed forces asthose in the Dutch East Indies, whichhad to rely on a personnel force withfew technical assets. Overall, theBofors gun was a sound gnm but onethat was soon outperformed by laterdesigns.

Bofors 75-mm and 80-mm Model 1929 and Model 1930Specification8-cm29MCalibre: B0 mm (3. l5 in)Weight: travelling 4200 kg (9,259 lb)andfirins 3300 ks (7,275 lb)Dimensions: barrel lengrth 4,0 m (13 ft1,6 in)

Elevation:-:,'-j'Traverse: :: -'Maximum effective cerling: - - - -! rn(32,810 ri)Shellweight: -

,Muzzie velocitysecond

TheSwedish Bo[ors Model29 wassold to various counttes tn either 75-mm(2.95-in) and 8a-mm (3.],i-in)calibres. Itwas a sound desrgmproduced by Bofors whenGermandesiEmers were workng in Swedenon the 88, and so therewere manydesign features common to the two.

I 185

8.8-cm Flak 18The terms of the 1919 Versaille Treatylaid down stdct gft]idelines as to whatartillery production could be be car-ded out in Germany, so the largestGerman armaments company, KruPPof Essen, sent a team to Sweden tocarry on research and developmentoutside the rmposed restrictions.Working with Bofors the Krupps teamworked initially on a 75-mm (2.95-in)anti-aircraft gun using clandestineGerman army funds, but the armY wasnot particularly happy with the resultand asked for something heavier. The'Swedish' Krupp team accordinglYproduced a new and advanced BB-mm(3 465-rn) qun that by 1933 was in seriesproduction at Essen as the NSDAPcame to power.

This new gmn was the 8.8-cm Flak I8(Flak standing for Fliegerabwehr-kanone, or antr-aircraft gun), and it wasan immediate success. It was a lonq-barrelled gmn mounted on a plvotedcruciform carnage which was in turncarried on the move by twin axles thatallowed the gn-rn to be rapidly placedinto the firing position. The Flak lB hada one-piece barrel but was later sup-plemented by an improved version,the 8.8-cm Flak 36, whrch had a multi-section barrel on which only the wornpart nearest the chamber needed tobe changed after prolonged firing.Then came the 8.8-cm Flak 37 whichwas a Flak 36 with a revised system offire-control data transmission moresuited to stattc use than fleld use. lnpractice the three models were inter-changeable to a high degree, and itwas not unusual to see a FIak iB barrelon a Flak 37 carriagre. Several changeswere introduced to the weapons oncethey were in service, including a re-vised twin-axle carriage arrangement,and the B.B-cm FIak sertes wasadapted to be carried on a variety ofself-propelled mountings, tncludingrailway flatcars,

The B.B-cm Flak series became oneof the most celebrated weapons in theentire German army, for It went on tobe as famous as an anti-tank weapon asit was as an anti-aircraft qnrn: followingthe gmn's 'blooding' in Spain during theCivil War and again rn France in 1940,it was discovered that the high muzzievelocity coupled with an efficient and

and Flak 37

heavy projectile made the weaPonideal as a 'tank killer'. This becamevery evident during the earlY NorthAfrrcan and later Eastern Front cam-paiqns, but the B.B-cm Flak sertes wasieally too high and bulky for the antr-tank role and had to rely on ils rangeand power rather than concealment inaction.

As antr-aircraft gnrns the B.B-cm Flaksenes was the mainstay of the Germanfield armies and of the defence of theReich under Luftwaffe control. Thetype was never replaced by later mod-eG as had been planned, and in Augnxt1944 there were 10,704 of all threemodels in setvtce. Produclton wasundertaken at several centres, and awide range of ammunition was Pro-duced for these weapons, includtng ahigh proportion of armour-piercing. Bythe end of the war versions for stattc

t

II

\ t'J(r

emplacement only were being pro-duced, but by then the B.B-cm Fiakseries had been used on self-propelled platforms, rarlway mount-ings, coastal defence locations, ltghtshippinq and in several expertmentaiforms.

The B.B-cm Flak guns were alsoused by the Itahan army, and for awhile rn late 1944 the type was evenused operationally by the US Armyalong the German borders when itsown supply lines became overex-tended. Many were used by severalarmres post-war, and the Yugoslavarmy uses the B.B-cm FIak as a coastalgun to this day.

Specification8.8-cmFlak 18Calibre:BB mm (3.465 rn)Weight: travellinq 686l kq (15, 126 lb)

ThrsF/ak36 r's seen in action duringthe S oviet cam paign. A{ter thetribulations of the bitter winter ot1941, theGerman army had becomemore familiar with sub-zero fighting,but 'General Winter' was still apotent contributor to the Sovietwareffort.

and firins 5150 ks (l 1,354 lb)Dimensions: length overall 7.62 m (25 :'0 in); width 2,305 m (7 ft 6,75 in); heish:2.418 m(7 ft I i.2 in); lengrth of barrel4.93 m (16 ft 2. I in); lengthofrifling4,124m(13ft64in)Elevation: +85"/-3"Traverse:360"Maximum ceiling: 8000 m (26,245 ft)Shellweight: HE 9 24 ks (20.34 lb)Muzzle velocity: 820 m (2,690 ft) persecond

fifi$il*'{'

F€

8.8-cm Flak 4tBy 1939 it was obvious to the long{ermGerman military planners that the ex-pected increases in aircraft perform-ance then on the way would render theexrsting 8.8-cm (3,465-in) and 10.5-cm(4.I3-in) FIak weapons obsolete, sothey initiated the development of anew 8,8-cm (3,465-in) weapon, Rhetn-metail was given the contract for thisnew gmn, and the company according-ly attempted to integnate into the de-srgn all the various lessons learnedfrom the exlstingt B.B-cm Flak 18 andFlak 37 series. Thus the new weapon,known initially as the Gerat 37, wasrntended for use not only as an anti-aucraft gnrn but it also had to be suitedror use as an anti-tank weaPon andeven a field or coastal artillery piece,

The result was that when develop-i:lent of the Geriit 37 was completed in-341 a hrghly complicated weapon waspresented to the troops, The Gerdt 37'.','as adopted as the 8.8-cm F'lal< 41, butrisr-nce development took until i943

for the design was full of 'bugs', some ofwhich were never entirely eliminatedAn example of this can be quoted asthe ammunition, which in typical Ger-man style used a long and expensivecartridge case. These cases frequent-ly jammed on extraction after firing, tothe extent that special high-gradebrass cases had to be manufacturedspeciically for some of the early exam-ples, Both three- and four-sectlon bar-rels were produced, and the weaponeven had an automatic fuse setter onthe loading mechanism. There wereno fewer than three separate firing cu-cuits, and a powered rammer wasfitted.

The first production examPles weresent to T\-rnisia during the latter staqesof the North African camPaign: heretheir technical troubles continued andthev were qiven little chance to shineThdreafter they were assigned to usewithin the borders of the Reich only,where they could be near the very

necessary workshop facilities that theyconstantly demanded. But it should notbe thought that the FIak 4l was an un-successful weapon, for when it workedit was an excellent anti-aircraft gmn.

After the war it was generally re-garded as the best of all the Germananti-aircraft guns from a technicalpoint of vrew, but one that required aninordinate amount of maintenance andrepair time. When it did work properlyit had a rate of flre of up to 25 roundsper minute and had a maxtmum effec-tive ceiling of 14700m (48,230ft). Itflred a different round from the otherB.B-cm (3,465-in) weapons.

Despite the technical promise of theFlak 41, the type was never producedin anything but limited numbers. Itconsumed a great deal of manufactur-ing potential and production was notassisted by the constant atlentiongiven by the Allled air forces to theweapon's main production centre atDiisseldorl Further lengthy produc-

tion delays were imposed when anattempt was made to switch some pro-duction to the Skoda Werke at Pilsenbut for all their efforts the most theGermans could ever fleld was 318 andthat was in January 1945.

Specification8.8-cmFlak4ICalibre:88 mm (3.465 in)Weight: travelling I 1240 kg (24,780 lb)andtuing7840 kg(U,284 Ib)Dimensions: length overall9.658 m(31 ft 8,2 in); width 2.4 m (7 ft 10.5 in);height 2.36 m (7 ft 8.9 in); lengrth ofbarrel6,54B m(21 ft5,B in); Iengrthofrifling5.411 m(17 ft9 in)Elevation: +90'/-3'Traverse:360'Maximum effective ceiling: 14700 m(48,230 ft)Shellweisht: HE 9,4 kq (20,7 lb)Muzzlevelocity: 1000 m (3,280 ft) persecond

The'88'inActionThe mostfamous of all anti-aircraftweapons inWorldWar II was thelegrendaryGerman'88'.Thatfameresfsa/most entirelyon thefact thatthe Germanswerethefirstto realizethat thehigh-velocity, flattrajectory shellcouldbeeffective againstallmanner of fortified and armoured ground targets.

The German 88-mm (3.465-1n) guns were notLntended as anti-armour weapons, now theirmost famous role. When they were first con-ceived during the late 1920s and mid-1930s,ihey were intended to be anti-aircraft gmns

only and were desigmed accordingly. Theircrigins have now passed rnto a form oflegend,ior they were designed not in Germany but inSweden, The large Krupp concern had sent a:eam there during the 1920s in an attempt to getaround the restrictions of the I9l9 Treaty ofVersailles, which Iaid down the limitations ofwhat the German armaments industry coulddesign and produce. The team from Essen;oined forces with the Bofors concern at Karls-aoga and there quietly worked on the finaiiza-:ion of designs for the next generation of Ger-:nan weapons.

