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Anti-aircraft warfare | HearLore
Anti-aircraft warfare
On the 25th of August 1912, Lieutenant Piero Manzini crashed to his death in the skies over Libya, becoming the first pilot to be shot down by ground-to-air artillery fire. This event marked the beginning of a new era in warfare, where the sky was no longer a safe haven for aircraft. The Turkish forces, lacking specialized anti-aircraft weapons, used rifle fire to bring down his plane, but it was the subsequent development of dedicated anti-aircraft guns that truly changed the nature of aerial combat. The first known use of weapons specifically designed for this role occurred during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when Gustav Krupp mounted a modified 1-pounder gun on a horse-drawn carriage to shoot down balloons. This early attempt at anti-aircraft warfare laid the groundwork for the sophisticated systems that would emerge in the decades to follow. The challenges of engaging fast-moving aircraft were quickly recognized, and by 1913, only France and Germany had developed field guns suitable for engaging both balloons and aircraft. The British Royal Navy soon introduced the QF 3-inch and QF 4-inch AA guns, while the United States began work on its first operational anti-aircraft cannon, the 3-inch/23 caliber gun, in 1911. These early efforts were rudimentary, but they set the stage for the rapid evolution of anti-aircraft warfare that would define the 20th century.
The War Of The Zeppelins
By the 30th of September 1915, the Serbian Army found itself under attack from three enemy aircraft approaching Kragujevac. Soldiers fired at them with shotguns and machine-guns, but failed to prevent the aircraft from dropping 45 bombs over the city, hitting military installations, the railway station, and many civilian targets. It was during this bombing raid that Private Radoje Ljutovac fired his cannon at the enemy aircraft and successfully shot one down, marking the first occasion in military history that a military aircraft was shot down with ground-to-air artillery fire. The cannon Ljutovac used was not designed as an anti-aircraft gun; it was a slightly modified Turkish cannon captured during the First Balkan War in 1912. The British recognized the need for anti-aircraft capability a few weeks before World War I broke out, and by December 1914, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve was manning AA guns and searchlights at some nine ports. The Royal Garrison Artillery was given responsibility for AA defence in the field, using motorised two-gun sections. Initially, they used QF 1-pounder pom-poms, but these proved largely useless. The problem was of successfully aiming a shell to burst close to its target's future position, with various factors affecting the shells' predicted trajectory. This was called deflection gun-laying, where off-set angles for range and elevation were set on the gunsight and updated as their target moved. The difficulties increased as aircraft performance improved, and the British dealt with range measurement first, when it was realized that range was the key to producing a better fuse setting. This led to the height/range finder, the first model being the Barr & Stroud UB2, a two-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/fuse indicator, which was marked with elevation angles and height lines overlaid with fuse length curves, using the height reported by the HRF operator, the necessary fuse length could be read off. However, the problem of deflection settings required knowing the rate of change in the target's position. Both France and the UK introduced tachymetric devices to track targets and produce vertical and horizontal deflection angles. The French Brocq system was electrical, and the operator entered the target range and had displays at guns. The British Wilson-Dalby gun director used a pair of trackers and mechanical tachymetry, and the operator entered the fuse length, and deflection angles were read from the instruments. By the start of World War I, the 77 mm had become the standard German weapon, and came mounted on a large traverse that could be easily transported on a wagon. 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. As aircraft started to be used against ground targets on the battlefield, the AA guns could not be traversed quickly enough at close targets and, being relatively few, were not always in the right place, so changed positions frequently. Soon the forces were adding various machine-gun based weapons mounted on poles. These short-range weapons proved more deadly, and the Red Baron is believed to have been shot down by an anti-aircraft Vickers machine gun. When the war ended, it was clear that the increasing capabilities of aircraft would require better means of acquiring targets and aiming at them. Nevertheless, a pattern had been set: anti-aircraft warfare would employ heavy weapons to attack high-altitude targets and lighter weapons for use when aircraft came to lower altitudes.
