Making it easier to see bandits via flak/Archie

[33LIMA 972]

Just flew another RE8 mission with BlastRadius=5 and got away with a successful bombing raid on train sheds NW of Cambrai, tho one of the flight was last seen descending under control trailing smoke, believed damaged by the Archie while making his bomb run. Will stick with 5 and see how that goes. Still early days, and too soon to say what BlastRadius is 'best', so far, so good.

[Bullethead 12]

BH, air-to-air pics of flak bursts I only recall seeing one of, can't find it now, strangely ground-to-air pics seem rare too. I suspect pilot's accounts are going to be the best source, tho it would obviously need a lot of reading to detect a pattern.

 

The best data I have on the effectiveness of WW1 flak comes from the experiences of the Brit daylight strategic bombers of the IAF. These have bave been studied in great detail so it's possible to say, in most cases, what happened to each plane on each sortie. They were typically under more or less intense Archie fire for their entire time across the lines.

 

In general, flak didn't cause many out-right losses, as in planes going down right then and there from a close burst. It happened, but not very often. However, all the planes ALWAYS sucked up scores of pieces of shrapnel which inflicted a "death of 1000 cuts". Most planes that went down from flak dis so under control with a dead engine or in an attempt to save a badly wounded crewman. If this happened near the lines either in- or out-bound, it was often possible (barring fighters about) for the crippled plane to glide to friendly territory, given how high they were flying. But more likely, they came down in Hunland. Flak damage also disrupted formations, which made losses to interceptors more severe, but fighters didin't always attack. But even when all planes returned safely, it often happened that a squadron would be out of action for several days while all the flak damage was patched up.

 

So the bottom line seems to be, by mid-1918 at least, German flak WAS going to damage you more or less severely if you spent long enough exposed to it, especially if you were in a large formation and not maneuvering much.

[Bletchley 8]

In the early years of the war each gun in a flak battery was aimed individually, but by the mid to end part of the war (1917-18) 4 to 8 guns in a battery were being controlled and aimed by a central fire control system. Whereas practice in the early years was to fire at the target, by the mid-end of the war a more effective doctrine was developed (by both sides, I think) to fire into a 'box' around the target. By this time HE was being used in place of solid shot or shrapnel, and the idea was to surround the target with exploding shells to set up blast waves that would crush or damage the aircraft (rather like depth charges). Firing into a 'box' rather than directly at the predicted place of the target aircraft also reduced the chances that an a/c had of escaping the flak by making numerous small alterations to course and/or altitude. Shrapnel was discontinued for the reason given by Bullethead, the shrapnel bullets mostly missing the target due to the directional nature of the discharge and the black powder charge having a much lower blast effect than HE.

 

Bletchley

[Bullethead 12]

In the early years of the war each gun in a flak battery was aimed individually, but by the mid to end part of the war (1917-18) 4 to 8 guns in a battery were being controlled and aimed by a central fire control system. Whereas practice in the early years was to fire at the target, by the mid-end of the war a more effective doctrine was developed (by both sides, I think) to fire into a 'box' around the target. By this time HE was being used in place of solid shot or shrapnel, and the idea was to surround the target with exploding shells to set up blast waves that would crush or damage the aircraft (rather like depth charges). Firing into a 'box' rather than directly at the predicted place of the target aircraft also reduced the chances that an a/c had of escaping the flak by making numerous small alterations to course and/or altitude. Shrapnel was discontinued for the reason given by Bullethead, the shrapnel bullets mostly missing the target due to the directional nature of the discharge and the black powder charge having a much lower blast effect than HE.

 

Thanks for the info, Bletchley. I still have some questions, though.

 

First, as an old artilleryman myself, I'll need some more convincing that concussion was the goal of late-WW1 flak. It certainly wasn't originally, nor was it afterwards. Instead, the goal on either side in time was to cause damage by fragments. So I think perhaps there's some confusion over the word "shrapnel". Here's what I know about that....