Aa anti-aircraft gnrn was high on the list ofcriorities and the design work was secretly:unded by the German army back in Berlin. By1930 the team had produced a 75-mm (2.95-in)

Eun that met the army's requirements, but asearly as that date it was realized that somethingnore powerful would be required for the fu-rre, so the Krupp team once more set to, en--argrng the 75-mm (2 95-in) design to 88-mm

(3.465-in) calibre, and the 8,8-cm Flak 18 wasborn.

By that time the treaty restrictions werebeing ignored or were no ionger in force, soproduction of the new gnrn began in Germanyrn 1932. The NSDAP under Hitler was well on itsway to power, and formed an administration inthe following year. Then the programme ofexpansion of German military power thatmarked the mid-1930s began in earnest andthe 88 was well to the lore in the equipping ofthe new German armed forces.

The 88s were issued to all arms of the Ger-man forces. The Luftwaffe used the 88 for thehome defence of the Reich, the German navyfoi the defence of naval facilities and coastaldefence batteries, and the army for use in thefield. Each army division had at least one com-pany of 88s (and sometimes more), but in theseearly stages of rearmament the 88 was meantas an anti-aircraft weapon onlY.

It was during the Spanish Civil War that the88 was first put into use as an anti-armourweapon. The exact place and date have notbeen recorded, but it seems safe to assumethat at a critical stage of a Republicanarmoured breakthrougth an enterprtsing

officer took control ofan 88 that happened to belocated handily nearby and opened fire on theattacking tanks, The results must have beendevastating. The light tanks of that period hadthin armour proof only against steel shell frag-ments and little else, so the effect of a highveiocity 88-mm (3 465-in) projectile must havebeen dreadflri. The 88 had the long barrel thatwas needed to propel an anti-aircraft projectileto its operationai altitude in a short a time aspossible, and the projectile was accordinglypropelied by a powerful charge at a high muz-zle velocity, Even with a straightforward HEshell the 88 could guite simply punch its waythrough any contemporary tank and the resultsof the rnrtral Spanish engagement were dulynoted in higher command circles.

By 1939 the 88s were pouring off the produc-tion lines. Krupp of Essen produced the buik ofthem, but new production centres had by thenopened up elsewhere. Enough had been pro-duced for the 88 to be rssued at a rate of oneeight-gnrn battalion to nearly every Panzer,mechanized and rruantry divsron, With theseformations the gruns r,'ere iowed by the 8{onZugkraltwagen SdKz I haif-tracked tractor,which also carrred :-:te gurr crew and someammunition; more aJTlm'in:r3n 1,vas carried on

AFIak 18 is manhard,led across a pontoon bridgeduring theMay 1940 campaign inFrance.The rivermay be theMeuse, as 88s were used thete not onlytomake thecrossing possible but alsoto breakupisolated French fank a lla cks on ce a bridgeheadwaseslab/rshed. About eight gtuns were involvedin this operation.

l{t.

'-.]'..3r

I IB7

The'88' in Action

reducing the 'dead time' between fi-rse settingand firing and thus increasing accuracy lraterthe logical step of mounting the fuse setter nextto the loadlng tray was taken and the 'deadtime' was reduced stlll further' Generallyspeaking the Flak 37 was gsed mainly on fixedsites for iechnical reasons but some were usedin the field,

'88'inPolandIn 1939 the use of the 88 as an anti-armour

weapon began in earnest, and this was notedby the Western nations at the time. The unior-tunate Poles had few modern tanks and whatthev had were quite simply blown away by the88s-as soon as they arrtved on the battlefieldThese Polish vehicles had little chance againstthe 88, for by then the gnrns had been issuedwith a new solid anti-tank armour-piercing pro-jectile. Combrned wrth the power of the 881hisshot could penetrate the thickest armour thenin use, When used tn the anti-armow role the88s were often frtted with a frontal shield toprovlde some protection for the crew, for in thefield the 88 was a high and bulky target for the

Some GermEn 88s were handed over to the ltalia-army inNorthAfrica andwere known then as theCannone Antiaero da 88 / 56 modello 36. Theseexamples are in action inNorth Atrica and arefiring from their cruciform platforms at aircrafttargets ; the wheel bogries are retained nearby for a

possible r apid withdraw al.

enemy. The barrel was carried on a ht;::.pedestal mount in order to provide the g-:.with 360" traverse for anti-aircraft use, and tL 'made the centre of gravity of the gun rathe:high. The 88 was also a werghty weapon to us:ona battiefield and the large half-tracked trac-tor was very necessary to get the gnrn in and c';:

. of action.The normal method of bringing the gnrn tn::

action was to use the tractor to race to thedesired emplacement point, where the tow ba:was disconnected to allow the departure of thehalf{rack after dropping off the crew and someammunition. The crew then had the heavy jobof using the winches and pulleys on the gnrn's

twin-axle carriage to remove the axles aniiower the gnrn to the ground, The outriggerswere then lowered, the gnrn was levelled andall was ready for action. On the early versionsof the twin-axle carriage the gmnwas arrangedso that the barrel would point forwards towardsthe tractor. After experience in Poland andFrance this was altered so that the barrel wouldpoint to the rear, i,e, towards the enemy as theiractor re-engaged the load. This enabled thegnrn to remain in action untii the last possiblemoment in the case of a hurried withdrawalThere was a fixture for a telescopic sight by theaimer's position and for long-range artiilery usethere was a fitting for an artillery dral sight ontop of the recuperator cylinder over the gunWhen engaging ground targets range informa-tron came from a hand-held rangefinder'

A captured Flak J 8 js seen wjti the earlySonderhanger 201 wheeled carriage; the laterSonderhanger 202 had the barrel pointing to therear. The tractor is a half-tracked Sd Kfz 7, thevehicle used wheneverpossible to tow the 88. Thetractor also carried the crew and someatnmunition, and all their gear.

.i*?.- ai!.'

other half{racks or on trucks, The basic gmn

crew in the field was six men, but more wereusually added for ammunttion handling.

Wh-en the 88 was deployed as an antr-aircraftglr-rn, information was relayed from a centralfire-control point. On the gnrn the layers couldencounter two types of fire-control apparatusOn the 8.8-cm Flak i8 and the slightly later8.8-cm Flak 36 the layer was faced by a dialwith a series of lamps around the circumfer-encei as the lamps came on he moved a controlwheel to align another series of lamps withthose on the outer ring. As he moved the con-troi wheel the gmn moved in either elevation ortraverse. On the 8.8-cm FIak 37 two serles ofpointers were used: the central fire-controlpost data relay moved one pointer and theiayer the other until the two coincided, Thesewere not the only instruments controlled by thecentral fire-control post, for there was also afr:se setting machine carried on the gun car-riage. Before each shell was loaded the nosefl:se was inserted into the machine and oncereleasedthe shellwas immediately }oaded andfired, This had the advantage of considerably

'-G

"F"\';"i\

'.3 ,. -_

*txf'.. '

I 188

Heavy Anti-Aircraft Guns of World War II

The 88 realiy made its mark on the WesternAllies during the May 1940 campaign inFrance, and especially during the crossing ofthe Meuse at Dinant on 13 May. There the rivercrossing by the assault boats of the leadingforces was held up by well-emplaced bunkersand some armour on the opposite bank. Bybringing up a battery of four 88s the Germanswere abie to knock out every one ofthe oppos-trrg strong points one by one until the crossingcould go ahead unopposed. Later in the samecampaigrn it was noted that the 88 was the onlyGerman weapon that could penetrate theheavy frontal armour of the British 'Matilda' in-fantry support tanks,

Despite these successes the 88 had yet toshow one of its major attributes, namely itsrange. It was rare on the battlefields of Francefor actions to take place at more than about1000 m (1,095 yards) but the 88 was capable ofknocking out tanks at hvice that range. This wasto be repeatedly demonstrated on the wideexpanses of the North African deserts and thevast plains of the Soviet Union, where time andagain the 88s were able to englage and larockout enemy tanks at ranges greater than those ofthe tanks'main armament. This was particular-ly true in North Africa, where at first the Britishtanks were armed with only a Z-pdr gnrn with alimited effective range, The 88s could lcrock

llr

out such tanks at rangies twice the ellectivereach of such tank gnlns, so the destruction oftanks at ranges of 2000 m (2, I85 yards) in thedesert was a not uncommon occurrence, TheBritish tankies'did not help themselves, for onmany occasions they were apt to indulge inwhat can only be described as cavalry chargesagainst well-defended German positions. Oneof these fatal charges was against a positionknown as Hill 208 in early June 1941, The Ger-mans had used their time to good effect on thathill, for they had dug in I3 88s in such a way thatonly their barrels could be seen above ground,They were able to pick ofl the advancing Brit-ish cruiser tanks with ease untll the ground infront of Hill 208 was littered with hrilks. Thus theBattle of Sollum ended with yet another Britishretreat.