When was the first pilot shot down by ground-to-air artillery fire?
On the 25th of August 1912, Lieutenant Piero Manzini became the first pilot to be shot down by ground-to-air artillery fire. This event marked the beginning of a new era in warfare where the sky was no longer a safe haven for aircraft.
Who developed the first known anti-aircraft weapons during the Franco-Prussian War?
Gustav Krupp mounted a modified 1-pounder gun on a horse-drawn carriage to shoot down balloons during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. This early attempt at anti-aircraft warfare laid the groundwork for the sophisticated systems that would emerge in the decades to follow.
When did Private Radoje Ljutovac shoot down the first military aircraft with ground-to-air artillery fire?
On the 30th of September 1915, Private Radoje Ljutovac fired his cannon at enemy aircraft and successfully shot one down during a bombing raid on Kragujevac. This marked the first occasion in military history that a military aircraft was shot down with ground-to-air artillery fire.
What was the standard German anti-aircraft weapon at the start of World War I?
By the start of World War I, the 77 mm had become the standard German weapon and came mounted on a large traverse that could be easily transported on a wagon. Krupp 75 mm guns were supplied with an optical sighting system that improved their capabilities.
When did the British adopt the Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun?
In 1935, the British decided to adopt the Bofors 40 mm and a twin barrel Vickers 2-pounder on a modified naval mount. The air-cooled Bofors was vastly superior for land use, being much lighter than the water-cooled pom-pom, and UK production of the Bofors 40 mm was licensed.
When were Man-Portable Air Defence Systems introduced to modern armies?
Man-portable missiles, known as MANPADS, were introduced in the 1960s and have supplanted or replaced even the smallest guns in most advanced armies. These systems allow individuals to launch surface-to-air missiles against aircraft.
World War I demonstrated that aircraft could be an important part of the battlefield, but in some nations it was the prospect of strategic air attack that was the main issue, presenting both a threat and an opportunity. The experience of four years of air attacks on London by Zeppelins and Gotha G.V bombers had particularly influenced the British and was one of if not the main driver for forming an independent air force. As the capabilities of aircraft and their engines improved it was clear that their role in future war would be even more critical as their range and weapon load grew. However, in the years immediately after World War I, the prospect of another major war seemed remote, particularly in Europe, where the most militarily capable nations were, and little financing was available. Four years of war had seen the creation of a new and technically demanding branch of military activity. Air defence had made huge advances, albeit from a very low starting point. However, it was new and often lacked influential friends in the competition for a share of limited defence budgets. Demobilisation meant that most AA guns were taken out of service, leaving only the most modern. However, there were lessons to be learned. In particular the British, who had had AA guns in most theatres in action in daylight and used them against night attacks at home. Furthermore, they had also formed an Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section during the war and accumulated large amounts of data that was subjected to extensive analysis. As a result, they published the two-volume Textbook of Anti-Aircraft Gunnery in 1924, 1925. It included five key recommendations for HAA equipment: Shells of improved ballistic shape with HE fillings and mechanical time fuses, higher rates of fire assisted by automation, height finding by long-base optical instruments, centralised control of fire on each gun position, directed by tachymetric instruments incorporating the facility to apply corrections of the moment for meteorological and wear factors, and more accurate sound-location for the direction of searchlights and to provide plots for barrage fire. Two assumptions underpinned the British approach to HAA fire; first, aimed fire was the primary method and this was enabled by predicting gun data from visually tracking the target and having its height. Second, that the target would maintain a steady course, speed and height. This HAA was to engage targets up to 20,000 feet. Mechanical time fuses were required because the speed of powder burning varied with height, so fuse length was not a simple function of time of flight. Automated fire ensured a constant rate of fire that made it easier to predict where each shell