 

"Shrapnel" originally meant a specific type of shell, named for its inventor, and used from the early 1800s into WW1. Its purpose was to give field artillery at long range the same devastating antipersonnel power that cannister and grapeshot gave it at short range. It consisted of a light shell body filled with cannister shot ("shrapnel bullets"), which were scattered by a small internal explosive charge. It replaced the much less-effective explosive shell of the time, which was just a hollow iron ball filled with explosive. The reason why shrapnel shells were better than this is because at that time, the only explosive available was the low explosive black powder. Low explosives create a push, so what happened was the shell body would crack into only a few large, slow chunks. Thus, if it exploded in the midst of a squad of troops, perhaps none of them would be hit by a fragment. To potentially hit all of them, you needed a lot of small pieces, and because low explosives won't create that out of the shell body, Shrapnel's solution was to have pre-made small pieces inside the shell body. This was inefficient because the more bullets inside the shell, the less room for explosive, but it was better than the ancient design.

 

What made shrapnel shells obsolete was the invention of high explosives. High explosives have a shattering effect on shell bodies, splintering them into scads of small fragments. Once this was realized, true shrapnel shells becaome obsolete and artillery returned to the original idea of a hollow shell filled with nothing but explosive, the shell body itself serving as the raw material for the lethal projectiles. This is more efficient than true shrapnel because you get more body fragments than you could have had shrapnel bullets, and you could use more (and much more powerful) explosive, so the fragments had a higher initial velocity and therefore a larger lethal radius. This design has continued right down to the present day. WW1 occurred on the cusp of this change because high explosives were very new then. Also, due to the massive build-up of forces prior to the war, and the need for continuous, high-volume production once it started, everybody started with large stocks of true shrapnel shells and these continued in production for some time. However, the high explosive shells were so much more effective that they replaced true shrapnel as the war progressed. Despite this, the word "shrapnel" has remained in use even to the present as synonymous with shell fragments.

 

The practical upshot of all this is discussion, however, is that a large number of small, high-velocity shell fragments are unavoidable when a shell is filled with high explosive. The explosive necessarily creates them. Against infantry, these fragments were deliberately used as the primary kill mechanism and the shells used in exactly the same way as the true shrapnel shells they replaced: timed to burst in the air in front of the enemy, so that his position would be swept by the fragments. It therefore seems to me that flak gunners, now using shells of identical design, would also have been trying to kill airplanes with fragments. After all, they had these fragments available whether they wanted them or not, and they had a much greater casualty radius than the concussion of the shell burst.

 

My second question is, what sort of hardware did the central flak fire control positions have?

[Bletchley 8]

Yes, sorry Bullethead, I didn't mean to indicate that the fragments (shrapnel) from the HE shell casings were of no consequence, just that in moving from the early Shrapnel (i.e. packed with shrapnel bullets) shells to the new HE shells it was this much greater blast effect that was being exploited by the new anti-aircraft doctrines, and in particular the use of simultaneous or near simultaneous blasts from several exploding shells to cause significant damage to the structural integrity of the aircraft. Many aircraft would return riddled with holes to their fabric from shell fragments, but unless the vulnerable elements such as the pilot or the petrol tank were hit the aircraft would often remain flyable unless structural or engine damage was caused, which would have been from a combination of blast and fragmentation effects.

 

This evening I will dig out the information that I have on the WWI fire control systems :)

 

Bletchley

[DukeIronHand 8]

 

Note: the OFF "Hard" setting has a noise value of '5', which is more accurate than the CFS3 setting for a WWII 88mm (Noise value '8')! Using my Flak mod I have changed my own current campaign OFF flak gun 'Noise' settings from 25 (Easy), 10 (Normal), 5 (Hard) to 20 (Easy), 15 (Normal), 10 (Hard); using Easy for 1915, Normal for 1916 and 1917, Hard for 1918. For 1915-17 I crank up the difficulty level by one notch for the balloon attack missions.

 

Bletchley

 

Interesting.