PrimetargetIt should not be thought that the 88s always

had things their ovrn way, As has already beenmentioned, the 88s were high and bulkyweapons that stood out against the flat terrain ofNorth Africa and the Soviet Union. Both theAllies and the Red Army came to recognize thebulk of the 88 and treat it with respect, Whenpossible they engaged the 88s with field artil-leryfire, andwhen subjected to such fire the 88was often lost, usually by its crew betng dts-

A German 8 .9-cm FIak I I in a typical emplacementand ready for action. The men on the right areholding rounds with thefu shells downwards,rcady to place therrnose /uses dr'rectly into thefuse-setfinErmachine - the layers on the left arewatching their data transmr'ssion dr'als.

abled where they stood, It was possible toconceal the guns by the usual process of dig-ging in, but this took time and in the mobile andfluid warfare of the desert and steppe time wasnot always available. Getting the 88 in and outof action could not be carried out quickly un-less the gun crew was either well trained orvery strong, and both these assets were some-times lacking. The 88 only became the anti-armour par excellence when it was adapted toa proper antr-tank gnrn carriage.

But even while still in the original FIak formthe 88 could often hrrn the result of a battle rightuntil the end of the war, A typical example ofthis occurred on the Bourgebus Ridge duringthe fighting in Normandy in July 1944. As part ofOperation 'Goodwood' two British armoureddivisions, the l lth and the 7th, were advancingup over the ridge through a maze of smalllocalities defended by the Germans. The stub-born defence of these localities had alreadyseverely upset the British timetable when ontothe scene came a Panzergnenadier colonel by

{x

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The 8 .8-cm Flak 4 I was never really freefrom problems in its sewice career, as aresult of its complicated construction.Seen lrere dr'sm ounted from itsSonderhanger carriage, the Flak 4 I wasusually retained tor service within theReich. In spite of operational difficulties,it was widely regarded as the finest ofGerman heavy anti-aircraft weapons.Although capable of firing 25 roundsperminute, and with a muzzle velocity ofI 000 m (3,280 ft) per second giving amaximum effedive ceiling of I 4700 m( 4 8,2 30 f0, the complexity ofmanufacture allowed only 3 I I pieces losee opera trona I deployment.

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I 190

Heavy Anti-Aircraft Guns of World War II

V

Designed by a Krupp teatn in Sweden (inorder to circumvent the conditions of theTreaty of Versaillei), the 8.8-cm FIak I Ientered production in 1933, and with theNational Socialist state was to becomeIegendary. Originally made with a one-piece barrel, later models wereequ ippe d wi th mu lti - sec t ioned b ar r elsto allow replacement of worn sections.Seen lrere on ffi e Sonderhanger 20 Icarriage (the later model 202 travelledwith the banel to the rear), the Flak 18was usually towed by the eight-tonneSdHz 7 half-track.

the name of von Luck. He was fresh from a fewdays' leave in Paris, but once on the sceneshowed a remarkable talent for summing upthe tactical scene. He noted a force ofabout 60British tanks moving across the BourgebusRidge to his front and he also noticed four Luft-waffe 88s, an 88-mm (3.465-in) anti-tank grunand a Tiger tank in the streets of nearby Cagny:if these could be moved to the north east cornerof Cagrny, von Luck realized, they would beable to take the advancing British tanks in theflank. The Luftwaffe officer in charge ofthe 88swas unwilling to make the move until his mindwas changed by the muzzle of von Luck's pistol,and in a very short time the five 88s were inaction along with the Tiger, Within minutes 16British tanks had been immobilized and in theresultant confusion the British armoured coi-umn gnew into one gigantic traffic jam. Tanksmilled about and blocked further progness tothe point wher6 the British advance-stalledwith the five 88s still pouring shells into them.By the time things had been sorted out the

following armoured formations had joined inthe jam, but by that time the Germans had beenable to pour yet more defending troops andweapons into the fight and Operation 'Good-wood'came to an abrupt end, The BourgebrisRid-qe qas not taken that day, as a result mainlyof the 88s and von Luck's timely intervention.

The Bourgebus Ridge scrap was typical ofmany in which the 88 was involved, but awayfrom the anti-armour scene the l:uJtwaffe 88-sused ficr the defence of the Reich remained inaction right up to the end. Most home defence88s retained their mobile carriages but wereusually statically emplaced in prepared posi-tions with all the usual paraphernalia of pro-tected shelters, ammunition magazines andcomplicated communication nehvorks, Manybatteries operated under radar control as thewar progressed, and several types of ammum-tion were introduced to boost performance.Even before the war started there were sever-qlprcOos,als to supplement or replace the early88s. The 8.8-cm Flak 41 proved io be an excel-lent gnrn but it was dfficult to produce, prone toall manner of technical troubles and so wasproduced in small numbers only. The l0,5-cm(4, I3-in) Flak grrins proved to be too bulky lcrthe field army and the massive l2.8-cm Flak 40swere reserved for home defence in small num-bers only. So the 88s had to bear the brunt of theA.llied aerial onslaught that came by night andday from 194I onwards.

The Allied bombardments tended to con-centrate on one target at a time, retuming nightand day until the target was flattened. Ham-purg wqs a typical example of this, the citybeing destroyed as the local defences wereoverwhelmed. In order to concentrate someform of mobile resewe the Luftwalle took tomounting 88s on railway flatcars, the resultanttrains being towed around the Reich whereverthey might be needed. By the time the warended there were many such trains on whichthe guas and their crews remained for weeksat a time, Once near a likely or actual targetthey were deployed in marshalling yards andalong convenient stretches of track along withtheir ammunition trucks and centralized fire-control equipments. In the Soviet Union single88s were sometimes added to ordinary trainsfor protection against air attack or partisan acti-vities.

119l

ffi Tliil"* Flak 38 and Flak 3eAs far back as 1933 the German milit-ary planners saw a need for an anti-aircraft gn:n heavier than the 8,8-cm(3.465-in) FIak series, and both Rhern-metall and Krupp were invited to sub-mit desigms for a 'shoot-off contest fori0.S-cm (4. 13-in) weapons held ir 1935.Rheinmetall won the contract with itsGerat 38, which duly went into produc-tion as the 10.5-cm Flak 38, Thrs modelhad an electrical control system and apowered loading mechanism, but wassoon replaced in productlon bY the10.5-cm Ftak 39 vnth a revrsed electrtc-al and ire-control data system.

Both 10.5-cm (4,13-in) Flak gunswere intended for use by the Germanfield armies, but m the event they werealmost all employed in the home de-fence ofthe Reich. In appearance theFIak 38 and Fiak 39 resembled scaled-up Flak 18 gnrns, but there were manydetail drfferences and proportionallythe Flak 38 and Flak 39 were muchheavier and bulkier weapons. In over-all terms the Flak 38 and Flak 39 werecomplex weapons and were mademore complex to manufacture bY theuse of a sectional barrel (for rapidchangre of the worn portion only afterfiring) on the Flak 39. Unforh:nately, inaction they proved to be little betterthan the 8.8-cm (3.465-in) Flak series asfar as overall performance was con-cerned, and at one point it was evenintended to replace them in produc-tion by the B.B-cm (3.465-in) Flak 4lthough ths never happened: Produc-tion of the Flak 4I was so slow that the10,S-cm (4,13-in) Flak gmns were kepton the production iines, When the warended there were still 1,850 in service,most of these wrthin the borders of theReich,

Although intended as a fleldweapon, the Flak 38 and FIak 39 werereally too heavy for the role. They useda scaled-up version of the mobile hvin-axle carriage of the 8,8-cm (3.465-in)Flak series, but even with the aid ofintegnal winches and pulleys the gnrns

were slow and awkward to emPlaceMany were subsequently assigmed tostatiC emplacements, and il6 weremounted on special FIak railwaYtrucks that rumbled around the Reichwherever they were needed. Eachmodel needed a crew ofa commanderand nine men, thouqh use of the manu-al loading system required a furthertwo men.

The 10.5-cm (4.13-in) Flak seriesnever acquued the fame of the B 8-cm(3.465-in) Flak series, mainly becauseit was not wrdely used in the field andbecause its bulkandweight meant thatit was only rarely used as an anti-arrnour weapon. Overall its perform-ance was not as giood as had beenonginally hoped, and despite a Qrreatdeal ofdevelopment work on a projectknown as the 10.5-cm FIak 40, whichwas to have had a lonqer barrel to fire aheavier projectile, the 10.5-cm (4.13-

in) Flak gnrns were never 'stretched'tothe same extent as the other GermanFIak quns. Instead productlon wenl

steadrly ahead at several centres untilthe war ended.

Specification10.S-cmFlak39Calibre: 105 mm (4.13 in)Weight:travellrng 14600 kg (32, 187 lb)and firlng 10240 kg (22,575 lb)Dimensions: lengrth overall 10,31 m(33 ft 9.9 in); width 2.45 m (B ft 0.5 in);heiqht 2.9 m (9 ft 6 in); length of barrel6,648 m(21 ft9.7 in); lengrthofnfltng5.531 m (18 ft 1,9 in)Elevation: +85"/-3"Traverse:360'Manimumceiling: 12800 m (41,995 ft)shellweight: 15. I kq (33,3 lb)Muzzle velocity: BB0 m (2,887 ft) persecond

A I 0.5-cm Flak 39 in action on aspecial railway truck mounting, herebeing used tor harbour defence.These railway mountings weremoved around the ocanpiedterritories and the Reich itselt.

The 1 0.5-cm (4. I 3-in) FIak 38 and 39resemb,led sca led-up versions of the8.9-cmFlak 18 sert'es, bulusedanall-electrical control system and arevised loading system. I ntended toruse by field units, many were laterdiverted to the Luftwaffe for thedefence of the Reich and many wereused on railway mountings.