should be individually aimed. In 1925 the British adopted a new instrument developed by Vickers. It was a mechanical analogue computer , the Predictor AA No 1. Given the target height, its operators tracked the target and the predictor produced bearing, quadrant elevation and fuse setting. These were passed electrically to the guns, where they were displayed on repeater dials to the layers who matched pointers to lay the guns. This system of repeater electrical dials built on the arrangements introduced by British coast artillery in the 1880s, and coast artillery was the background of many AA officers. Similar systems were adopted in other countries and for example the later Sperry M3A3 in the US, was also used by Britain as the Predictor AA No 2. Height finders were also increasing in size; in Britain, the optical base World War I Barr & Stroud UB 2 stereoscopic rangefinder was replaced by the optical base UB 7 and the base UB 10. Goertz in Germany and Levallois in France produced instruments. However, in most countries the main effort in HAA guns until the mid-1930s was improving existing ones, although various new designs were on drawing boards. From the early 1930s eight countries developed radar; these developments were sufficiently advanced by the late 1930s for development work on sound-locating acoustic devices to be generally halted, although equipment was retained. Furthermore, in Britain the volunteer Observer Corps formed in 1925 provided a network of observation posts to report hostile aircraft flying over Britain. Initially radar was used for airspace surveillance to detect approaching hostile aircraft. However, the German Würzburg radar put into use in 1940 was capable of providing data suitable for controlling AA guns, and the British Radar, Gun Laying, Mark I, was designed to be used on AA gun positions and was in use by 1939. The Treaty of Versailles prevented Germany having AA weapons, and for example, the Krupps designers joined Bofors in Sweden. Some World War I guns were retained and some covert AA training started in the late 1920s. Germany introduced the 8.8 cm FlaK 18 in 1933, the 36 and 37 models followed with various improvements, but ballistic performance was unchanged. In the late 1930s the 10.5 cm FlaK 38 appeared, soon followed by the 39; this was designed primarily for static sites but had a mobile mounting, and the unit had 220 V 24 kW generators. In 1938 design started on the 12.8 cm FlaK. Britain had successfully tested a new 3.6-inch gun, in 1918. In 1928 a gun became the preferred solution, but it took six years to gain funding. Production of the QF 3.7-inch gun began in 1937; this gun was used on mobile carriages with the field army and transportable guns on fixed mountings for static positions. At the same time the Royal Navy adopted a new 4.5-inch gun in a twin turret, which the army adopted in simplified single-gun mountings for static positions, mostly around ports where naval ammunition was available. The performance of the new guns was limited by their standard fuse No 199, with a 30-second running time, although a new mechanical time fuse giving 43 seconds was nearing readiness. In 1939 a machine fuse setter was introduced to eliminate manual fuse setting. The US ended World War I with two 3-inch AA guns and improvements were developed throughout the inter-war period. However, in 1924 work started on a new 105 mm static mounting AA gun, but only a few were produced by the mid-1930s because by this time work had started on the 90 mm AA gun, with mobile carriages and static mountings able to engage air, sea and ground targets. The M1 version was approved in 1940. During the 1920s there was some work on a 4.7-inch which lapsed, but revived in 1937, leading to a new gun in 1944. While HAA and its associated target acquisition and fire control was the primary focus of AA efforts, low-level close-range targets remained and by the mid-1930s were becoming an issue. Until this time the British, at RAF insistence, continued their use of World War I machine guns, and introduced twin MG mountings for AAAD. The army was forbidden from considering anything larger than .50-inch. However, in 1935 their trials showed that the minimum effective round was an impact-fused 2 lb HE shell. The following year they decided to adopt the Bofors 40 mm and a twin barrel Vickers 2-pounder on a modified naval mount. The air-cooled Bofors was vastly superior for land use, being much lighter than the water-cooled pom-pom, and UK production of the Bofors 40 mm was licensed. The Predictor AA No 3, as the Kerrison Predictor was officially known, was introduced with it. The 40 mm Bofors had become available in 1931. In the late 1920s the Swedish Navy had ordered the development of a 40 mm naval anti-aircraft gun from the