Could an 8,8cm Flak be used to fire at single planes flying at low altitudes?

[Krautman]

A story about Hitler promising some self-propelled 88s to a divisional commander in france made me think. As far as i know, 88s were used in batteries to take a certain area under fire through which a larger long-range bomber force was about to fly through; probably they were firing grenades that could be set to detonate at various altitudes. Yet the planes the germans were having trouble with in france were mostly the light fighter-bombers rendering close air support, right? So would an 88 be of use against e.g. a small group of quick fighter-bombers by direct fire?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Krautman:

A story about Hitler promising some self-propelled 88s to a divisional commander in france made me think. As far as i know, 88s were used in batteries to take a certain area under fire through which a larger long-range bomber force was about to fly through; probably they were firing grenades that could be set to detonate at various altitudes. Yet the planes the germans were having trouble with in france were mostly the light fighter-bombers rendering close air support, right? So would an 88 be of use against e.g. a small group of quick fighter-bombers by direct fire?

88s are, like all other HAA, perfectly capable of being laid on their targets. Nothing like as effective as 37mms against fighter-bombers, of course, but there is a case on record of a US 90mm AA gun downing a 109 with a single shot (and that without AA sights, as it was supposed to be in the ground role at the time).

And in any case, I'm sure there were plenty of medium bombers for the 88s to shoot at, too, and it might be one of those days when Bomber Command and the Mighty Eighth's heavies are being used in their tactical role.

All the best,

John.

[Zalgiris 1410]

The short answer is yes, 88s could be aimed at and fired against single low and fast flying fight-bombers, but AIUI the guns needed to use an extra fire control aiming system or director/predictor device called a 'Kommandogerat', the KdoGr 35 relied upon the use of telephone lines, while the KdoGr 36 was attatched with cables. They were distributed one per battery. I've got a good little book on the 88 Flak/ PAK gun with a lot of data on its workings, including fuse cutting for setting range and aiming and firing capabilities that leads me to conclude that they were able to be aimed and fired at very low altitude Jabos. For instance they could fire at the practical rate of 20 rpm against arial targets. In another thread which was discussing the 88s capacity for firing airburst against enemy Infantry targets IIRC it was figured that they could because of the minute adjustments for the fuse settings were sufficient for doing that with a round travelling at from 819m/sec initial velocity. The only problem would be the speed of traverse and elevation which would limit the practical coned out area of fire that the gun could target. Basically it could fire fast enough but only at aircraft in its relative line of fire. So any unfortunate Jabo that flew into their fire zone was probably going to be shot at by a few high velocity rounds of 88mms.

One point that seems relevant here is that the Germans (specifically Albert Speer actually) did not proceed with the development of a self-propelled version of the 88mm Flak as was done with the SP 88mm PAK in the Nashorn and JagdPanther/Tiger versions for dealing with the low flying Jabo threat for moblie units; because this role for an SP mounted AAG was being adequitely served by the 20mm and 37mm SP mounted Flak. This decision was mainly due to the fact that the 88s still required the above mentioned wires and cables linked aiming connections to their KdoGr director/pridictor device. So from this I surmise that they were indeed capable of engaging low flying Jabos. That said I don't have any information on how effectively.

[ September 27, 2005, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Krautman]

Thx