GERMANY

I2.8-cm FlakThe idea of producing a German I28-mm (5 04-in) anti-arrcraft grLrn was firstmooted in 1936 when Rheinmetall wasrequested to produce a desiSn lctory.ntheh as the Gerat 40. Progness on thisdesigm was not placed at a very highpriority, so it was not until 1940 that thefirst prototype was ready, At that tlrneit was intended that the Gerat 40 wouldbe a weapon for the field armY, butwhenthe miiitarysawthe sue and bulk

40of the prototype they decrded that theweapon would be produced for staticuse only. The weaPon was orderedinto production as the 12.8-cm Flak 40,

By that trme Plans had alreadY beenmade for a production-line mobile ver-sion, so the first sx were produced onmobrle carriaqes. The Flak 40 was solarge that it proved impossible to carrythe qun in one load over other thanvery short distances, so a two-load sys-

tem was rnitially employed, Even thisproved to be too cumbersome, andwas later revrsed to a singtle load onceagaln, Later versions were producedfor static use only, and such was theoverall performance ofthe Flak 40 thatit was carefully emplaced aroundsome of the main production andpopuiation centres such as Berlin andVrenna. Special Flak towers were builtin some locations to make best use of

these guns, and there was also a spe-cial railcar version to provlde the gmns

wrth some sort of mobllity.Production of the static version be-

gan in 1942, but it was a costlY andcomplex gnrn so by January 1945 therewere onlv 570 in service, all of thembased inside the borders of the Reich.

Soon after full-scale productron be-gan, the Flak 40 was joined bY a hvrnversion of the same gun known as the

Only six mobile versions of the I 2.8'cm Flak 40 were produced beforeproductionwas switched to staticversions only. This gun is canied onaSonderhanger 220 inone load, butsome giuns were carried as twoloads._l

I

l

i 192

i*:

I2.8-cm Flak 40 (continued)

I2.8-cm Flakzwilling 40, Thrs consrstedof two I2,B-cm (5,04-in) Flak gunsmounted side-by-side on the samemounting and provided wrth 'mirror'Ioading aranqements. These power-ful gnrn combinatiors were used onlyon special Flak towers around themarn centres of population within theRerch, and were so costly and difhcultto produce that there were nevermany of them; even by February 1945there were only 33 rn service. TheFlakzwilling Qwilling, or twin) was in-troduced as it was realized that ever:eavier anti-aircraft gnrns would be:reeded to counter the increasing per-:ormance of Allied bombers, and de-spite strenuous efforts to develop gnrns',lrth calibres of 150 mm (5.9 in) andeven 240 mm (9,45 in), none got past:he prototype stage at best and some:arled to set even that far, Thus the tvvinarrangement of the Flaknrvilling 40 was

Heavy Anti-Aircraft Guns of Worid V/u Ilan attempt to produce at least someform ofincreased flrepower to counterthe Allied heavy bombers, and in theevent rt turned out to be an excellentanti-aircraft weapon,

As the war ended the originalmobile Flak 40s were still in use, manymore were in use on special Flaktrains. A new 12.8-cm Flak 45 gnrn wasunder development as the war ended,and this would have been an evenmore powerful weapon than the ort-ginal. Only a singrle prototype wascompleted.

Specification12.8-cmFlak40Calibre: 128 mm (5.04 in)Weight: travellinq (mobile) 27000 kg(59,524 kg), firing (mobile) 17000 kg(37,478 1b), and flrinq (statrc) 13000 kq(28,6601b)Dimensions:lengrthoverall 15 m (49 ft

2.6 in); height3.965 m(13 ft); lenslhofbarrel7.835 m (25 ft 8,5 in); lengthofrriling6.478 m(21 ft3 in)Elevation: +87"1-3"Traverse:360'Maximum effective ceiling: 14800 m(4B,5ss ft)Shellweight: 26 ks (57 3 lb)Muzzle velocity: BB0 m (2,887 ft) persecond

This photograph of I 2.8-ctn Flak 40sin the field was taken in I 940 in orderto s how the' might' of the G erm anarmy's anti-aircraft field detences. Infact only one battery was so usedbefore all production of the gan wasswitched to the home defence of theReich. This one battery was alsomovedoutof thefield.

>K brdnance, QF, 3 in 20 cwtlhe Britrsh 76.Z-mm (3-rn) anti-aircraftiun had the distinction of beinq one of::le very frrst, if not the first gun to beiesigned specifically for the anti--rrcraft role, the initial examples being-r sewice as early as ]914, From that:rne the basic design was gradually:odrfied and generally updated, and.:. 1940 there were still many in service:s the Ordnance, QF, 3 in 20 cwt, The:pdating meant that the gnrn was strll a'.rable weapon for its role, but its over-:ll performance was such that it lacked:re power of later designs and it was.rtended rn 1939 that most of them','.'ould be replaced by more modern:quipments (mainly the 94-mm/3,7-in',','eapon) by 1941.

In 1939 there were no fewer than-rght marks of gmn rn service, some','nth sliding breech blocks, some wrth.rterupted thread blocks, some with-rose barrel liners, and so on, There',','as an equally formidable array of car-:tages in use as well: some of these had:rur wheels, others had but tlvo andstlll more were statically emplaced rnloncrele. By 1940 nearly all rn-servrce.nti-aircraft (ack-ack) gunners hadbeen trained on the 76.2-mm (3-in) gmn:rr not only was it the standard weapon:f the small regnrlar forces but it wasalso the marn equrpment of the gtrow--ng number of Territorial Army batter--es that were formed during the late,930s.

The gnrr was of srmple desigrn, beingirttle more than a barrel and recuper-ator/recoil mechanism slung between:ro side mounting plates carried on a:urntable, The turntable could beerther mounted on a heavy cruciformnring platform or carried on a fow-wheeled platform, the field army pre-ferring the latter by 1939, The gn:n wasthe mainstay of the antr-aircraft batter-Les with the BEF, for although somebatteries had been rssued with the 94-mm (3,7-in) gun by 1940, they by farpreferred the much lighter and hand-rer 76,2-mm (3-in) gnrn with which theywere familiar. However, the Dunkrkepsode put pard to that souce of dls-sent for most of the 76,2-mm (3-in) gnrnswith the BEF were either destroyed orcaptured by the Germans (they latertook over the type for their own use byunits in France under the designation7.5-cm Flak Vickers (e)). There werefew sewicable 76.2-mm (3-in) gmns left

The British 3-in (76.2-mm) was one offfief'rst desigm ed for anti-aircraftuseduring World War I and was still inwidespread use in I 939-40. They hadbeen progressive ly modernized, andmany wnners preferred them to thenew3.7-in(94-mm) guns as theywere so much handier. Many wereIostatDunkirk.

in the United Kingdom other than thefew static rnstallations, but grraduallyeven they were soon phased out asftont-line weapons and many of themobile platform carriages were con-verted to rocket-launching platforms,About 100 platforms were eventuallyconverted for thts rocket role, and ofthe barrels removed some were usedas the main armament for a tank des-troyer using a Churchill tank chassis.That project eventually came to no-thing, and mystery still swrounds aproject to place 50 old 76,2-mm (3-in)gnrns onto surplus l7-pounder anti-tankgmn carriages for home defence dur-inq 1944. There were few, if any, 76.2-mm (3-in) antr-aircraft gnrns left in ser-vice by 1945.

SpecificationOrdnance, QF,3 in20 cwt(onfour-wheelplatform)Calibre: 76.2 mm(3 in)Weight: travelling and complete7976 ks ( 17,584 lb)Dimensions: Iengrth travelling 7.468 m(24 ft6 in); widthtravelling2.3ll m(7 ft7 in); heiqht2.794 m(9 ftZ in); lengrthofbarrel 3.551 m ( 1 I ft 7.8 in); lenerth ofriflins 2.977 m (9 ft 9.2 in)Elevation: +90"/- 10"Traverse:360'Maximumceiling:7163 m (23,500 ft)Shell weight: 7,26 kq ( 16 lb)Muzzle velocity: 610 m (2,000 ft) persecond

The usual model of the 3- in (7 6. 2 -mm) wn in use with the BEF in I 940was this plattorm version, completewith twin axles. The platlorm used

outrtggers *' :e.: a--:-: l: : - : .--'for these ca:. ce s--: ---- -:: ----^lAtf^n 7-c rr-- t' :-''--.

- --i.:- - ----

DK 6rdnance, QF, 3.7 inj'-:,-- -er World War I ended it was. -;;:sied that something heavier and:-::: powerful than the exrsting 76.2-:-::. ':-rn) antt-aircraft gnrn would be:=:'-:ed by the UK to meet antici:=::j increases rn aircraft Perform---.:: but at that time (1920) the report-.'''.. smply shelved as there was then.=.: prospect of any funding for even-:*:.al research into such a project. In-.:=aC lt was not until 1936 that Vickers:::Cuced a prototype of a new gnrn.,',--:: a calibre of 94mm (3,7in). Ther:srliri was approved for production=. :ie Ordnance, QF, 3.7 in, but initial:l::[ess towards thts goal was so slow::.1: rt was not until 1938 that the pilot:::duction models were issued for de-:.-:looment trials,

The main reason for this slow Pro-ll:ss was the gRln's carriage While::-e Eun was a fairly straightforward but:--: dern component, the carriage was::mplex to what seemed an extreme.l:e qun was intended for use ln the

-eld by the army and thus had to be:lly mobile, but the final assembly was'.';:lat can only be classed as 'semt-:::brie' The gmn and its cradle and:.:Cdle rested on a largTe flringiplatform',';:Lch rn action rested on four outrig-;:rs The front wheels were raised off::: g,round rn actron in order to Pro-'.'rle some counter-balance for the','.:rght of the gn-rn mass, and the rear

Right:The static version of the.Britkh3.7 -in (94-mm) anti-afucratt gqn wasthe M k I I, of which there were' threeslightly different versions. T hisveision had a power rammer andhad a characteristic counterbalanceweioht over the breech tocoipensate for the long barrel.