Bofors company. It was light, rapid-firing and reliable, and a mobile version on a four-wheel carriage was soon developed. Known simply as the 40 mm, it was adopted by some 17 different nations just before World War II and is still in use today in some applications such as on coastguard frigates. Rheinmetall in Germany developed an automatic 20 mm in the 1920s and Oerlikon in Switzerland had acquired the patent to an automatic 20 mm gun designed in Germany during World War I. Germany introduced the rapid-fire 2 cm FlaK 30 and later in the decade it was redesigned by Mauser-Werke and became the 2 cm FlaK 38. Nevertheless, while 20 mm was better than a machine gun and mounted on a very small trailer made it easy to move, its effectiveness was limited. Germany therefore added a 3.7 cm. The first, the 3.7 cm FlaK 18 developed by Rheinmetall in the early 1930s, was basically an enlarged 2 cm FlaK 30. It was introduced in 1935 and production stopped the following year. A redesigned gun 3.7 cm FlaK 36 entered service in 1938, it too had a two-wheel carriage. However, by the mid-1930s the Luftwaffe realised that there was still a coverage gap between 3.7 cm and 8.8 cm guns. They started development of a 5 cm gun on a four-wheel carriage. After World War I the US Army started developing a dual-role automatic 37 mm cannon, designed by John M. Browning. It was standardised in 1927 as the T9 AA cannon, but trials quickly revealed that it was worthless in the ground role. However, while the shell was a bit light it had a good effective ceiling and fired 125 rounds per minute; an AA carriage was developed and it entered service in 1939 as the 37 mm gun M1. It proved prone to jamming, and was eventually replaced in AA units by the Bofors 40 mm. The Bofors had attracted attention from the US Navy, but none were acquired before 1939. Also, in 1931 the US Army worked on a mobile anti-aircraft machine mount on the back of a heavy truck having four .30 calibre water-cooled machine guns and an optical director. It proved unsuccessful and was abandoned. The USSR introduced a new 76 mm M1931 in 1937, an 85 mm M1938 and developed the 37 mm M1939, which appears to have been copied from the Bofors 40 mm. A Bofors 25 mm, essentially a scaled down 40 mm, was also copied as the 25 mm M1939. During the 1930s solid-fuel rockets were under development in the Soviet Union and Britain. In Britain the interest was for anti-aircraft fire, it quickly became clear that guidance would be required for precision. However, rockets, or Unrotated Projectiles as they were called, could be used for anti-aircraft barrages. A two-inch rocket using HE or wire obstacle warheads , the Z Battery , was introduced first to deal with low-level or dive bombing attacks on smaller targets such as airfields. The three-inch was in development at the end of the inter-war period.
The Battle Of Britain And Beyond
Significant Anti-Air Warfare started with the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. QF 3.7-inch AA guns provided the backbone of the ground-based AA defences, although initially significant numbers of QF 3-inch 20 cwt were also used. The Army's Anti-aircraft command, which was under operational command of RAF Fighter Command within Air Defence GB, grew to 12 AA divisions in three AA corps. Bofors 40 mm guns entered service in increasing numbers. In addition, the RAF regiment was formed in 1941 with responsibility for airfield air defence, eventually with Bofors 40 mm as their main armament. Fixed AA defences, using HAA and LAA, were established by the Army in key overseas places, notably Malta, Suez Canal and Singapore. While the 3.7-inch was the main HAA gun in fixed defences and the only mobile HAA gun with the field army, the QF 4.5-inch gun, manned by artillery, was used in the vicinity of naval ports and made use of the naval ammunition supply. The 4.5-inch at Singapore had the first success in shooting down Japanese bombers. Mid war QF 5.25-inch naval guns started being emplaced in some permanent sites around London. This gun was also deployed in dual-role coast defence/AA positions. Germany's high-altitude needs were originally going to be filled by a 75 mm gun from Krupp, designed in collaboration with their Swedish counterpart Bofors, but the specifications were later amended to require much higher performance. In response Krupp's engineers presented a new 88 mm design, the FlaK 36. First used in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the gun proved to be one of the best anti-aircraft guns in the world, as well as particularly deadly against light, medium, and even early heavy tanks. After the Dambusters raid in 1943 an entirely new system was developed that was required to knock down any low-flying aircraft with a single hit. The first attempt