 

As a user of your mission files (with the attached AA mod) from Day One I will make this additional changes in another homemade JSGME mod and use them too. Thanks!

 

Also interesting is the use of the "Noise". Didn't RB3D use the same term for the accuracy of guns in the game files?

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Yes..the subject of Archie, and it's overall effectiveness (or not) is certainly interesting.

 

From all accounts..well, certainly the few Ive come across...it had seemingly little real impact?..and was more a case of 'well, there are enemy aircraft up there, so I guess we should have a pop at them'..though perhaps that is an unfair statement?

 

Moving forward a couple of decades, it would appear that AA fire during the Blitz, was more of a morale booster for the unfortunate population of London's East End, than a really effective way of shooting down enemy aircraft.

 

That said, I'd be very interested to learn more

 

BTW Bullethead.

 

Was the job of Artilleryman in the role you performed, also encompassed with Anti Aircraft duties?..or where you guys solely mud-movers, and AAA was a seperate Job?

Edited October 10, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[themightysrc 5]

"Long enough to attack an Alb DII that had just shot down a flight mate - shot down the Hun with my Vickers, and in an RE8 to boot!"

 

Good God, my current pilot did about 9 months on RE8s and never got a sniff. That's quite a testament to your abilities if you downed a German scout in that monstrosity.

 

"Moving forward a couple of decades, it would appear that AA fire during the Blitz, was more of a morale booster for the unfortunate population of London's East End, than a really effective way of shooting down enemy aircraft."

 

On topic! I'm led to believe that this is correct. It was more a measure to encourage the public who were subject to the bombing. Equally, I recall reading elsewhere that one of the problems with throwing up so much flak was that it actually caused civilian casualties as the shrapnel fell to earth. I can't recall where I read it but there was a memorable passage in one book about how the author looked out of their window (in central London) and was amazed at the amount of metal that had effectively defoliated the trees in the garden.

 

Newton knew his stuff: what goes up, must come down.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I recall reading elsewhere that one of the problems with throwing up so much flak was that it actually caused civilian casualties as the shrapnel fell to earth. I can't recall where I read it but there was a memorable passage in one book about how the author looked out of their window (in central London) and was amazed at the amount of metal that had effectively defoliated the trees in the garden.

 

Newton knew his stuff: what goes up, must come down.

 

Ah yes, Indeed!...I too have heard that m8

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks for the vote of confidence SRC tho I fly with the AI set to 'less agressive' and my victim's victim may even have winged him before I delivered the coup de grace. It did help a bit that I switched to the F6 gunsight view as I usually don't but as you know, otherwise that airscoop over the RE8's engine means you can see Sweet Fanny Adams of where your rounds are going, and not much else besides. Don't know what came over me, I was on a 'high' after Miracle #1 (getting 2 out of 2 112-lb bomb hits), then got rather cross at seeing a wingie - sorry, flightmate, must stop using those WW2 terms - shot down and the Red Mist came down, leading to Miracle #2, an even bigger one than the first miracle. Can't wait to see if the kill is confirmed.

 

As for forward visibility, unless the P4 BE2's observer can sit down when he's not gunning, the view ahead from that will be a lot worse, roughly equating to that from Lindberg's Spirit of St Loius. I can see why the P3 BE2 gives you the (unsynchronised) Lewis.

 

As for flak, box barrages fair enough, but the idea that it would rely rely mostly on blast, rather than as I'd suppose fragmentation damage (from shell fragments, after the move away from shrapnell), sounds a bit unlikely to me, tho I'm no Gunner.

