Heavy Flak - 88 or 105 mm heavy guns

[Jerome Ribeiro]

Hello Everyone,

During the Sitzkrieg then the Blitzkrieg, plenty of french bombers were shooted down by the heavy Flak unit equipped with with heavy guns (88 or 105 mm).

I need you support re the heavy guns utilized by the Flak at this time. Does anyone has photos or documentations especially on the caracteristics of the 88 and mostly the 105 mm gunneries?

Thanking you in anticipation
Regards

[Boomerang]

Numerically, the 88mm flak was available in significantly larger numbers than the 105mm flak eg see:

http://www.feldgrau.com/weaprod.html

According to a very old reference (Sweetman, Schweinfurt Disaster in the Skies) for the Flak 38 105 mm weapon weight of shell = 25 kg, muzzle velocity = 870 m/sec, range = 40,000 feet, rate of fire = 12 rounds per minute.

Not a lot to go on, but perhaps the above could be a starting point.

Regards

Boomerang

[Ruy Horta]

Was the 8.8 regarded as heavy FlaK, or medium?

[Nick Beale]

You'd find a lot of the answers in Edward Westerman's "Flak: German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 1914–1945". University of Kansas 2001 (ISBN 0-7006-1420-6) now in soft cover as well.

Be warned however: I found this is a turgid and repetitive book (how many times per page can an author refer to "the german ground-based air defences" without driving his readers nuts?) but if you can wade through the verbal treacle, there are some useful data about guns here and there.

My other complaint (and Rabe Anton will hate me for this!) is that it's a book written by a professional historian bringing his academic technique to a field in which he doesn't have the background knowledge that a Luftwaffe/air warfare specialist would have. He dismissed the 1940 Blitzkrieg in about two sentences for example. Also, don't expect anything like an order of battle (IIRC he doesn't name a single Flak Division). All you get are total numbers of different weapons in service at particular points.

[Jerome Ribeiro]

All,

Thanks for your information provided on Flak weapons, especially those on the 105mm.

What stands for the suffixe number 38 just after the Flak eg 105mm Flak 38 and 39 or 88mm Flak 18, 36 and 38?
Is the model or the year of 1st batch of production?

cheers

Jerome

[Nick Beale]

AFAIK it's just a model number. You see the same thing with tank guns and artillery pieces.