to produce such a system used a 50 mm gun, but this proved inaccurate and a new 55 mm gun replaced it. The system used a centralised control system including both search and targeting radar, which calculated the aim point for the guns after considering windage and ballistics, and then sent electrical commands to the guns, which used hydraulics to point themselves at high speeds. Operators simply fed the guns and selected the targets. This system, modern even by today's standards, was in late development when the war ended. The British had already arranged licence building of the Bofors 40 mm, and introduced these into service. These had the power to knock down aircraft of any size, yet were light enough to be mobile and easily swung. The gun became so important to the British war effort that they even produced a movie, The Gun, that encouraged workers on the assembly line to work harder. The Imperial measurement production drawings the British had developed were supplied to the Americans who produced their own unlicensed copy of the 40 mm at the start of the war, moving to licensed production in mid-1941. Service trials demonstrated another problem however, that ranging and tracking the new high-speed targets was almost impossible. At short range, the apparent target area is relatively large, the trajectory is flat and the time of flight is short, allowing to correct lead by watching the tracers. At long range, the aircraft remains in firing range for a long time, so the necessary calculations can, in theory, be done by slide rules, though, because small errors in distance cause large errors in shell fall height and detonation time, exact ranging is crucial. For the ranges and speeds that the Bofors worked at, neither answer was good enough. The solution was automation, in the form of a mechanical computer, the Kerrison Predictor. Operators kept it pointed at the target, and the Predictor then calculated the proper aim point automatically and displayed it as a pointer mounted on the gun. The gun operators simply followed the pointer and loaded the shells. The Kerrison was fairly simple, but it pointed the way to future generations that incorporated radar, first for ranging and later for tracking. Similar predictor systems were introduced by Germany during the war, also adding radar ranging as the war progressed. A plethora of anti-aircraft gun systems of smaller calibre was available to the German Wehrmacht combined forces, and among them the 1940-origin Flakvierling quadruple-20 mm-autocannon-based anti-aircraft weapon system was one of the most often-seen weapons, seeing service on both land and sea. The similar Allied smaller-calibre air-defence weapons of the American forces were also quite capable. Their needs could cogently be met with smaller-calibre ordnance beyond using the usual singly-mounted M2 .50 caliber machine gun atop a tank's turret, as four of the ground-used heavy barrel guns were mounted together on the American Maxson M45 Quadmount weapon, which were often mounted on the back of a half-track to form the M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage. Although of less power than Germany's 20 mm systems, the typical four or five combat batteries of an Army AAA battalion were often spread many kilometres apart from each other, rapidly attaching and detaching to larger ground combat units to provide welcome defence from enemy aircraft. AAA battalions were also used to help suppress ground targets. Their larger 90 mm M3 gun would prove, as did the eighty-eight, to make an excellent anti-tank gun as well, and was widely used late in the war in this role. Also available to the Americans at the start of the war was the 120 mm M1 gun stratosphere gun, which was the most powerful AA gun with an impressive altitude capability, however no 120 M1 was ever fired at an enemy aircraft. The 90 mm and 120 mm guns continued to be used into the 1950s. The United States Navy had also put some thought into the problem, When the US Navy began to rearm in 1939 in many ships the primary short ranged gun was the M2 .50 caliber machine gun. While effective in fighters at 300 to 400 yards this is point blank range in naval anti-aircraft ranges. Production of the Swiss Oerlikon 20 mm had already started to provide protection for the British and this was adopted in exchange for the M2 machine guns. From December 1941 to January 1942, production had risen to not only cover all British requirements but also allowed 812 units to be actually delivered to the US Navy. By the end of 1942 the 20 mm had accounted for 42% of all aircraft destroyed by the US Navy's shipboard AA. However, the King Board had noted that the balance was shifting towards the larger guns used by the fleet. The US Navy had intended to use the British