 

As for the lethality of flak generally, it could certainly be dangerous to those below unless they took shelter, even in WW1. Alexander McKee in 'The Friendless Sky' says that Churchill complained in the House of Commons - must look that up in Hansard! - that a third of the casualties in the Zeppelin raids were caused by AA shell splinters, indicating that instead of taking shelter, many civilians were out in the open, spectating, despite the supposed morale effects of the raids. As for the target aircraft, even in WW1, German Gotha and Gigant losses directly or indirectly attributable to AA were, from what I read, not insignificant, in relation to the number of sorties flown. In Profile Publication's 'The Gotha GI-GV', Peter M Grosz provides a little table of Boghol 3's losses of GIV's and GV's, citing figures from the research of Major Raymond Fredette for 'The Sky on Fire' (US title) or ''the First Battle of Britain 1917-18' (UK title):

 

Lost to fighter attacks - 9

Lost to AA fire - 12

Engine failure over England - 1

Crashes in Belgium - 36

Missing - 3

 

In WW2 I doubt Luftwaffe crews attacking London at night were untroubled by the AA fire, even tho few planes may have been destroyed compared to rounds fired.

Edited October 10, 2011 by 33LIMA

[33LIMA 972]

 

My second question is, what sort of hardware did the central flak fire control positions have?

 

Dunno, but this is what the Wikipedia article on Anti-aircraft warfare' has to say, might be some pointers worth following up:

 

'The British dealt with range measurement first, when it was realised that range was the key to producing a better fuze setting. This led to the Height/Range Finder (HRF), the first model being the Barr & Stroud UB2, a 2-metre optical coincident rangefinder mounted on a tripod. It measured the distance to the target and the elevation angle, which together gave the height of the aircraft. These were complex instruments and various other methods were also used. The HRF was soon joined by the Height/Fuze Indicator (HFI), this was marked with elevation angles and height lines overlaid with fuze length curves, using the height reported by the HRF operator, the necessary fuze length could be read off.^[20] However, the problem of deflection settings — 'aim-off' — required knowing the rate of change in the target's position. Both France and UK introduced tachymetric devices to track targets and produce vertical and horizontal deflection angles. The French Brocq system was electrical, the operator entered the target range and had displays at guns; it was used with their 75 mm. The British Wilson-Dalby gun director used a pair of trackers and mechanical tachymetry; the operator entered the fuze length, and deflection angles were read from the instruments.^[21][22]

 

The German Krupp 75 mm guns were supplied with an optical sighting system that improved their capabilities. The German Army also adapted a revolving cannon that came to be known to Allied fliers as the "flaming onion" from the shells in flight. This gun had five barrels that quickly launched a series of 37 mm artillery shells.[22/22'

 

The last two references are to this book, which sounds reasonably authoritative

 

Routledge, Brigadier NW. 1994. "History of the Royal regiment of Artillery – Anti-Aircraft Artillery 1914–55". London: Brassey's ISBN 1-85753-099-3

Edited October 10, 2011 by 33LIMA

[Bletchley 8]

This is a description of the French 'Brocq' tachymetric fire control system, which was also used by the British and Americans:

 

"Operators tracked the horizontal and vertical progress of the target through the two telescopic sights of the instrument. The required turnings of the telescope's control wheels represented the target's rate of movement relative to the ground position. The readings were measured in electrical terms as voltages and set against a resistance that corresponded to fuze range. The computed results, carried by electric cables to dials on the guns, provided the layers with deflection figures for their aim. The process was later carried an important step further when future target positions were predicted at a command post with the required fuze range, bearings and elevations being transmitted to the gun dials and fuze punches. A number of guns were, thus, brought under a Central Fire Control. Those manning them had only to maintain a rapid fire whilst their aim and fuzes were set according to the central directions."

 

(Hide, David. 'The flying shot' Part 2, in Cross and Cockade International, vol.36 no.2 2005, p.71-96)

 

From 1917 the German flak units also moved to the use of an indirect fire control systems with laying directions derived from a central command post using a (non-tachymetric) instrument called the 'Kommandotafel Jakob', although direct fire was still used against low-flying aircraft (source: as above).

