FLAK
Battle Damage 1
Your training film this morning is an introduction to FLAK. It’s being used everywhere, and the gunners are good, especially the Germans. This stuff doesn’t just foul up engines. It goes right through windshields and fuselages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIYVwqHM488
German antiaircraft: 88,mm to 105mm, not to mention other artillery.
Japanese antiaircraft: 75mm
Anyone who falls asleep in class gets a thump with my No. 15 yellow pencil.
Thanks for watching. — Sister Mary Grace
Thanks to TOW for the photo!
Category: Big Army, Historical, Politics, War Stories
First. HA Ex-PH2, trying to catch us off guard. LOL
Thought you might appreciate the show, ChipNASA.
Wow! Gives me even more respect for my bride’s uncle – 35 B-17 missions, shot down, and POW in Luft Stalag 1.
PS: I’m claiming first just so I can use my new found flak evasion knowledge.
Oh, crap! You beat me Chip. I’m sending an 88mm your way.
Great Flick Ex. Saw it a couple of years ago and liked it so you won’t get any Flack from me on it. Lots of those WW2 training films on youtube.
I think we need to be reminded that even old-fashioned stuff like this can still have its uses. And I don’t want to let these events slip away into the ether.
Very good Historical Post Mi’Lady. I was at the very end of the video, soaking it all up. The video ended and I was fixing to post when I noticed the time stamp coming up in 1300 hrs. Jumped out to the home page and immediately started abusing my refresh doo hickey. This machine doesn’t have an F5 key per se. The Hounds of Hell were on my ass like a German ’88 on a low flying 15K’ Liberator. The King of Battle did reign supreme for the FIRST on the Coveted Book of FIRST, for the Friday Weekend Open Thread.
Think I actually saw this picture show in AIT. The theory was to give us an idea of what a pilot might do if we were in a FLAK mission. The DIs were laughing and joking saying that using FLAK from tubes would not happen unless every missile and AA Battery in the world was knocked out. We only fired one FLAK exercise in training and that was a more how fast we could load and pull the lanyard on the 105s. Good Times. One of the Gun Commander Cadre did use the opportunity to show us how a good man with a slide rule could race the director box to see who could be FIRST with the firing solution numbers.
If I’d of FIRST posted here before going to check the WOT drop, I might not of made FIRST.
Much respect for aGrimm’s brides Uncle. Can you just imagine being in a plexiglass belly ball turrent with all that crap blowing up around you?
Can you just imagine being in a plexiglass belly ball turrent with all that crap blowing up around you?
Uh, not yet, but trying to. Those guys all had just pure guts when they went up in those planes.
Have many photos of flak my dad took through the nose of B17’s. Scary shit. He told me they bombed from over 20000 ft. with incindary and lower with HE.
Some of the damage photos are amazing in that they made it home.
I, for one, am very, very glad they DID make it home.
My Dad was a flak observer for a while. Flew over to intentionally draw fire so they could direct fire on the German AA. Told him he was dawg nuts. Ironically, he was the town Major during the occupation only a few kilometers from Flak Kaserne in Augsburg. (Further irony… my best friend’s father in HS trained on that kaserne in ’44.)
From the perspective of time and distance, and knowing how much damage that stuff could do, your Father must have clanked when he walked.
Dad used to say, the only good thing about flak coming up, was the German fighters staying away from it.
It is still in use today by the Russians. Remember the Buk missile and MH17 civilian passenger flight shot down over the Uktaine? That was sprayed with shrapnel carried in the warheaad and cut the plane to pieces.
My understanding is that most—if not all—air-to-air and anti-air missiles use frag warheads instead of going for impact. Much easier to hit a plane that way.
Patriot uses a proximity fuze.
All the shit that Raytheon took over not being able to hit Scuds was bullshit.
It was not designed to hit anything.
I’ve never understood why it wasn’t used in those Star Wars movies. Too real or something?