PDF posted
re the British 3.7 inch AA
“There were a LOT of these dug in around Dunkirk during the German attack… another reason the Panzers had to stop.”
- NO! this is quite wrong! Where did you get this story!??? BBBrains I reckon!
The BEF’s sole medium/heavy AA guns were the 3 inch! and all were lost in France, being almost all that Britain had of them. There were not enough 3.7’s as well.
So, the 3.7 was too rare, too big, and too valuable, and too hard to move, and did NOT go to France.
NB Some portion of production was always for the static role anyway, these models being even heavier!, than the ‘mobile’ version.
This meant that - for the Battle of Britain - the UK had very few 3 inch, to add to the still slow production of the 3.7 inch. Not enough pom-poms OR Bofors, either!
AFAIK the field 3inch/20cwt AA units did not carry solid-shot in their ammo carts, nor did the guns have telescopic sights for direct shooting.
Why though? Well, the 25/pdr mk1 aka the 18/25 did have solid shot, and direct fire sights, as did the last mks of 18pder (mk4?) also used by the BEF. And, BOTH had those round firing platforms - for the A/T role.
Given half a chance by commanders, which did happen once or twice in France in 1940, they could and did prove quite up to the job.
By Dunkirk the remaining 3/20’s were flat out as AA!
Capiche!?
The REAL reasons the Panzer Divisions held back?
i) they needed to recoup their machinery / etc, for
ii) the fighting yet to come in the rest of France!
iii) Goering’s promises to Hitler in re the encircled French and British, and later
iv) Hitler’s desire to get Britain to sue for peace!
Do try to remember that a big appeal of blitzkrieg to Hitler was that it was war on the cheap / on a shoe string. He did not want the war to impact on the home front too much, nor to have too many men off at the war and getting killed. He really WAS a gambler!
- AFAIK the very few field/mobile 3.7 AA units (later sent all over the joint) did NOT have solid shot OR an AP shell!
The 3.7 was a very much better AA gun than the 18/36 88mm gun, although the later FLAK37, and FLAK40 and 41, got bits closer, using much bigger cartridges and longer shells!
Although a solid shot WAS later developed - for the A/T gun prototype using a 3.7’s barrel and chamber.
Nor did the 3.7 mobile form come with a telescope! It was designed from the ground UP as a predictor driven gun, so no sights on the gun at ALL!!! not even any mounts for sights!
The 3.7 WAS used to provide ARMY Support fire - highly accurate direct and indirect fire using its time fused HE shells, from about 1942 on! Particularly as ‘pepperpot’ ideas took hold, among the Allied artillery staffs in Italy.
HE time fused shell, w/other fuse would have been quite effective against even the MKIV Specials (a 75mmKWK/42 or 48 cals long gun) with applique armour right up to Alamein and beyond.
Note that it is possible/probable that some guns were used in the A/T role while still emplcaed for AA use, and field REME usnits developed direct fire sights for them to allow this.
- Rommel did NOT invent the idea of using the 88 as an A/T gun, in holding off the British armoured counter attack, near ARRAS in 1940!
JBTW and FYI, the Waffen SS ‘Totenkopf’ unit, then attached to the 7th Panzer broke and ran at this battle. There’s just nothing quite so brave as an ex-camp guard / thug is there?!!
But where did the AP shells come from and the direct sighting telescoped OR the stereo range finders? eh?
Planned! yes. Telescopic sights were standard equipment, and in their standard ammo issue was a proportion of Panzergranate! And, they’d been trained for this role.
It should not have been a surprise to the British. But then again, British cavalry have rarely never been well led. OR well read! …
CHAAAAARGEEEEE!!! ;-)! … Whoooops - Oh f%$#@*&%@k!
The German Army first began developing doctrine, SOP’s and tactics for use of ‘field/mobile AA guns’ - as A/T guns - using AP ammo and direct sights -
fired by both 75’s and earlier 88’s …
in WWI !!!
Even mounted on trucks! Early SP guns! ;-)!!!
Well, they had, too, eh? Bugger all tanks of their own!
The famous FLAK18/36 -8.8cm was actually first used against tanks in the Spanish Civil War. Whence came the shields commonly fitted to the 88’s - in both Army and Luftwaffe ‘field AA’ units by early 1941.
but why? well the ideal A/T gun needing to hit a smallish target on rolling ground with AP shot / shell - has a high muzzle velocity and a flat trajectory! And, AA guns already had these!
Some had even fired unfused (waste of a time fuse!) HE shell at British tanks, successfully by late 1916. At the Somme battles.
Lastly, I am sorry to have to post in a ‘lets have the actual facts style’ again, but it did seem neccessary!
As we say in Australia, you’ve just been ‘given the actual drum!’, once again!
;-)!
Timbo