Below: A 3'7-in (94-mm) grun sited in adesert sangar formedbY filling oldItalian ammunition boxes withslones. flre ba rrel is fitted withmakeslri/tsrglr ts as theguwas nodoubt operating awaY trom itsnormalposition.

::',','rng end) axle was removed, Pro-:::tLon of the carriage soon Proved to:: a time-consuming bottleneck, to the:..ent that production began of what,'.'is to be a purely statlc carriage for

=::clacement in conctete, As time'.'.'ent on the carriage was re-::.crneered to a more manageable::lm Thus the fust production car-r. :le was the Mk I, the static carriage:.: Mk II and the fina1 production ver-

s:::. the Mk lll; there were sub-marks-: ail of these.',Yhen the equrpment was first-.s:ed the gunners did not take kindly: - :i as they by far preferred the hand--:: and familiar 76,2-mm (3-in) gnrn, but:','ar they came to appreciate that the::::crmance of the 94-mm (3,7-in): : r:ance by far exceeded that of the-.ier qn:a. In fact the 94-mm (37-in):.:i an excellent all-round perform-::-:e even if emplacing and moving it','.':s sometrmes less than easy, As more

=l-ipments entered service theY-,':=:e gnadually fitted with improved:--.j centrahzed fire-control systems-:-.i such extras as Power ralnmers

=:-j ruse setters, By 1941 the tYPe--::::ed the matnstay of the army's anti-

=-:::aft defences, and went on throuqlh::-= :3st of the war to prove itself to be--. ::<:ellent weapon.

-.-.: 94-mm (3 7-in) gun was im-:::sseC rnto use as an anti-armouri'..::.3:r rn the Western Desed cam-: =-1s but its weight and bulk made it,::s ::an effective in this role although- :::lj strll knock out any tank set:rr-i::i .i Instead it was retained for',',---..: -:'.';as best suited, the anti-alrcraft:- -= r:.::hr.rs the 94-mm (3,7-tn) never:=--',' ;:: a Chance tO Plove itSelf as:,-= l:-:s: equtvalent of the Germani i -:',';.s r-rsed on occasion as a longt-

: .:-;: :-:ri pLece and was even at one.-=:= :: ::e war used as a Coastal de-:=,-.--: ::-- i-lo'uvever, tts use in this role' - :. ::: :,ands of the Germans, who:-: :.:::r:d some of the tYPe at-.'-j: -!'!. -:ei' aoprectated the effec--..::.a:s :: ::.: 'n'eaPon they telmed'-= 3 4-cm Flak Vickers M.39(e) so

much that they even went to the trou-b1e of manufacturtng their ownammunitton for them for both the Flakand the coastal defence roles, In thelatter they were particularly effectiveat Walcheren, where 94-mm (3 7-in)guns sank several Allied landingcraft,

The gnrn soldiered on in British useuntil Antr-Aircraft Command was dls-banded during the 1950s. ManY weresold or handed over to other nations,and some strll suwive in use in suchlocations as South Alrica and Burma

SpecificationOrdnance, QF,3.7 inMk IIIonCarriageMkIIICalibre: 94 mm (3,7 in)Weight: complete 93 17 kg (20,54 1 ]b)Dimensions: lengrth overall travelling8,68? m (28 ft 6 in); width 2.438 m (B ft);heiqht 2.502 m (B ft 2.5 in); lenqth ofbariel4.7 m (15 ft 5 in); lenqthof rifling3,982 m(13 ft0.95 in)Elevation: +80"/-5"Traverse:360'Maxirnum effective ceiling: 9754 m(32,000 ft)Shellweight:HE 12.96 kg(28.56 lb)Muzzle velocity: 792 m (2,600 ft) persecond

Avictory saluteisfired inMaY 1945by a complete battery ot I 2 3.7 -in(94-mm) wns, probably on theLarkhill ranges on Salisbury Plain.

These g]uns were onlvjust entefingproduction when the war began, butthey remained in British sewice untilthelate 1950s.

Ack-Ack in the Bcftle of BritainThe long, hot summer of 1940 saw the air defences of Britain straining under theweight of air attacks of unpreceden fed sca Ie. The parts played by the RAF and byradar were well known, but the contribution made hy the thousands of anti-aircraftgrun crews labouring long hours under spartan conditions was also important,although less glamorous, and has often beenoverlooked.

T 'rfe on an ack-ack (ack-ack for AA or anti-arrcraft) site was never a pleasure in i940, forie sites were seemingly set in remote areas:ar from civilization, There were few amenities:c hand, and there was at all times the prospectcf imminent action with all the dangers it couldentail. On one particular site in north Kent it',vas even iess pleasant than usual, for this wassituated among the mud flats on the southernedge of the Thames estuary. Not only was thesihration bleak and desolate, but it was alsoniles from the nearest centre of habitation and:acilities on the site were basic to an extreme.

The battery had moved there during theprevious winter, which had turned out to berne of the coldest and most severe in living:nemory, The bulk of the battery personnel,vere ex-Territorials who had trained for yearsoefore i939 on the old 76-mm (3-in) anti-aircraftgnm, a weapon they had come to lqow and'.mderstand intimately. Unfortunately once ithad been mobilized the battery's oificers andNCOs had been supplemented by a leaveningcf regular officers and NCOs and their old gn:nsnad been taken away. In their place the batteryhad been given four of the new 94-mm (3 7-in)3n:ns, and these it had taken to the new site onte mud flats.

When the battery arrived there everythingwas under a sea of mud. The electrical supplywas prone to breakdown, so the men usuallyhad to rely upon their ovrn battery generatorsfor lighting, and fuel was scarce llcr the stovesthat signally failed to warm the stark interiors ofthe Nissen huts rn which the gmnners had tolive, In some ways the personnel consideredthemselves fortunate, for their site did at leasthave Nissen huts. Some batteries had to survivethe winter of 1939-40 under canvas.

Over the nine months since it moved in, thebattery had managed to clear the place up abit. The long summer days had dried up muchof the mud, but even a shower could turn ev-erything soggry again. The gn:n pits remaineddry by the constant efforts of the gmnners, whilethe precious ammunltion was always keptciean and dry in the specrally-erected comr-gated iron and sandbag shelters, Each pit wassurrounded by a bank of extra sandbags setupon the concrete walls, and slit trenches,often full of water, were situated by each gnrnpit in case of sudden attack emergencies, Thebattery had had its share oi those, for on manyoccasions the Luftwaffe had used the outline ofthe Thames estuary as a convenient navigation-ai mark to point the way to London. As the

massed formations winged their way towardsLondon the battery was frequently in action,firing away as targets presented themselves.At times the battery itself became the focus oiattention, German fighters swooping down todeliver a few bursts of machine-gnrn and can-non fire. The guns were virtually uselessagainst such low-flying and fleeting targets sothe battery had asked for and received twoLewis gun installations, each with four oldLewis gn:ns mounted on a singie pivot. Thesehad been empiaced in their own special pits oneach extreme edge of the site and competrtionto man them was intense,

The battery had been in action on nearlyevery day since June 1940. The early days ofboredom and cold on the site had turned intoperiods of frantic activity or standing by thegnrns. Sometimes the gmnners never saw tlietargets they were engaging as fire-control da:awere issued from a remote location away in iheMedway tovrns to the south. On other days the',-could see their targets only too clearly as 'iehuge formatrons of German bombers weavejtheir way through clear skies towards the:maln target of l:ondon, If they ever had trme ::watch, the gunners could see the delicate c::--trarls of the delending Supermarine Spt:le.and Hawker Hurricanes as they wove theu',';:-.'

An AA battery in action during the Blitz on London.To the right canbe seen fie sm all canvas, s andfu Jand corrugated iron ammunition shelter, withready-usesfie/Is gleaming in the grun flash. Later ::the war, the advent of radar control would makenight firing much more ef{ective.

;ItttI

r

r

Ack-Ack inthe Battle of Britain

through the massed bombers, Sometime theycould see an aircraft falling out of the sky, attimes followed by a parachute or two and attimes not, But only rarely had they time to standand watch.

Most of the gmnners' trme was taken up inserving the gn:ns. The gn:ns had to be laid,watching the pointer of the fire-control instru-ments and awaiting the signal to fire that cameover the Tannoy loudspeaker or through theheadset earphones. Ammunition had to be fedconstantly into the gnrn, for every time the gnrn

fired and recoiled, a new round had to beready for ioading as soon as the barrel ran backinto the home position. The sheer handling ofthe bulky and heavy rounds soon reducedeven the strongest men to shattered heaps andrelays had to stand by to take over when any-one tired. And as if actually loading the gn:nwere not in itself arduous enough, the ammuni-tion still had to be carried from the magazinesand dumps to the gnms. This involved anyonewho was to hand, from cooks to clerks. Evenwhen action ended the magazines and ready-use ammunition dumps had to be replenishedready forthe next actioncallwhich might comeany moment.

