CATCHING THE FLAK: A Restored 88 mm FlaK 36 in all its glory!

摘要

There can be few weapons to earn the fear and respect in equal measure as the range of artillery referred to by the Allied forces of the Second World war as the '88'. Throughout the war the Germans used the 8.8 cm (sometimes expressed as the 88 mm) in all campaigns and all theatres where fighting occurred. Even the garrison on the Channel Islands during the Occupation between 1940 and 1945 had their fair share of '88s' among the defences. The calibre even went to sea being fitted to surface vessels and U-Boats and, of course, the armoured vehicles such as the Tiger were armed with versions of this highly adaptable gun. The first version of the 88 mm gun to appear proper was termed FlaK 18, which was the abbreviation term to mean Flugabwehrkanone 18 (meaning anti-aircraft gun). It entered service with the German army in 1933 as a standard anti-aircraft gun, even though it technically contravened the Treaty of Versailles the terms of which forbad Germany from possessing such specialist weaponry. The gun itself was a conventional design and otherwise unremarkable, but it was the ammunition and the way in which it would come to be used which earned it its reputation. The design had been developed by German armament engineers working in Sweden after the First World War, so that by the time Germany began to rearm, they were ready with the plans to produce the first 88.