 

Bletchley

Edited October 10, 2011 by Bletchley

[Bullethead 12]

Yes, sorry Bullethead, I didn't mean to indicate that the fragments (shrapnel) from the HE shell casings were of no consequence, just that in moving from the early Shrapnel (i.e. packed with shrapnel bullets) shells to the new HE shells it was this much greater blast effect that was being exploited by the new anti-aircraft doctrines, and in particular the use of simultaneous or near simultaneous blasts from several exploding shells to cause significant damage to the structural integrity of the aircraft. Many aircraft would return riddled with holes to their fabric from shell fragments, but unless the vulnerable elements such as the pilot or the petrol tank were hit the aircraft would often remain flyable unless structural or engine damage was caused, which would have been from a combination of blast and fragmentation effects.

 

Thanks for the info. I respect your opinion and seriously don't want to offend you, but I have to be honest here. As somebody who's been on both ends of the gun-target line many times, I just cannot at all believe that any professional artilleryman in WW1 honestly believed he could do any damage whatsoever to an airplane with the mere concussion of something as puny as a WW1 flak shell. I mean, modern 81mm mortars bombs contain more explosive, and of newer, more powerful types, than WW1 flak shells of roughly similar diameter, so are rather more concussive. Yet the concussion from these things is very far from lethal to a mere human--only the fragments do any damage beyond ruptured ear drums. And that's with a super-quick groundburst (typcial of mortars) where you take 2x the blast pressure of an airburst (which has the whole sphere to dissipate energy into). WW1 planes, stick and canvas though they were, were MUCH stronger than the human body. Their "fragile" wings could hold up their own weight of a ton or 2, plus at least 1 human, plus mission equipment, AND could continue to do so under several times the force of gravity. WW1 gunners HAD to have known this from all the bloody experience gained in years of trench warfare, so IMHO cannot have been trying to do any damage at all with concussion. Honestly, I find the idea rather laughable. Sorry if I offend.

 

Thus, I'm still convinced that the object of the "box barrage" of WW1 flak was the same as it was ever afterwards: to utterly fill a certain volume of air with lethal shell fragments. If the fragment patterns overlap, you avoid having the target being in the relatively (but not entirely) fragment-free zone close to the shell's pre-burst trajectory. WW1 flak gunners were just let down by the very small size of the effective target area of WW1 aircraft, combined with their speed and the difficulty of zeroing in on them with the few salvos available to them while the plane was in range.

 

BTW Bullethead.

Was the job of Artilleryman in the role you performed, also encompassed with Anti Aircraft duties?..or where you guys solely mud-movers, and AAA was a seperate Job?

 

Like I said, I know very little about flak fire control. In the USMC of my day, there was no dedicated AAA--we had SAMs and air cover for that. Artillery merely redrew the contour lines on the maps and erased all those pesky red icons penciled in between the blue icons and their objective. Such AAA as we had was personal weapons. In my own case, it involved placing my M249 on the helmet of my A-gunner while he stood in front of me. He grasped the SAW's bipod legs and pulled down to keep the weapon seated on his head, and I squatted behind him, using him as a pole mount, and did the aiming and firing. This 2-man hold of the weapon allowed long bursts at high elevation against targets with low bearing rates--IOW those strafing us. Fortunately, the only times we had to assume this position was in self-defense against possible friendly fire, and the idiot pilots all realized their mistake before anybody got hurt. No enemy aircraft came within threatening distance due to the aforementioned air cover and missile batteries.

 

"Moving forward a couple of decades, it would appear that AA fire during the Blitz, was more of a morale booster for the unfortunate population of London's East End, than a really effective way of shooting down enemy aircraft."

 

On topic! I'm led to believe that this is correct. It was more a measure to encourage the public who were subject to the bombing. Equally, I recall reading elsewhere that one of the problems with throwing up so much flak was that it actually caused civilian casualties as the shrapnel fell to earth. I can't recall where I read it but there was a memorable passage in one book about how the author looked out of their window (in central London) and was amazed at the amount of metal that had effectively defoliated the trees in the garden.