pom-pom, however, the weapon required the use of cordite which BuOrd had found objectionable for US service. Bureau of Ordnance was well aware of the Bofors 40 mm gun. The firm York Safe and Lock was negotiating with Bofors to attain the rights to the air-cooled version of the weapon. At the same time Henry Howard, an engineer, and businessman became aware of it and contacted RADM W. R. Furlong, chief of the Bureau of Ordnance. He ordered the Bofors weapon system to be investigated. York Safe and Lock would be used as the contracting agent. The system had to be redesigned for both the English measurement system and mass production, as the original documents recommended hand fitting parts and drilling to shape. As early as 1928 the US Navy saw the need to replace the .50 caliber machine gun with something heavier. The 1.1/75 Mark 1 was designed. Placed in quadruple mounts with a 500 rpm rate of fire it would have fit the requirements. However, the gun was suffering teething issues being prone to jamming. While this could have been solved the weight of the system was equal to that of the quad-mount Bofors 40 mm while lacking the range and power that the Bofors provided. The gun was relegated to smaller less vital ships by the end of the war. The 5/38 naval gun rounded out the US Navy's AA suite. A dual purpose mount, it was used in both the surface and AA roles with great success. Mated with the Mark 37 director and the proximity fuse it could routinely knock drones out of the sky at ranges as far as 13,000 yards. A 3/50 MK 22 semiautomatic dual gun was produced but not employed before the end of the war and therefore beyond the scope of this article. However early marks of the 3/50 were employed in destroyer escorts and on merchant ships. 3/50 caliber guns first entered service in 1915 as a refit to, and were subsequently mounted on many types of ships as the need for anti-aircraft protection was recognised. During World War II, they were the primary gun armament on destroyer escorts, patrol frigates, submarine chasers, minesweepers, some fleet submarines, and other auxiliary vessels, and were used as a secondary dual-purpose battery on some other types of ships, including some older battleships. They also replaced the original low-angle 4/50 caliber guns on flush-deck and s to provide better anti-aircraft protection. The gun was also used on specialist destroyer conversions; the AVD seaplane tender conversions received two guns; the APD high-speed transports, DM minelayers, and DMS minesweeper conversions received three guns, and those retaining destroyer classification received six. The Germans developed massive reinforced-concrete blockhouses, some more than six stories high, which were known as Hochbunker high bunkers or Flaktürme flak towers, on which they placed anti-aircraft artillery. Those in cities attacked by the Allied land forces became fortresses. Several in Berlin were some of the last buildings to fall to the Soviets during the Battle of Berlin in 1945. The British built structures such as the Maunsell Forts in the North Sea, the Thames Estuary and other tidal areas upon which they based guns. After the war most were left to rot. Some were outside territorial waters, and had a second life in the 1960s as platforms for pirate radio stations, while another became the base of a micronation, the Principality of Sealand. Some nations started rocket research before World War II, including for anti-aircraft use. Further research started during the war. The first step was unguided missile systems like the British 2-inch RP and 3-inch, which was fired in large numbers from Z batteries, and were also fitted to warships. The firing of one of these devices during an air raid is suspected to have caused the Bethnal Green disaster in 1943. Facing the threat of Japanese Kamikaze attacks the British and US developed surface-to-air rockets like British Fairey Stooge or the American Lark as counter measures, but none of them were ready at the end of the war. The Germans missile research was the most advanced of the war as the Germans put considerable effort in the research and development of rocket systems for all purposes. Among them were several guided and unguided systems. Unguided systems involved the Fliegerfaust aircraft fist rocket launcher as the first MANPADS. Guided systems were several sophisticated radio, wire, or radar guided missiles like the Wasserfall waterfall rocket. Owing to the severe war situation for Germany all of those systems were only produced in small numbers and most of them were only used by training or trial units. Another aspect of anti-aircraft defence was the use of barrage balloons to act as physical obstacle initially to bomber aircraft over cities and later for ground attack aircraft over the Normandy