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When was the 88 first used as direct fire against land targets?

Discussion in 'Weapons & Technology in WWII' started by Poppy, Sep 27, 2011.

  1. Vanir

    Vanir Member

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    I never likened the FlaK 18 to the German naval 88s. I said the design was an up-chambered Krupp 7.5 FlaK/rifle, which was Krupp's L/60 version of the Bofors L/50 7.5 and 8.0cm DP naval gun, it was mounted on sverige class ships and at coastal defence forts and that was Sweden's only real or let's say primary interest in the project other than export.
    I also said that the Kriegsmarine got the 7.5 Krupp (in fact a limited run) and army and airforce got the 8.8 but to extrapolate, army and air rejected the 7.5 and wanted something a little bigger. Krupp didn't know that when they started making them. They made a limited run sold to Spain, etc. then upscaled it to the 8.8 size and from then on it was the only one they made, so everybody got that after then.
    The whole thing about the 8.8 FlaK is that it's really a 7.5 Bofors, the Kriegsmarine naval 88 is something else entirely, but you could use the 7.5 Krupp or the 8.8 FlaK in exactly the same roles if you wanted to. It was specifically, specifically designed for that, as a ship mounted DP gun and a coastal defence rifle/FlaK. Hungary, China, Germany, all used them as towed heavy AAA. That's the only reason we think of the 8.8 FlaK the way we do.


    My apolegies for being a shade frustrated, but working with a very limited scope of personal expertise and no archival documentation, yet utterly certain of these points, it just feels like the water is getting muddied with some hand waving here. Let's see, you can look up the swedish refit of coastal defence ships equipped with the Bofors and their forts. You can find details of the joint Krupp design by looking up the Bofors. You can find references again looking up the FlaK.

    I agree it'd be awesome to have it nicely printed in a Krupp document linked.
     
  2. TiredOldSoldier

    TiredOldSoldier Ace

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    IIRC Bofors was largely Krupp controlled in that period, so the 7.5 L50 could be considered a Krupp design. The Flak 18 ancestry from the Bofors 7.5cm is well documented but going from a 75/50 to an 88/56 is a big leap even with a 75/60 as a stepping stone.

    What I was wondering is if in turn the 7.5 didn't inherit from the WW1 naval 88/45 that was used as an AA gun but I have no info on wheteher the 88/45 was a Krupp design. Even different cartriges are not conclusive bevidence of a totally independent design, (see the "shortened" cartrige of the tank mounted KwK 40 that was otherwise almost the same gun as the field carriage mounted Pak 40 for an example) so IMO while the very intersting cartrige table proves the lineage of the type VII U-Boat from the WW1 88/45 it doesn' t say much about the other weapons.

    All 88/56 except the Flak 37 had ground sights (probably a heritage of the DP naval design) this made ground usage a lot more effective than the "secondary capability" of other AA guns that lacked them. But IMO the truly revolutionary feature of the Flak 18 was the very light and easy to deploy mount, it could even fire while still limbered up (though I think that was not a feature of the very early single weeled carriages), and that is not a requirement for a costal defence or naval gun, what made the Flak 18 "tactically different" was that it's overall weight was significantly smaller than the comparable AA guns of other countries and it's setup time (an limbering up to get out of a bad situation) a lot more compatible with usage for direct fire support. Add the excellent Sdkfz 7 prime mover to the mix and you have a weapon that has unmatched tactical mobility.
    Flak 36 - 5.150 kg (6861 kg with carriage)
    90mm M2 - 8,618 kg
    QF 3.7 inch AA - 9.317 Kg
    (beware data from wiki;) but should not be too off the mark)

    The late WW2 long barelled L71 (Pak 43 and Flak 41) have similar balistics to the SK C/31 but there again it could be coincidence, IIRC one was a Rheinmetall design and the other one Krupp.
     

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