Author: Norman Friedman
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
ISBN: 1848321775
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
This book does for naval anti-aircraft defence what the author's Naval Firepower did for surface gunnery ÛÒ it makes a highly complex but historically crucial subject accessible to the layman. It chronicles the growing aerial threat from its inception in the First World War and the response of each of the major navies down to the end of the Second, highlighting in particular the widely underestimated danger from dive-bombing. Central to this discussion is an analysis of what effective AA fire-control required, and how well each navy's systems actually worked. It also takes in the weapons themselves, how they were placed on ships, and how this reflected the tactical concepts of naval AA defence. As would be expected from any Friedman book, it offers striking insights ÛÒ he argues, for example, that the Royal Navy, so often criticised for lack of 'air-mindedness', was actually the most alert to the threat, but that its systems were inadequate not because they were too primitive but because they tried to achieve too much.??The book summarises the experience of WW2, particularly in theatres where the aerial danger was greatest, and a concluding chapter looks at post-1945 developments that drew on wartime lessons. All important guns, directors and electronics are represented in close-up photos and drawings, and lengthy appendices detail their technical data. It is, simply, another superb contribution to naval technical history by its leading exponent.
Author: Ian V. Hogg
Publisher: Motorbooks International
ISBN: 9781861265029
Category : Antiaircraft artillery
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Anti-Aircraft Artillery tells of the development and operational use of this weapon from its inception as an anti-balloon defence at the end of the nineteenth century to the present. Covering weapons of all the major armies and providing an engrossing overview of the use, development and effectiveness of the anti-aircraft gun, this is an ideal and concise history of a fascinating weapon.
Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 178159886X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
A thorough history of the RAF Bomber Command attack on the German city during World War II, by the author of The First Day on the Somme. This book describes one twenty-four-hour period in the Allied Strategic Bomber Offensive in the greatest possible detail. Author Martin Middlebrook sets the scene by outlining the course of the bombing war from 1939 to the night of the Nuremberg raid, the characters and aims of the British bombing leaders, and the composition of the opposing Bomber Command and German night fighter forces. The aim of the Nuremberg raid was not unlike many hundreds of other Royal Air Force missions but, due to the difficulties and dangers of the enemy defenses and weather plus bad luck, it went horribly wrong. The result was so notorious that it became a turning point in the campaign. The target, the symbolic Nazi rally city of Nuremberg, was only lightly damaged, and 96 out of 779 bombers went missing. Middlebrook recreates the events of the fateful night in astonishing detail. The result is a meticulous, dramatic, and often controversial account. It is also a moving tribute to the bravery of the RAF bomber crews and their adversaries. Praise for The Nuremberg Raid “Employing hundreds of eyewitness accounts, he shows the raid from the point of view of the German defenses and the civilians on the ground. Factual and analytical, this is a portrait of mechanized warfare at the level of personal experience.” —Simon Mawer, Wall Street Journal
Author: W. N. Dickinson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiaircraft guns
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
Author: Mandeep Singh
Publisher: Air World
ISBN: 1526762110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249
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Book Description
Anti-aircraft artillery was extensively used in combat in the First World War, though such weapons had made their debut in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, when the besieged French used balloons for observation and communication and the Prussians used the first custom built 1-pounder gun to try and shoot them down. It was, however, not until the Second World War that anti-aircraft artillery came into prominence, shooting down more aircraft than any other weapon and seriously degrading the conduct of air operations. In the battle between the attackers and anti-aircraft artillery, the latter had the upper hand when the war ended. The post-war years saw a decline in anti-aircraft artillery as peace prevailed, and the advent of the jet aircraft seemed to tilt the balance in favour of the aircraft as they flew faster and higher, seemingly beyond the reach of anti-aircraft artillery. It would take all the hi-tech equipment and the guile and cunning that anti-aircraft artillery could muster to try and reclaim pole position. It is that story, of the tug of war between the aircraft and artillery, that forms the narrative of this book – as it traces the history of combat employment of anti-aircraft artillery from the Korean War, in effect the first Jet Age war, to the War of Attrition between Arab states and Israel when the missiles came of age, sending the aircraft scurrying for cover. Anti-Aircraft Artillery in Combat, 1950–1972 is the first attempt to look at the combat performance of ground-based air defences, incorporating the views, analyses and experiences of Soviet, Arab and South Asian Armies. The book looks at the major wars between 1950 and 1972, including the Korean War, Vietnam War, the wars in South Asia in 1965 and 1971, and conflicts in the Middle East, such as the Six Day War.