invasion fleets. The balloon, a simple blimp tethered to the ground, worked in two ways. Firstly, it and the steel cable were a danger to any aircraft that tried to fly among them. Secondly, to avoid the balloons, bombers had to fly at a higher altitude, which was more favourable for the guns. Barrage balloons were limited in application, and had minimal success at bringing down aircraft, being largely immobile and passive defences. The Allies' most advanced technologies were showcased by the anti-aircraft defence against the German V-1 cruise missiles. The 419th and 601st anti-aircraft gun battalions of the US Army were first allocated to the Folkestone-Dover coast to defend London, and then moved to Belgium to become part of the Antwerp X project coordinated from the in Keerbergen. With the liberation of Antwerp, the port city immediately became the highest priority target, and received the largest number of V-1 and V-2 missiles of any city. The smallest tactical unit of the operation was a gun battery consisting of four 90 mm guns firing shells equipped with a radio proximity fuse. Incoming targets were acquired and automatically tracked by SCR-584 radar. Output from the gun-laying radar was fed to the M9 Gun Director, an electronic analogue computer to calculate the lead and elevation corrections for the guns. With the help of these three technologies, close to 90% of the V-1 missiles, on track to the defence zone around the port, were destroyed.
The Missile Revolution
Post-war analysis demonstrated that even with newest anti-aircraft systems employed by both sides, the vast majority of bombers reached their targets successfully, on the order of 90%. While these figures were undesirable during the war, the advent of the nuclear bomb considerably altered the acceptability of even a single bomber reaching its target. The developments during World War II continued for a short time into the post-war period as well. In particular the US Army set up a huge air defence network around its larger cities based on radar-guided 90 mm and 120 mm guns. US efforts continued into the 1950s with the 75 mm Skysweeper system, an almost fully automated system including the radar, computers, power, and auto-loading gun on a single powered platform. The Skysweeper replaced all smaller guns then in use in the Army, notably the 40 mm Bofors. By 1955, the US military deemed the 40 mm Bofors obsolete due to its reduced capability to shoot down jet powered aircraft, and turned to SAM development, with the Nike Ajax and the RSD-58. In Europe NATO's Allied Command Europe developed an integrated air defence system, NATO Air Defence Ground Environment, that later became the NATO Integrated Air Defence System. The introduction of the guided missile resulted in a significant shift in anti-aircraft strategy. Although Germany had been desperate to introduce anti-aircraft missile systems, none became operational during World War II. Following several years of post-war development, however, these systems began to mature into viable weapons. The US started an upgrade of their defences using the Nike Ajax missile, and soon the larger anti-aircraft guns disappeared. The same thing occurred in the USSR after the introduction of their SA-2 Guideline systems. As this process continued, the missile found itself being used for more and more of the roles formerly filled by guns. First to go were the large weapons, replaced by equally large missile systems of much higher performance. Smaller missiles soon followed, eventually becoming small enough to be mounted on armoured cars and tank chassis. These started replacing, or at least supplanting, similar gun-based SPAAG systems in the 1960s, and by the 1990s had replaced almost all such systems in modern armies. Man-portable missiles, MANPADS, as they are known today, were introduced in the 1960s and have supplanted or replaced even the smallest guns in most advanced armies. In the 1982 Falklands War, the Argentine armed forces deployed the newest west European weapons including the 35 mm Oerlikon GDF-002 twin cannon and Roland missile. The Rapier missile system was the primary GBAD system, used by both British artillery and RAF regiment, a few brand-new FIM-92 Stinger were used by British special forces. Both sides also used the Blowpipe missile. British naval missiles used included Sea Dart and the older Sea Slug longer range systems, SeaCat and the new Sea Wolf short range systems. Machine guns in AA mountings were used both ashore and afloat. Post-Cold War During the 2008 South Ossetia war air power faced off against powerful SAM systems, like the 1980s Buk-M1. In February 2018, an Israeli F-16 fighter was downed in the Golan Heights province, after it had attacked an Iranian target in Syria. In 2006, Israel also lost a