It was this constant labour that the gmnners

The early stages of the Battle of Britain saw adetermined German assau/t on lft e Britishdefences, and anti-aircraft positlbnssucfi as fhisbattery in Kent had to do their best to camouflagetheirequipment.

were later to recall. Although they did notknow it at the time, the Battle of Britain wasbeing fought and won over their heads as theylaboured away feeding shells into the ever-hungry gnrns. From time to time there was somelight reliei such as the day when a Hwricanepilot from Biggin Hi[ dropped into the middleof the site on his parachute oniy to alight smackon top of the fire-control centre. Later in theday he flew past the site at low ievei in a newHurricane waggling his wings in thanks. Thenthere was the day when a Messerschmitt Bf I l0decided to make a low-level attack when thegun crews were not actively engaging a target.

A permanent battery on the fringes of London.Visible in the nearer emplacements arerangefinder and height finder , while in thebackground one of the gans awaits target data. Ina site sucft as ti is, the four gruns oI the batterywould be linked to the central fire control point hyTannoy or telephone.

The gnrnners could see him coming from milesoffacross the muddy wastes of the estuary andwhen he actually attacked every man whocould grab a rifle fired away along with theLewis gnrns. The Bf I i0 made only one attack-ing pass and did no damage, but he flew awaywith smoke coming from one engine. The bat-tery personnel never knew if they hit him ornot, but they aii feit a lot better after that epi-sode.

During the middle of August the enemy ac-tion reached a crescendo. Wave after wave ofbombers moved up the estr:ary only to fly backin smaller and more disorganized formationsafter the fighters had been among them, Thebattery remained in action for hours at a timeand reguired a constant stream of ammunitionsupply trucks filing along the singie narrowroad that had been built to the site. After themiddle of Augn:st the pace slackened a bit, butthe raids continued to forge their way up theThames, The peak had passed but the batteryknew it not and laboured on in the fine sunnyweather.

NightblitzThen came a change. There were a few days

at the beginning of September when no raidscame. Time was spent on malntenance for thegmns, and yet more ammunition was stock-piled. But suddeniy the tempo and nature of thegunners' battle changed, The Luftwaffe attack-ed at night. They had done this before at oddtrmes, but the new night attacks were on amuch larger scale. The gunners had to fireblind. A11 they cor:ld do was iay the gn:ns alongfixed lines down which they hoped the enemybombers would fly and they simply fired theen-ms as soon as they could be loaded. Theyrarely saw the enemy, despite the frantic acti-vities of the searchlight batteries, and even if atarget was suddenly caught in a beam it re-mained there for a short while only beforeweaving away from its attentions.

These night raids then started to come everynight. Away to the west the fires started by theraids lit the sky and all through most days a pallof smoke hung over where London was burn-ing. But the days brought no respite llcr thequnners. Small raids, sometimes of only two orthree aircraft continued to sweep up the estu-ary, and these were engaged whenever theyventured into range. At all times the guns werekept manned in case of sneak or iow-levelattacks, and from time to time a solitary aircraftwinged its way over following an attack on oneof the Medway tovms. Sleep became one of thequnners' major preoccupations. Neariy everynigrht they had to work the gnins and every daythere were constant alarms and periods of ac-tion, to say nothing of the day{o-day routine ofrunning the site and attending to everydayduties.

But although they did not yet krow it, thegn:nners on that remote site had already playedtheir part in winning the Battle of Britain. TheLuftwaffe had been forced away from itschosen policy of massed daylight raids into thefar more inaccurate and less effective nightraids. All they could now hope to do was hitLondon, and London was a large city capableof absorbing a great deal of damage andcasualties. The nights that followed thatSeptember were lrequently fi-rll of danger anddeath but the worst was already past. After thewinter of 1940-l Hitler hxned his attention tothe east and the night raids simply faded away.

The gmnners had done their bit.

Heavy Anti-Aircraft Guns of World War II\.Y

L''h!.-

b''\' t'

!

London had become the major Luttwaffe targetduring the lattersfages of llreBa ttle of Britain, andanti-aircraft batteries along the Kentcoast andThatnes estuary were presented with hundreds oftargets. At such times seling the gruns becameautomatic, andwith actions lastingfor hoursphysical exhaustion could become a serrbusproblem.

/t-

\:$\ WtrTr-,;/

1: -F

It

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Ordnance, QF, 4.5 in, AA Mk II

The British 4.i-in anti- aircraft ganwas not meant to be an easilYtransportable weapon, as it wasoriginally a naval gun.ln order tomove these gruns across the country aspecial transporting catiage wasproduced, but even so moving thegrunwas slow and awlaryard.

The gmn that was to become the Britrsharmy's 4,5-inch anti-atrcraft gmn had arather muddled provenance, for it wasactually a naval gun intended for useon board heavy vessels, It was under-gToing acceptance trials in 1936 when itwas decided that it would make anrdeal anti-atrcraft weapon for the army,and after some tnter-service discus-sion the Admiralty agrreed to divertsome of its anticipated production tothe army, but only on the understand-ing that the gmns would be emplacedfor the local defence of naval dock-yards and other such installations.More muddle ensued when rt was dis-covered by the army that the navalgmns (actual cahbre l13mm/4.45in)were intended for mounting tn pairs.The army wanted single mountings, sotime was lost while the necessarychanges were made and tested.

When the type did eventually getrnto service (as the Ordnance, QF,4.5 in AA Mk II) in time for the difftcultdays of 1940, it was emplaced as astatlc weapon only, Some measure ofmobility could be provrded by ustng aspecial heavy transporter trailer butsuch moves were diffrcult and lengthy,and required a grreat deal of prepara-tion, Once emplaced, the gmns demon-strated their naval origins by the reten-tion of a turret-type mountlng thatrested on a base of heavy steel plate.The turret-type shelter over the gnrn

had only limited protectlve valueagainst steel splinters or fallinq shrap-

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nel, but was welcome on some of thebleak gnrn-sites at which the weaponswere located.

The qnrn had a1l the usual naval attri-butes, namely items such as a Powerrammer, a healry counter-welght overthe breech and. a firse setter on theIoading tray. The ammunition handlingequipment was very necessarY, foreach complete round weighed38.98 kq (85.94 lb) and the movementof such weights over even a shortperiod would soon have exhausted theammunition handlers.

By 1941 the need to locate the gflrns

around Admiralty-signiflcant areashad been relaxed somewhat, allowingsome of the guns to be relocated onstretches of coastline. There theycould be used in a dual antt-aircrafVcoastal defence role, but the numbersinvolved were never large as most ofthe gmns remained in therr stattc em-placements, These gn-rns were issuedwrth a special armour-Piercingammunrtion, but the projectiles gener-ally fired were of the HE type, althoughthere was a special but little-usedshrapnel projectile intended for localdefence against low-flyinq aircraft

By 1944 rt was intended that the qunshould be phased out in favour of themore powerful i33-mm (5.25-tn)weapon, but this never haPPened andsome I l3-mm (4.45-in) weapons werestill in their static emplacements as lateas 1951.

SpecificationOrdnance, QF, 4.5 in, AA Mk IICalibre: 113 mm (4 45 rn)Weight:emplaced 16841 kq(37, 128 Ib)Dimensions: heiQlht of muzzle aboveground emplaced (0' elevatton)2,438 m (B ft) or (80'elevatron) 7.163 m(23 ft 6 rn)i lengrth ofbarrel 5 086 m(16 ft8 25 in); Iengthof nflrngi4.341 m( 14 ft 2.9 rn)Elevation: +801-0"

Originally produced as secondaryarmament for maj or warships, the4.i-in retained some navalcharacteristics.

Traverse:360"Maximum ceiling: 12984 m (42,600 ft)Shell weight: 24.7 kq (54.43 lb)Mruzle velocity: 732 m (2,400 ft) Persecond

ffil Slin nr,,iaircraft Gun M3When the USA decided to adopt ananti-aircraft gn:n during World War 1itsaved a great deal of developmenttrme by taking a couple of 76,2-mm(3-in) coast defence guns and adapttngthem for the new task. T\ruo main ver-srons emerged from this oPeration,one a static gnln and the other a mobtlegun using a basic form of Platformmounting. In time the mobile mountingwas used as the basrs for a more mod-ern mobile equipment, and starting lnthe mid-1920s a Qlreat deal of ex-perlmental and develoPment workwas carried out, the original M1918coastal defence gnrns still being usedas the basis.

By the time that this developmentwork had been completed, the origin-al gmn was virtually unrecognlzable

The rifling had been changed andpractrcally every other item on the gmnwas altered to some degree as well.The main trouble was that the qnrn itselfproved to be far too difficult to makeand required a qreat deal ofmachiningto very close tolerances, Some rede-sign resulted in the 3-in Antiaircraftgun M3, whtch also had a semi-automattc breech block, It was this gnrn

that was standardized for use wtth thenew mobrle platform, itself the result ofa great deal ofdevelopment. The ori-ginal World War I platform had beenvery much a 'mshed' job, and as suchleft much to be desired in the eyes ofthe US fumy, whrch sought an idealsolution, In time this emerged as thecarriaqe known as the M2 or 'SPiderMount: this was a pedeslal mounting

with a number of long outrigger leqsover which a thrck mesh platform waslard for the gun crew. The arrange-ment was certainly practical but thelong outrigger legs, which folded up-wards to the centre, took up a greatdeal of ground space.

