[mightythor99]

they were not just for firing at ships and defending from the water, they were very active at shooting down aircraft. they were responsible for shooting down many allied bombers.
what you have to keep in mind, is that these guys were the very first guys to see the incoming bombers,................ they had guys in boats, with radios, who called the shore batteries when aircraft were spotted, and they sounded the alarm. then the gunners ran to their guns, and got ready to fire. the bombers are going 250-300 mph, so the guys only had a few minutes to get ready to fire. then the allied bombers were farther inside europe, and they were radio'ed in, and tracked by the next sets of flak guys,..........and so on. the routes were pretty straight forward, most of the time, so they had a good idea where they were headed, by what direction they were heading.
i have lots of photos of these units, and the one that comes to mind for me, is a marine coastal battery, stationed at texel. they have 8-10 rings painted on their cannon, and plenty of pictures of shot down planes, dead air crew, etc.
the german anti aircraft guns were pretty accurate, and they shot down plenty of bombers.....................it's just that there WERE plenty of targets..........more then they could handle.