Discussion on Flak

[Javito1986 14]

Continuing my study of the SCIENCE of survival in the WW1 Airwar I now turn to flak. Ahhh flak. You can fly around in OFF for weeks and not even notice it. Just puffs of smoke around you on some of your missions. Pretty to look at! But dangerous? Pshaw. That is until, as just happened to me, one of them blows into the front of your plane and sends you to Earth in a smoking burning ruin. *sigh*

 

I've been hit three times by flak in my WW1 flight sim career. Once in RB3D years ago I was flying around at about 15,000 feet. Took a hit and fell spinning. Was a long, long way down. Second was in OFF several days ago on a balloon busting mission at low altitude. That one I kind of saw coming, made a very poorly planned attack at low altitude and was too damaged to really do much in the way of evasive maneuvering.

 

Third was this evening on a mission to bomb a railyard. The interesting thing about THIS time was that I considered myself a very difficult target and was not making much in the way of evasive maneuvers as a result. I'd just exited a thick cumulus cloud and was hurtling downwards towards the railyard at about a 60 degree angle, speed about 180mph. Still the warning signs were there, there were a few near misses hitting in front of my plane, the gunners were placing them right where I was GOING to be and I did more than once fly right through a cloud of flak smoke. In retrospect I should have recognized that, essentially, each of those 'near misses' allows them to adjust a little bit more until finally, at 7,000 feet while diving hard at a 45 degree angle and going almost 200mph I was absolutely pulverized by a direct hit. Goodbye promising career! Reached 8 hours on that one.

 

FYI I was using 'Normal' ground accuracy.

 

When under fire from flak I always make alterations in heading or altitude every 15 - 30 seconds but in this particular case I really considered myself a hard target and admit my surprise that I was hit. This last time I neglected that rule thinking I was safe and now I have to start a new career for that costly error! So what's flak's 'range'? How low or how high can it hit you and when is it MOST accurate? Did my high speed dive really make me a hard target or was it actually not very difficult for them to estimate where I would be soon so they could make a killing blow?

 

Also, I wonder if accuracy varies depending on where you are? Or is the 'ground accuracy' setting a uniform one for all ground units?

Edited January 29, 2010 by Javito1986

[Winston DoRight 3]

Normal flak accuracy is deadly enough. As the war progresses, flak becomes more dense and accurate. I prefer to start my careers in late1916 to early 1917. I'm usually dead from other causes before the flak gets extreme.

[Von Paulus 8]

Normal flak accuracy is deadly enough. As the war progresses, flak becomes more dense and accurate. I prefer to start my careers in late1916 to early 1917. I'm usually dead from other causes before the flak gets extreme.

 

Survival is a tough thing in OFF. Maybe it's one of the several reason why we're addicted to it.

[Creaghorn 10]

historical stats say that it needed in average 10500 shells for one direct hit. so normal seems fine imo, considering how many bursts you can see in the distance when seeing specks. also the higher you are, the lesser the chance to get hit. most hits in BHAH are from mid to low altitude. i got shot down only once by flak yet, and my mission altitude is set to high.

near balloons flak should be hell, because they know exactly the altitude of their balloon and because there is a rim around it, so the attacking aircraft has to fly sooner or later through the shells. that's why balloonbusting was an artform which not everybody was good enough to do, and that's why there were developed various tactics to attack it. especially because a balloon shouldn't go down after the first pass but needed to be punctured several times mostly.

[Bullethead 12]

How low or how high can it hit you and when is it MOST accurate? Did my high speed dive really make me a hard target or was it actually not very difficult for them to estimate where I would be soon so they could make a killing blow?

 

Flak can shoot very low indeed. The most extreme case I know of is if you fly for Jasta 4 in about July 1918, whenver it is when they get D.VIIs. Their airfield is actually in amongst the trenches, where gas clouds sometimes blow across the runway. At this airfield, you start taking flak during your takeoff roll, before you leave the ground. Never a dull moment there .

 

As for how high it shoots, I don't think there's a plane in OFF that can climb completely out of its reach. However, high alitude minimizes your exposure due the combination of vertical and horiztontal distance. The gun's field of fire is a hemisphere so is narrower at the top than at the bottom. The higher you fly, therefore, the more directly over the guns you have to fly for them to be able to shoot at you. Thus, at high altitude, you can fly between defended locations without getting shot at, where at lower levels 1 or both would be able to range you. As such, you can avoid all flak except that at your target itself.