By the mid-1930s it was obvrous thatthe days of the M3 were comlng lo anend, and the basic design was onceagain revamped tn an effort to securebetter performance. An entirely new90-mm (3,54-in) design was already onthe way, however, and thus the re-vamped M3 did not prosper. lnsteadthe existing equipments were gradual-ly withdrawn from front-line use as thenew 90-mm (3.54-in) gmns appeared.This took trme, and when the USA en-tered the war in 1941 the olcl M3 was

still rn use in the Philtppine Islands,where the weapons were used as longas the islands held out. Some ltngeredon for a while in other Pactfic areas,and dunng early 1942 some were Pa-raded through US west coast townsand crttes in a progrramme to boostcivilian morale. These west coast gunswere culled matnly from trainingstocks, for by early 1942 the M3 was tnuse as a training gnrn only. Many of thegunners who subsequently went on toman the 90-mm (3,54-mm) guns startedtheir servrce training using up the ex-isting ammunition stocks for the M3gnrns. Once this traininq role had beencompleted the old guns still found ause, lor many were removed from thelrSpider Mountings and renovated foruse as the barrels for the MS antl-tank

1_.- I--:.--=g /:,-- t.f : -.----..-:

;-:- a:: '--j : : .: '1.= rt - -.. . - '1.='-: -- , : -

- At one pon: -i-.::: a:r's j:j:.::::+.'.'

1:er Dunl<uk there '.'.'::3 :;a:i :: sellnumbers of M3 guns io the UnitedKrngdom to replenrsh AA guns lost atDunhrk, but in the event none madethe Atlantrc crossing.

Specification3-in Antiaircraft Gun M3 on MountM2A2Calibre:76.2 mm (3 tn)weight: complete 7620 kg (16,800 lb)Dimensions: lenQrth travelling 7.62 m

(25 ft 0 rn); mdth 2, l0B m (6 ft 1 I in);height2,87 m(9 ft5 in); lengrthofbarrel3.81 m (12 ft 6 in); lengrthof rilling3, i96 m (i0 ft 5.83 in)Elevation: +80'/- i"Traverse:360'Maximum ceiling:9510 m (31,200 ft)Shell weisht: 5.8 kq ( I2,B lb)Muzzle velocity: HE 853 m (2,800 ft) persecond

tleavy Anu-Ausraft Gurs of World War II

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Left: The M3 was by I 94 I largelyrelegated to home defence, as manyof the gans dated back to WorldWar L Some did see action in the FarE as t during I I 42, however.

Above: In 1941 the Ame-:a: i-=(76.2-mm) gan was saj:: se.r:e::s eve r a I f o rm s. Th.is s !a ! c ;'e--= :: e--the 3-in Gun M4 on Mol:r.: J! 3 -.=uras usedln suci,loca:o:'s * :-:ePhilippines and the Cana- Zo:.e.

E iib-** Gun MIOnce it was realized that the old 76.2-mm (3-in) anti-aircraft gnrns were com-ing to the end of their service life dw-ing the late 1930s, it was decided bythe US Army to produce a weapon notonly with a better performance but onecapable of firing a heavier projectrle.Since a 90-mm (3,54-in) pro;ectile wasconsidered the upper weight limit ofwhat a soldier could handle manuallythis was fixed as the new calibre, anddesignworkbeganin 1938 By 1940theprototypes were approved for service

Right: The 90-mm Antiaircraft GunM2 was a much revised versionof theearlier M I but used a new carriagewith aturntable, a powerramme4fuse setter ard other changes. Thisresulted in an excellentgrun but onethatwas slow andexpensive toproduce.

use as the 90-mm Gun MI on Antiair-craft Mount MIAI, and productioncommenced with a high prioritycachet,

The Ml was a handsome but a rathercompiex weapon which proved dif-flcult to produce, The gmn assemblyitself was strarghtforward, but the car-riage was another matter, It was de-signed to be towed on a srngle axlewrth two pneumatic tyres on each side,

This 90-mm M 1 anti-aircraft gun isdug in to take part in beach defences.Other emplacemen fs can be seen,including one at the left rearcontaining the battery's r angefinderand othet tirc control equipment.The mount is the M I A I ; the later M2mounl useda turntable.

and rn actron rt stc:d ::.: --:-r-::r-mounting wrth the :r:.'. :'::.:.- -around the grun on a::. j:.;:.=::-.The problem was i: l=' :--:-: ::i.rtage and platiolr:. : . .:= : - :.-- ---.=

sinqle axle The:=.--.: r::.:= ::.scrrbed only m ::r,-.: - :':::

Soon after the Nl - ;-:- '.','- : .: - : : .'productron lt ras s:!!.::-:--,::: :1'the MIAI wL:ci. :.=::::'.-.-::. :-: '.-.+

fitting of a sprL:rqr :ai:j:.:: -:- ::::--::ths rammer pr:i'ei :: := :::= -: - -:.=than rt was ,','::::. r-.1 ,'. 1: i-:--.' ::'moved. but an3t:er ::,1:.;: ;'.'- :-=- ::--:way. In Julv 1li- -:',',':-. :=1.:=::.-.i: --.future the j--r..r. : :=-..-. ;-:. J.: :::'rLage wo'Jo :a','= :: :: :i:: - : -: - - '

gaeflng sea a:j ]-.j :-;:- - '.'.=-TL.^-^--. -i-:- - -r ltD Iltgdl-t : :9. i-- -.on the lv1- ::i:-il: -.a.: :-:. l: -: :.:'

3- -:rm Gun M I (continued)

:= ::pressed below 0', and the-::':::ii]]ty was taken to incorporate a::-':al redesign, The M2 carnage had- :::a11y different design with a low:-::.g platform carried on four outrtg-;:: Iegs when firing. It was much:.::-Crer and quicker to get into action,rd some versions also had a smalls.:Leld The main change, however,-,'.'as to the gun, which became the M2ln which the ammunttion feed for a newruse setter and rammer was added,ths making fuse settinq much morerapid and accurate, and also raisingrthe rate of flre to a possible 27 roundsper minute. Yet more accuracy andIethality was added in late 1944 whenthe 90-mm (3,54-in) gun was used as

one of the flrst weapons on land to firethe new proximity-fused round, one ofthe most advanced weapon develop-ments of the war years, Using thts fuseone gunner managed to shoot down aFocke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter with a sing-Ie shot as the unfortunate aircraftattempted to intewene in the Arden-nes campaigin, The 90-mm (3.54-in)gmn and the proximity fuse were alsoinstrumental in the defeat of the V-lflying bombs over southern England.

The 9o-mm (3 54-in) gnrn in all itsforms was manufactured in larqte num-bers, By August 1945 a total of7,B3l ofall types had been produced, This in-cluded some gnrns intended for staticmountingT only, and some gmns were

indeed used around the coasts of thecontinental USA in a dual anti-aircraiVcoastal role,

The 90-mm (3.54-rn) gmn was alsoused rn a ptreiy coast defence mount-rng in a special armoured turret, and atone stage it was proposed that theseturrets would even have their ownautomatic loaders, thus removing theneed for men to crew them in action asthey would be aimed and fired by re-mote control. The 90-mm (3,54-in) gunwas also used in M36 tank destroyersmounted on Sherman chassis, andthere were several advanced desiqnsrnvolved in the production of a towed90-mm (3.54-in) anti-tank gnrn, but noneof these saw sewice.

Specification90-mmGunM2onMountM2Calibre:90 mm (3.54 in)Weight: complete 14651 kg (32,300 lb)Dimensions: lengrth travelling 9.02 I m(29 ft 7. 15 rn); height 3.073 m (10 ft I in);wheelbase 4,166 m (I3 ft 8 in); lengrthofbarrel4.50 m (14 ft 9,2 in)Elevation: +80'/- 10"Traverse:360"Maximumceiling: 12040 m (39,500 ft)Shellweisht: 10.6 kg (23.4 lb)Muzzle velocity: 823 m (2,700 ft) persecond

f [i" Soviet 85-mm sunsBy the late 1930s the Soviet armedforces, in common vflth many otherarmed forces of the trme, decided thatthe anticipated increases in aircraftperformance over the next few yearswould soon render their curent anti-aircraft weapors obsolete, According-ly they set about looking for a moremodern anti-aucraft gnrn with a betterall-round performance, but, in typicalSoviet fashion, instead of designing anew weapon they used an old designas the basis for a new weapon, Theysimply took the 76.2-mm (3-in) Model1938 and enlarqed it all round to be-come an 85-mm (3.346-in) gnrn. Thenew qun was desigmated the B5-mmAnti-Aircraft Gun Model 1919, and issometimes lanown as the KS-12.

The Model 1939 was very similar tothe 76.2-mm (3-in) Model 1938, butcould be easily recognized by its mul-ti-baffle muzzle brake, a feature lackedby the 76,2-mm (3-in) gun. A shieldwasan optional extra. Production of theModel 1939 was just getting under wayat Kaliningrad, near Moscow, whenthe Germans invaded in 1941, so theentire plant was moved to the Urals forthe rest of the war, Once back in pro-duction the Model 1939 became thestandard heavy anti-aircraft gmn of theRed Army, though it was replaced inproduction during 1944 by the morepowerful 85-mm Anti-Aircraft GunModel 1944 or 16-18. This was vLtuallythe same weapon as the Model 1939,but could use a more powerfirl chargeto boost ail-round performance withthe same projectile as that of the Model1939,

Both the Model 1939 and the Model1944 were designed from the outset tobe used as anti-armour weapons in thesame manner as the German '88'. Theywere so successful in this roie that theGermars prized them as war bootyand used any captured examplesalongside their own BBs under the de-srgmations 8.S-cm Flak M.39(r) and 8.5-cm Fla-k M.44(r), As with the Soviet76 Z-mm (3-in) quns, captwed exam-ples were also shipped back to theP.eLch for home defence, where they',';ere rebored to the standard German:8 mm (3.465 in) once all captured-nnunition stocks had been ex-p:i:ded Most of the gnrns used in this'.'.'al by the Germans were Model-::9s rvhrch became 8.5/8.8-cm FlakM.39(r) g'uns.