Author: John A. Hamilton
Publisher: Department of the Army
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
The book is an authoritative history on the Army Air Defense Artillery Branch on Fort Bliss, Texas. Fort Bliss in 1940 was a cavalry post located on the Texas border. The post itself occupied the sixth location of what had been called Fort Bliss. In the summer of 1940 a number of Army National Guard antiaircraft regiments were called to active duty to spend one year protecting American cities and territories from air attack. In September the first antiaircraft regiment, the 202nd Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft) Regiment, arrived at Fort Bliss. Over the next four years the post became an antiaircraft training center and finally the Army antiaircraft training center. After the war, Fort Bliss became the premier guided missile testing and training center for the Army. All of the Nike missile battalions deployed to protect American cities during the Cold War trained there. As time passed, Fort Bliss expanded to 1.1 million acres, one of the largest Army posts in the world. By 1946, the antiaircraft arm was the owner of Fort Bliss. By 1957, the post had become the Air Defense Center and School for the United States Army. This book is the story of that progression until the Base Realignment and Closure announcement in 2005. By 2011, the Air Defense Artillery Center and School will be located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. This will end the era of Air Defense Artillery ownership of Fort Bliss, Texas
Author: John C. Angier
Publisher: Merriam Press
ISBN: 1576380920
Category : Soldiers
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
Author: Edward B. Westermann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
Air raid sirens wail, searchlight beams flash across the sky, and the night is aflame with tracer fire and aerial explosions, as Allied bombers and German anti-aircraft units duel in the thundering darkness. Such "cinematic" scenes, played out with increasing frequency as World War II ground to a close, were more than mere stock material for movie melodramas. As Edward Westermann reveals, they point to a key but largely unappreciated aspect of the German war effort that has yet to get its full due.Long the neglected stepchild in studies of World War II air campaigns, German flak or anti-aircraft units have been frequently dismissed by American, British, and German historians (and by veterans of the European air war) as ineffective weapons that wasted valuable materiel and personnel resources desperately needed elsewhere by the Third Reich. Westermann emphatically disagrees with that view and makes a convincing case for the significant contributions made by the entire range of German anti-aircraft defenses.During the Allied air campaigns against the Third Reich, well over a million tons of bombs were dropped upon the German homeland, killing nearly 300,000 civilians, wounding another 780,000, and destroying more than 3,500,000 industrial and residential structures. Not surprisingly, that aerial Armageddon has inspired countless studies of both the victorious Allied bombing offensive and the ultimately doomed Luftwaffe defense of its own skies. By contrast, flak units have virtually been ignored, despite the fact that they employed more than a million men and women, were responsible for more than half of all Allied aircraft losses, forced Allied bombers to fly far abovehigh-accuracy altitudes, and thus allowed Germany to hold out far longer than it might have otherwise.Westermann's definitive study sheds new light on every facet of the development and organization of this vital defense arm, includi
Author: Terry Gander
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1781597839
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
The German 88 mm guns became the most famous and feared artillery pieces of the Second World War. They appeared in a whole series of forms ranging from anti-aircraft to anti-tank and tank-guns, including several self-propelled platforms. Although primarily anti-aircraft guns they gained an awesome reputation as anti-tank weapons, a reputation that remains to this day. Terry Gander, in this in-depth, highly illustrated study, tells the story of the 88 from its first manifestations during the Great War to its clandestine development in Sweden, its production in Germany, its first 'multi-role' initiation during the Spanish Civil War and its part in the campaigns of 1939-40. As well as a detailed technical description of the gun and its development, his book features vivid accounts of the 88 in action in many of the main theaters of the Second World War, in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, and on the Eastern Front.
Author: Stephen Lee McFarland
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 96
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Book Description
Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.