 

Flak's accuracy isn't very good, but it does seem to improve over time the longer they shoot at you, provided you hold a steady course. It appears that flak is most accurate at short range, but this is hard to quantify because I hardly ever see the guns themselves. Thus, I equate short range with low altitude. But again, letting them have repeated shots at you while you hold steady seems to be the worse thing you can do. Fortunately, when I'm at low altitude, I'm usually in some wild furball so this isn't a problem. But what you have to look out for then is the AAMGs, which are WAY more deadly than flak. Probably the worst thing you can do as far as flak goes is fly along straight and level at about say 3-5000 feet, just above the reach of AAMGs.

 

All that said, I hardly ever get hit by flak. Most of these occasions were when on bomb runs at medium to high level, when I had to fly straight. The other times I've been hit were when the flak was bursting below and behind the enemy 2-seater I was attacking.

[Bullethead 12]

historical stats say that it needed in average 10500 shells for one direct hit.

 

That seems to have improved significantly as the war went on.

 

I found a cool article by Bletchley over at the Aerodrome on this subject:

 

http://http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/reference-articles/24267-some-observations-german-anti-aircraft-fire-over-western-front-1914-1918-a.html

[jxeboy 0]

The thing that stumps me is how they shoot flak up to dogfight in action. Certainly in real life they wouldn't do this? It seems just as likely they'd hit one of their own planes as one of the enemies.

 

~Jake

[Creaghorn 10]

The thing that stumps me is how they shoot flak up to dogfight in action. Certainly in real life they wouldn't do this? It seems just as likely they'd hit one of their own planes as one of the enemies.

 

~Jake

 

 

that's true. they shot only with bursts as long as were no friendlies near. the germans even developed a method to warn the friendly if he was unaware of apporaching enemies, by shooting some bursts in front of the german to gain their attention, then they started shooting at the enemies. during a furball at least ack ack stopped as long as i know.

[Bullethead 12]

The thing that stumps me is how they shoot flak up to dogfight in action. Certainly in real life they wouldn't do this? It seems just as likely they'd hit one of their own planes as one of the enemies.

 

Actually, this is exactly what they did on the Western Front. The whole sky was a free fire zone for flak and it was up to the friendly planes to stay clear or get into it. Around London, things were different. There, they had alternating rings for flak and fighters. Flak only fired in its zones, and the fighters were supposed to stay in theirs although they usually flew into the flak zones at their own risk.

 

But bear in mind that London had somewhat more flak guns than the entire Brit sector of the Western Front. Even in late 1918 when the Germans had pretty much quit their raids. So with orders of magnitude denser flak at home, I can see them thinking that separate fighter and flak rings were necessary. And just as Home Defense fighters usually ignored their geographical limits with usually no harm done, why should anybody worry about friendlies in the much lighter flak at the front?

 

"Kill them all. God will recognize his own."

[jxeboy 0]

That's scary to think you would be shot down from your own side. I guess it happens though, both on the ground, and up in the air. I recently got pummeled by my wing mate.

 

I wonder how that conversation would go back at base.

 

 

~Jake

[Javito1986 14]

I keep Oswald Boelke's fate in mind always and make it a point to steer clear of friendly planes in a dogfight. If I'm chasing down an enemy plane and one of my wingmen decides to join in I break off and let him have it.

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there:

 

BH, while there are a large number of articles on FLAK from the German perspective, I have yet to see reports indicating that FLAK was sent up in friendly/enemy fur balls to take out all. From reading about the German defenses, FLAK was a to safe gaurd the Industrial bases, military, etc. It was set up to thwart the bomber attack, and prevent Observers from getting their intel. Flak gunners did "lead' their Scouts to the enemy with leading fire. It was quite ineffective until mid 1917, and then in 1918, became 3 X more accurate with tech advances, and the German 88.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

[catch 81]

Detection by sound, they no longer needed to look at you with Telescopes. No Longer were you difficult to spot at high altitude in the mist, darting from cloud to cloud. Now the sound of your unrestrained engine gave your altitude and course.

 

 

What's that young man ? Eh ? Wot ! I SAY, WOULD YOU MIND ENUNCIATING CLEARLY INTO THESE TUBES

[Bullethead 12]

BH, while there are a large number of articles on FLAK from the German perspective, I have yet to see reports indicating that FLAK was sent up in friendly/enemy fur balls to take out all

 

I think you misunderstood me. At the front, flak owned the "right of way". It could shoot at any enemy planes it wanted to, and if friendly planes decided to attack enemy planes that were under fire by flak, that was at their own risk. So, at the front, don't complain about being nailed by friendly flak, because the rules are in flak's favor.

 

OTOH, at London, flak was under clear orders to fill given areas of sky with shrapnel. Most of this was unaimed barrage fire to deny airspace. But even when aimed, they just had indistinct searchlight sightings at best, mostly just sound. IOW, they couldn't easily tell friend from foe. So again, friendly planes entered flak zones at their own risk. The only diference between this and the front was that around London flak couldn't shoot everywhere, while at the front it could.