Effectiveness of German anti Aircraft Fire

[Kesse81]

Was the primary purpose of heavy AAA during WWII not to force the enemy to climb and distract his attention from his objective and force him to drop his bombs from so great a height that he will probably miss his target by a large margin.

BTW found this.

Flak - Evading anti-aircraft Fire

 

[JOC]

With the radar using the Doppler effect to determine the aircrafts speed it is very easy to see how a radar directed AAA battery could lead the bombers by enough distance to make up for the delay in the arrival of the shell so as to explode upon the arrival of the plane. Very good video.
The evasive maneuvers is another story. This basically requires some complex mathematics since the radar can not predict dramatic changes in the bombers flight pattern, but only tract them, which for the AAA battery happens after the fact. All they can do is to try and predict the evasive maneuvers mathematically and use these calculations to alter the azimuth and elevation of the AAA battery. Note this posting refers only to the radar controlled heavy AAA battery.

 

[perseus]

Was the primary purpose of heavy AAA during WWII not to force the enemy to climb and distract his attention from his objective and force him to drop his bombs from so great a height that he will probably miss his target by a large margin.

BTW found this.

Flak - Evading anti-aircraft Fire

Yes that was excellent. I wish my mother was still here to see that. She was posted to an AAA battery located in various places in the South and East of England from 1942/3. She told me about all this. Some predictors were directly linked to the guns, although I think this was for shorter range units.

I'm surprised the shell only travels at 1000 ft/s though, I guess that is an average assuming high altitude targets.

Here's an interesting link regarding shooting down V1s

 

[JOC]

The Blitz

Yes that was excellent. I wish my mother was still here to see that. She was posted to an AAA battery located in various places in the South and East of England from 1942/3. She told me about all this.

Surprised the shell only travels at 1000 ft/s though, I guess that is an average assuming high altitude.

Wow I didn't know the British women actually took had a place in defending against the Blitz.
My Great grandfather was killed by a V2, while my great uncle flew a Spitfire in the battle of Britain. He was later shot down in the Pacific theater and believe it or not was the only survivor. An experience that left him emotionally scared.

 

[newoq11]

hell all, i am a new member here! enjoy my stay!

 

[perseus]

strictly speaking the Blitz finished in 41 but not all the bombing of course.

she is on this list as a predictor operator

The predictor could be classed as a mechanical computer which, with the other instruments mentioned was operated by women in order to control the guns of the heavy ack ack batteries. In this sense there is a very fine line between stating these ladies did not fire the guns and the work they actually did. To all sense and purpose, the operators of today are considered to 'press the button' even though they are doing this remotely by computer control. It was rather deceitful of the Government of World War 2 to state that women 'did not pull the trigger' when they knew jolly well that what they did was as close as you could possibly get to actually firing the guns.

http://www.atsremembered.org.uk/

You must have some tales there JOC, and you must be a bit younger than me. My Dad was in the desert army in WW2 and both my Grandfather and great Grandfather was in WW1! So I'm the first generation not required to go to war (although three out of four were volunteers).

 

[JOC]

Misc

Actually my father in law served in the American army at the very end of the European conflict. He was posted in Germany for several years after the war and said the devastation was terrible. He did give the Germans credit for being quick to rebuild.
But other than him all my relatives that served were great uncles, one under Patton, one in the RAF. Those are the 2 I remember the most, there were others. I don't want to get to far off the topic I'm sure many on the forum had relatives "alive or having since passed" that served in WW2 (actually that could be a interesting tread).
The part about an mechanical computer is interesting. Particularly since the English actually had the technological lead in radar for the most part during WW2. The velocity of the shell would defiantly have to be factored into the equation.
And since your Grandmother ran this predictor she had to be a part of the team that fired the round.

 

[George]

Wow I didn't know the British women actually took had a place in defending against the Blitz.
My Great grandfather was killed by a V2, while my great uncle flew a Spitfire in the battle of Britain. He was later shot down in the Pacific theater and believe it or not was the only survivor. An experience that left him emotionally scared.

A couple of days ago in doing the "This day in history" research I saw a notice that the 1st mixed sex AA Battery (50/50 male/female) had been activated/deployed in the London area. Don't recall what year

 

[BritinBritain]

A couple of days ago in doing the "This day in history" research I saw a notice that the 1st mixed sex AA Battery (50/50 male/female) had been activated/deployed in the London area. Don't recall what year

You are correct to a point, women were not allowed to actually fire the gun for some obscure reason.

 

[perseus]

My Mother used to tell me that the American army women sent over to the UK were amazed at what the British Women were expected to do. Women also flew aircraft between manufacturer and bases. The Russians also expected a lot, putting women in the front line air squadrons and tanks, although perhaps they were desperate for personnel, and less concerned about life than gender equality!

This was probably the Germans greatest mistake, not putting women to work and supporting tasks in the military, although they relaxed this rule when it was too late.