Tne Model 1939 and the Model 1944;e:e both good anti-aircraft gmns, and:: < ls atlested by the fact that many ares::rl :n actLve service to this day, Num-

bers are still in servtce with some ofthe Warsaw Pact nations (but not theSoviet Union itself) and they are likelyto be encountered in countries as drverse as the Sudan and Vretnam, Largenumbers were active during the Viet-nam conflict against the US At Force.These 'modern' guns now usually relyon some form of centralized fire-control system, usually radar-based,and the origdnal on-carrier fire controlsare now either removed or little used

The B5-mm (3 346-in) Snrn itself wasr:sed as the basts for a number of otherSoviet weapon projects. it wasadopted to become the main arma-ment ofthe SU-85 assault gmn/tank des-troyer, and was even adapted for useon a towed anti-tank gnrn mounting.

Specification85-mm Anti-Aircraft Gun Model I 939Calibre: 85 mm (3.346 in)Weight: travelling 4220 kg (9,303 lb)and fring 3057 kg (6,739 Ib)Dimensions: lengrth travelling 7.049 m(23 ft 1.5 in); width 2, i5 m (7 ft 0.65 in);height2,25 m(7 ft4,6 in); lengrthofbarrei 4,693 m ( l5 ft 4.76 in); length ofrifling3,494 m (I I ft 5,54 tn)Elevation: +82"/-2"Traverse:360'Ma:<imum ceiling: 10500 m (34,450 ft)Shell weight: 9,2 kq (20.29 lb)Muzzle velocity: 800 m (2,625 ft) persecond

T he 8 5 - mm anti- afu craft gun w asdeveloped from the successful 76.2-mm serr'eg and proved highlyeffective in sewice. Much prized bythe G erm ans, captured equipmentwas usedalongrside the famous'88'.Many were used in the detence ofGermany from the AIIied bombingcampaign.

The Soviet 85-mm (3.346-in) Model1939 was sogood thatsomewere stillin use inVietnam during the earlyI 970s. The Wn was also known as theKS - I 2, and was much used by theGermans after I 94 l, many being re-bored to take 88-mm (3.465-in)German ammunition.

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Armed Forces of the WorldPart 4

US ila tnef

US Marine Corps Order of Battle

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rI*r IUS Marinedivisions are deployedwith MarineAircraft Wings, Support Groups and M arinebrigades to form fleet amphibious forces,.combined arms units ready for battle anywhere intheworld.

HO MARINE CORPS, WASHINGTON DCFLEET MARI NE FORCE ATLANTICFLEET MARINE FORCE PACIFICFLEET MARINE FORCE EUROPE (DESIGNATE)MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTERMARINE CORPS RESERVE

FLEET MARIN E FORCE ATLANTIC(FMFLANT).NORFOLK,VAll Marine Amphibious Force. Norfolk, Va

4th Marine Amphibious Brigade22nd lvlarine Amphibious Unit. Camp Lejeune, NC26th Marine Amphibious Unit, Camp Lejeune, NC28th lvlarine Amphibious Unit, Camp Lejeune, NC

2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, NG6th Marine Amphibious Brigade2nd Marines6th Marines8th Marines'l oth Marines (Artillery)2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion2nd Combat Engineer Battalion2nd Reconnaissnce Battalion2nd Tank Battalion

2nd Force Service SupportGroup4th Marine Division (Reservel, NewOrleans,La

FLEET MARINE FORCE PACIFIC (FMFPAC)CAMP H.M. SMITH, HII Marine Amphibious Forcelll Marine Amphibious Force31st Marine Amphibious Unit37th Marine Amphibious Unit

lst Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, Ca1st Marlnes5th l\,4arines7th Marines'1 1th Marines {Artillery)3rdAssaultAmphibian Battalion, Camp Pendleton. Ca1 st Combat Engineer Division1 st Reconnaissance Battalion1 st Tank Battalion

lst Field Service Support Group1st Marine Brigade, Kaneohe, Hl

3rd MarinesBrigade Service Support Group

3rd Marine Division, Okinawa, Japan4th Marinesgth Marines1 2th N,4arines (Artillery)3rd Combat Engineer Battalion3rd Reconnaissance Battalion1 st Tracked Vehicle Battalion7th Communication Battalion

3rd Field Service Support Group

MARINE CORPSAIR GROUND COMBA-CENTER (MCAGCC), TWENTY-NI N E PA_\'SCA7th Marine Amphibious Brigade

27th Marine Regiment1 st Battalion, 4th Marines3rd Tank Battalion1 st Light Armoured Vehicte Bariat : -

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Armed Forces of the World

US Marine Corps Orderof Battle

Marine Aircraft GroupsMCCRTG'10 Yuma, Az f ighter/attack trainingMAG'I 1 El Toro, Ca VMFA/VMFPMAG-1 2 lwakuni, Japan VMA,,iVN4A(AWyVMAOMAG-13 El Toro, Ca VMA/VMA(AW)MAG-14 Cherry Point. NC VMA(AW)MAG''1 5 lwakuni, Japan VMFA/VlvlFPMAG-1 6 Tustin. Ca HMA/HMH/HMM/HlvlWMOMAG-24 Kaneohe Bay, Hl composite helicopter/fighter-

attackMAG-26 New River, NC HMH/HMMMWSG-27 Cherry Point, NC VMGRMAG-29 New River, NC HMA/HMWMOMAG-31 Beaufort, SC VMFAMAG-32 Cherry Point, NC VMAMAG-36 Futenma. Okinawa composite helicopterNWSG-37 El Toro, Ca VMGR

1st MAWMAG.1 2, MAG-1 5, I\'AG'36

2nd MAWMAG-14, MAG-26, MWSG-27, MAG.29, MAG 31, MAG-

3rd MAWMCCRTG-10, MAG'1I, MAG-'I3, MAG-16, MWSG-37

1st MBMAG 24

USMC FLYING UNITSVMFA.l 15 (F 45)VMFA 122 {F 45)vMFA.212 (f ,4S)

VMFA 232 (F-4S)

vMtA 235 il 45)VMFA 251 (F 45)vMI'A 25',] (F-4S)

VMFA-312 (F.4S)

VMFA-314 (F ]BA)VMFA 323 (F,]BA)

vMt A 333 (F-4S)

VMFA 451 (F 4S)

VMFA 531 (F 18A)

vMA-2r 1 (A 4M)VMA 2]4 {A,4M)VMA 223 (A-4M)

VMA,231 (AV 8)vMA-311 (A-4M)VMA 331 (A-4M)

Beginning Life as aTA-4F trainer, thisMcDonnellDouglas OA-4M Skyhawkis r'ssued as a 'fast-mover'FAC(Forward Air Control) aircraft, flying over the battlefield controlling and marking targets for the mainaerial strike force.

VMA 5]3 (AV 8)VMA 542 (AV 8)vMA(AW),121 (4-6E)VMA(AW) 224 \A.6EIVMA(AW) 242 \4,6E)VMA(AW) 332 (A-6E)

VMA(AW) 533 (4,6E)vMo r (ov loA,D)vMo 2 (ov 1oAD)vMGR,152 (KC-130F)

vMGR 252 (KC-1 30FrR)vN,4CR 352 (KC 1 30R)../MFP 3 (RF,4B)

VMAO.2 (EA-68)\,,r\,4FAT 101 (F4J,S)..,MAT.

J 02 (A4M, TA-4J),'[,1AT1AW) 202 1A-6E IC-4C.',1AT 203 rAV 8A TAV 8Ar.lf\'11'v1 I61 CH 46r

HMM ]62 lCH 46)t\4M,r 63 (CH 46)HMM,,64 (CH 46)Hl\,1\1-165 (CH 46)HN4l\/ 261 (CH-46)

HN4M 262 rCH46)lN4ivl 26:1 iCH46)N\1M 264 lCH-46)'ll!1M 265 iCH,46)-liYl\1-365 lCH 46)!t\lt _t6r cFl-53D)Fl\4r 362 CH'53D)H\44 363 CH-53D)!",,1r'36.1 'CH 53E)r\.1r.j6 ct 53D)t.!1-l 162 C..1,53D)r.,1-r 16:r CH-53D)i.,1r j6i cf].53L)i\.ri "69 AH.rT)

HMA 269 (AH 1T)

HMA 369 (Ar] 1T)

HML 167 (rJH,rN)

HML-267 (UH'1N)HML.268 (UH.1N)

HMX I (CH 46, CH 53 UH 1N)(sce nole)

HMT-201 (AH,IJ/T)HMT 204 (CH-46/53)

HMT 30',r (CH 46/53)

Note: HMX- I a so maintainsan Executivo Fl ghtDetachment wrth the VH T N,VH 34, VH 46 and VH 53Dfor use by the Prcs dent ofthe Un led States

The MarineCorps have procured the McDonnell Douglas FtA-18 Hornet to augment and finaL[y reppcetheVoughtA-7 Corsair il andMcDonnellDouglasF-4 Phantom II.HereanF/A-lSAwithpracticeAIM-9LSidewinders approaches the ramp of a carrier.

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