Why were heavy AA guns like the M19118 3 inch gun developed when at the time a machine gun could take down any aircraft?
Why were heavy AA guns like the M19118 3 inch gun developed when at the time a machine gun could take down any aircraft?
Why were heavy AA guns like the M19118 3 inch gun developed when at the time a machine gun could take down any aircraft?
Because penis envy.
Range
you are a moron
slide thread
Everytime you post this, I hate Ukrainian more and more for fricking up this board. You're pushing me.
Bumping the thread because I can.
The guy complaining about slide threads is a zigger troll. Note the mass reply.
On-topic:
>at the time a machine gun could take down any aircraft
That's the thing. They couldn't. Early stringbags were mostly air, with some plywood and a chunk of metal in-between. You shot down a WW1 plane by killing the pilot. With a beeg gonne, you didn't need to aim specifically for the meatbag.
Range and altitude.
Machinegun fire was only effective at taking down aircraft at ranges where you've fricked up royally if you waited till then to start engaging them, mostly because there will probably be much, much more than one plane.
MG fire can't reach far out enough nor high enough to complicate strikes, let alone down significant numbers of enemy aircraft.
Are you new here?
>.50cal hits out to maybe 1km with AA gunsight installed
>3in gun hits out to at least 5km
Balloons and zeppelins
So how exactly will do you envisage a machine-gun on the ground reaching a Gotha bomber that's trundling along twenty thousand feet above?
Wishing.
You get pic related in Falcon BMS and, despite being a mere distraction most of the time, especially if the battery's radar is down (did my wingman drop fl- oh it's AAA) when you get hit you get hit fricking hard. After being shot down twice I began actively planning around AAA batteries and evading immediately (they have to lead you in 3D space so just jinking in any direction does work). This is a video game with no haptics/poor sound so you don't get the actual feeling of AAA going off around you either. No guarantee that the shrapnel is realistically simulated either, I imagine F-16 intakes are prone to sucking up shit.
I can't imagine being in a B-17 at 15,000 ft getting lit up by 30 at once. Frick that shit. The descriptions are terrifying.
We actually did use MGs to shoot down planes for a while. Hell, we used to shoot triplanes with bolt action rifles. The problem was that planes flew higher and faster. By the 1940s we were shooting at planes about 5 miles straight up at targets about 100 feet wide. We needed timed explosive rounds just to get any hits in.
stop replying to troll threads
>I don't like this topic
>It must be a troll thread.
cope moron your slide thread isn't working
>UMMM ACTUKTUALLY WE ONLY TALK ABOUT UKRAINE HERE
Frick off
>falling for false flags this hard
Because while WW1 planes could be hit by machine guns, it wouldn't do a lot of damage unless it was in massed fire.
So they used bigger guns that would make bigger booms.
Because MGs couldn't. If you're asking why specifically the US M1918, it's because the British QF 13 pounder became too light for trench bombardment and was put onto AA duty. The M1918 is a knockoff of that weapons system.
Norway 1940. Germany attacks with BF109s, Stukas, Ju 57, Heinkels, the works. The ONLY anti aircraft weapons of Norway are water-cooled M1917s. (M/29). Far as I know we didn't shoot down even a single German aircraft from the ground and the only ones we even hit were landing. Oh to have had a few dozen heavy AA batteries.
And while I am at it: Crete 1941. German forces go for large scale air attacks with more than a thousand planes. British AA: Bunch of Vickers MGs and Brens, and a total of ONE AA 20mm battery, a half battery on each airport. Want to bet the Tommies would have been happy with some 88s or something?
Would now be a good time to bring up the VT fuze?
it was an incredibly advanced design, but was unfortunately prioritized to the pacific theatre where the air threat was far more significant and where any duds would fall into the ocean
by the time it was sent to europe, there was hardly anything to shoot down, so was really only first used in late 1944 when it was approved for artillery, since it was clear the war would be over before the germans could reverse engineer them
though the US had some incredibly impressive AA firepower even at the start of the war, it was mostly in the naval department
the 5in gun was the best duals purpose gun of the war, and was superior to many dedicated AA guns of the time
the 90mm gun was pretty impressive, comparable to the 88mm, but they the lack of german bombers meant they never got used as much
Challenge: You need to defend your WWII army from air attacks with two, and only two, types of guns. Hard Mode: No Flak88 or 40mm Bofors.