 

[George]

US women flew a lot of planes from place to place in the US, some were killed in accidents.

 

[JOC]

nessasesity

My Mother used to tell me that the American army women sent over to the UK were amazed at what the British Women were expected to do. Women also flew aircraft between manufacturer and bases. The Russians also expected a lot, putting women in the front line air squadrons and tanks, although perhaps they were desperate for personnel, and less concerned about life than gender equality!

This was probably the Germans greatest mistake, not putting women to work and supporting tasks in the military, although they relaxed this rule when it was too late.

Both Britian and especially the USSR did so out of utter necessity. As we both know England stood alone for ~ a year. The USSR could not afford to lose due to Hitler's racist policy's against the Slav's. I know the USSR had many fighter-bomber female pilots as well. One famous group was called the night witches. They had woman driving and manning tanks as well. The Soviets tactics improved as the war dragged on but they were never overly concerned about causalities if it brought them a victory. In many of their big victories Stalingrad, Kursk, battle of the (Dnieper + Kiev) they lost many times over the number of men than did the Ostheer.
I don't remember hearing of German woman in combat roles? But they became ridiculous near the end pressing 13 years olds into service.

 

[lljadw]

This was probably the Germans greatest mistake, not putting women to work and supporting tasks in the military, although they relaxed this rule when it was too late.

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

 

[JOC]

In Military roles

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

Good point however I think we were referring to woman taking on military related roles, not roles in industry.

 

[Kesse81]

According to an article in a Danish history magazine, these figures are mentioned with regard to female service in the armed forces.

SU: 800,000

UK: 600,000

Germany: 500,000

USA. 350,000

These figures from 1945 are estimated.

 

[perseus]

This is a widespread but wrong assumption : more women were put to work in Germany than in Britain and the US .

Order of rank :

1)SU

2) Germany

3) Britain

4) US

the first part refers only to the UK, the latter regarding German workers seems to confirm what Geoffrey Regan wrote in his 'More Great Military blunders' which was my original source.

[UK] Women in WW2 - 1945:

The war in Europe ended in May 1945. At this time there were 460,000 women in the military and over 6.5 million in civilian war work. Without their contribution, our war effort would have been severely weakened and it is probable that we would not have been able to fight to our greatest might without the input from women.

Ironically, in Nazi Germany, Hitler had forbidden German women to work in German weapons factories as he felt that a woman’s place was at home. His most senior industry advisor, Albert Speer, pleaded with Hitler to let him use German female workers but right up to the end, Hitler refused. Hitler was happy for captured foreign women to work as slaves in his war factories but not German. Many of these slave workers, male and female, deliberately sabotaged the work that they did - so in their own way they helped the war effort of the Allies.

There is also a Wiki on 'Women in Nazi Germany

The mobilisation of women in the war economy always remained limited: the number of women practising a professional activity in 1944 was virtually unchanged from 1939, being about 15 million women, in contrast to Great Britain, so that the use of women did not progress and only 1,200,000 of them worked in the arms industry in 1943, in working conditions that were difficult and often poorly treated by their bosses, who deplored their lack of qualification.[46]

so it's 6.5 million workers in the UK verses 1.2 million in Germany out of a larger population.

 

[lljadw]

These are debunked by Overy and Tooze (The Wages of Destruction)

From Overy :

% of women in the workforce


Germany :

1939:37.4

1940: 41.4

1941: 42.6

1942: 46

1943: 48

1944: 51.6

Britain (same years):

26.4

26.4

29.8

33.2

36.1

37.7


US:
1940: 25?8

1941 : 26.6

1942: 28.8

1943 :34.2

1944: 35.7


Two other points :

1) the distinction between arms industry and civilian war work is something artificial : already in 1940 more than 50 % of the German workforce was working for the WM


2)Any article using Speer as a source should be discarded: there are a lot of proofs that he was an expert in lying.


About the number of women in the armed forces : the figure of 500000 for Germany seems correct, but I am curious about sources for the numbers in the US and Britain .I doubt that there are any reliable sources for the number of 800000 in the SU .

 

[MontyB]

Good point however I think we were referring to woman taking on military related roles, not roles in industry.

I am not sure I agree with that as any job where a woman replaces a man in order to free up that man for military service could be considered a military related role.

 

[JOC]

clarity

I am not sure I agree with that as any job where a woman replaces a man in order to free up that man for military service could be considered a military related role.

Piloting an aircraft and being a part of an AA battery is not quite the same as tightening bolts or soldering wires. My perspective.

 

[LeEnfield]

Lets face it during the war every one had to do some thing or other, even the Queen Elizabeth was driving trucks and is one of the few people in public office that had served in WW2. I will say that there was vast input by the women of the UK that kept the armed forces going.

In Germany Hitler was not worried to much about the German women working in factories when he had some eight million slaves from all over Europe forced to work in the factories