helicopter over Lebanon, shot down by a Hezbollah rocket. AA warfare systems Although the firearms used by the infantry, particularly machine guns, can be used to engage low altitude air targets, on occasion with notable success, their effectiveness is generally limited and the muzzle flashes reveal infantry positions. Speed and altitude of modern jet aircraft limit target opportunities, and critical systems may be armoured in aircraft designed for the ground attack role. Adaptations of the standard autocannon, originally intended for air-to-ground use, and heavier artillery systems were commonly used for most anti-aircraft gunnery, starting with standard pieces on new mountings, and evolving to specially designed guns with much higher performance prior to World War II. The shells fired by these weapons are usually fitted with different types of fuses to explode close to the airborne target, releasing a shower of fast metal fragments. For shorter-range work, a lighter weapon with a higher rate of fire is required, to increase a hit probability on a fast airborne target. Weapons between 20 mm and 40 mm calibre have been widely used in this role. Smaller weapons, typically .50 calibre or even 8 mm rifle calibre guns have been used in the smallest mounts. Unlike the heavier guns, these smaller weapons are in widespread use due to their low cost and ability to quickly follow the target. Classic examples of autocannons and large calibre guns are the 40 mm autocannon from Bofors and the 8.8 cm FlaK 18, 36 gun designed by Krupp. Artillery weapons of this sort have for the most part been superseded by the effective surface-to-air missile systems that were introduced in the 1950s, although they were still retained by many nations. The development of surface-to-air missiles began in Nazi Germany during the late World War II with missiles such as the Wasserfall, though no working system was deployed before the war's end, and represented new attempts to increase effectiveness of the anti-aircraft systems faced with growing threat from bombers. Land-based SAMs can be deployed from fixed installations or mobile launchers, either wheeled or tracked. The tracked vehicles are usually armoured vehicles specifically designed to carry SAMs. Larger SAMs may be deployed in fixed launchers, but can be towed/re-deployed at will. The SAMs launched by individuals are known in the United States as the Man-Portable Air Defence Systems. MANPADS of the former Soviet Union have been exported around the World, and can be found in use by many armed forces. Targets for non-ManPAD SAMs will usually be acquired by air-search radar, then tracked before/while a SAM is locked-on and then fired. Potential targets, if they are military aircraft, will be identified as friend or foe before being engaged. The developments in the latest and relatively cheap short-range missiles have begun to replace autocannons in this role. The interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bombers, usually relying on high speed and altitude capabilities. A number of jet interceptors such as the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-106 Delta Dart, and the MiG-25 were built in the period starting after the end of World War II and ending in the late 1960s, when they became less important due to the shifting of the strategic bombing role to ICBMs. Invariably the type is differentiated from other fighter aircraft designs by higher speeds and shorter operating ranges, as well as much reduced ordnance payloads. The radar systems use electromagnetic waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of aircraft and weather formations to provide tactical and operational warning and direction, primarily during defensive operations. In their functional roles they provide target search, threat detection, guidance, reconnaissance, navigation, instrumentation, and weather reporting support to combat operations. Anti-UAV defences An anti-UAV defence system is a system for defence against military unmanned aerial vehicles. A variety of designs have been developed, using lasers, net-guns and air-to-air netting, signal jamming, and hi-jacking by means of in-flight hacking. Anti-UAV defence systems have been deployed against ISIL drones during the Battle of Mosul. Alternative approaches for dealing with UAVs have included using a shotgun at close range, and for smaller drones, training eagles to snatch them from the air. This only works on relatively small UAVs and loitering munitions. Larger UCAVs such as the MQ-1 Predator can be and frequently are shot down like manned aircraft of similar sizes and flight profiles. Future developments Guns are being increasingly pushed into specialist roles, such as the Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS, which uses the GAU-8.