How did soldiers control the altitude at which anti-aircraft ammunition (flak) detonated? How could they know if the flak rounds would go off at 5000 feet, 10,000 feet etc? Were they magnetized somehow to detonate near aircraft? First post. Please be kind. Lol.
In: Engineering
The German flak could be adjusted with a shell timer. A flak spotter would call out if the flack was exploding too soon or too late. Once they had it dialed in, it could be withering.
Especially to flights of bombers who are flying at similar elevations. Also, they were in formation, which made them easy targets.
In the early runs of the eight Air Force bombing germany, on a single mission it was not uncommon to lose 30% of the bombers and crew..
Once they figured out the timer setting on the shell, this info was communicated to other flak batteries along the flight route of the bombing run.
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