 

Shrapnel (fragment) fall-back was a problem during the 1st "Blitz" in WW1, too. But of course, WW2 planes also had relatively small target areas, so you had the same problem. You needed a LOT of fragments to get any really damaging hits on any given airplane in the enemy formation. And you have to remember, this damage from fragments was the exact opposite of a well-aimed burst of direct-fire air-to-air MGs. Instead of putting a dozen or 2 bullets right into the target area, you were spraying scads of fragments and hoping at least 1 of them might find a soft spot. But just like 1 bullet in the engine usually isn't fatal, neither is 1 shell fragment. That's why flak in WW1 and WW2 were both mostly "death of a thousand cuts", rather than immediate kills.

[Bullethead 12]

This is a description of the French 'Brocq' tachymetric fire control system, which was also used by the British and Americans:

 

Now that's cool! This seems, given my limited knowledge of flak fire control, to have been pretty much the same as the standard WW2 system used by those without top-end radar. So WW1 has an artillery fire control trifecta. On land, sea, and against the air, what they developed in WW1 was used again, with only refinements in detail, in WW2 (ignoring radar, of course).

 

Fire control systems that actually made future target position predictions (though invented prior to WW1) were just coming into general use in navies at the end of WW1 and became the standard in the immediate post-war period. About what point in time did predicting systems come into WW1 flak?

[Bletchley 8]

Bullethead, "Sorry if I offend". No, I am not offended at all. I am always happy to be corrected by someone with more knowledge, or with contarry evidence :)

 

"About what point in time did predicting systems come into WW1 flak?": from around mid 1917, to the best of my knowledge. The French Brocq system was the most sophisticated, although not necessarily more successful than the simpler German or British systems. The AA forces of both sides developed or experimented with a variety of manual systems, although they all seem to have moved to some form of central control and direction of fire by mid to late 1917.

 

Bletchley

[Bullethead 12]

"About what point in time did predicting systems come into WW1 flak?": from around mid 1917, to the best of my knowledge. The French Brocq system was the most sophisticated, although not necessarily more successful than the simpler German or British systems. The AA forces of both sides developed or experimented with a variety of manual systems, although they all seem to have moved to some form of central control and direction of fire by mid to late 1917.

 

What I find the coolest is that this French system had an automatic fuze-setter. Not every system in WW2 had that.

 

I have a fascination for these old analog computer systems (which is what fire control systems were). By the ingenious arrangement of gears, voltages, and resistors, the old guys could solve very complex problems in real time and achieve very respectable results. Of course, the hardware often filled several rooms, required a large crew of guys each entering data on various handwheels, often had rather severe limits on the range of input and output values it could accept or produce, and was built for 1 specific purpose so couldn't be used for anything else. But within their limits, these systems worked quite well. It's a shame that they're so forgotten today--their inventors deserve monuments.

 

This is off-topic, but if anybody shares my interest in these gizmos, check out Tony Lovell's EXCELLENT instructional videos over at DreadnoughtProject.org. Here's one that shows the operation of the Dreyer Fire Control Table, which is what Brit dreadnoughts used to shoot their big guns at German dreadnoughts. On the page below, the video is in the upper right corner. Make it full-screen and enjoy the show (takes about 28 minutes).

http://http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/Dreyer_Fire_Control_Table

[Hasse Wind 46]

I remember reading from some book (can't remember which one) that when WW2 began, the AA troops of various countries were actually less good at their work and achieved weaker results than their predecessors in the final year of the Great War. Radars were not yet available in large numbers, and proximity fuzes (one of the most important technologies of WW2) were still on the drawing board, so the AA units had to work with equipment that was not dramatically different from or better than what was in use in 1918. As most men didn't have any combat experience, they had to learn again many of the things that their predecessors in WW1 had mastered and put to good use.

 

I became interested in naval fire control systems when I bought Jutland from Storm Eagle Studios, and I can recommend the link Bullethead posted for anybody who shares the interest. I didn't know much about AA fire control systems of WW1, but now I've learned a thing or two from this thread. And dnce again I was surprised by just how advanced many technologies already were in WW1. That conflict took place in a period of history that saw technology develop faster than ever before. If there has been something positive about the two world wars, it must be their dramatic impact on technological progress.