Author Topic: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum  (Read 27054 times)

perry commoner

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2009, 07:32:51 PM »
Yes, Nickcc is quite right...the concrete bollards in Kingstanding Road were anti tank traps.......they had a hole in the middle and you put a long pole into the centre, tip the concrete onto its side amd rolled it into the middle of the road.

Not very effective really because although they might slow down an advance of tanks, the tanks were likely to pass thru the gardens and advance along the line of gardens.

Denise is also right, the picture shows a wartime pillbox which would house a bren gun in case of invasion. These things are now listed building I believe.
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tramp

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #12 on: June 26, 2009, 04:40:41 AM »
By the time Pz I, II, or III German tanks got to Kingstanding they'd have gone through 3 sets of tracks and given the time and logistics involved, England south of the Wash & Mersey would've been knackered.   The wild Welsh Woolies, the Scots and possibly parts of northern England might have lasted a bit longer.  The person(s) who ordered tank traps for brum was obviously a nutcase or a 5th columnist as it was money, time and materiel down the drain. 

As for putting a bren in a ready made Stuka target, Dad's Army would've made better of that gun, and the Stuka wouldn't have found it, as it would've been mobile.  Ask any bren gunner, like Bannion when he comes back.

perry commoner

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #13 on: June 26, 2009, 03:35:37 PM »
Tramp is probably quite right but if you follow that augument to its logical conclusion. the British would sit at home and wait for the invasion. A government needs to be seen doing something.

Ack ack guns acheived very little damage to bombers but the sound of the guns reassured the locals that we were fighting back.

We owe a huge vote of thanks to my parents generation. They enabled us to sit here and argue about a situation that, thanks due to them, never came to pass.

 
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roy one

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #14 on: June 26, 2009, 03:57:08 PM »
hi perry
            you say the the a/a guns did not do much well im told that at swanshurst park they had a/a guns and one of the gunners hit a bomber and it come down on the railway lines at earlswood  by the brick yard Roy
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perry commoner

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #15 on: June 26, 2009, 04:02:11 PM »
Yes I am sure they had an occasional success but for the amount of effort put in the returns were poor.
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tramp

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #16 on: June 26, 2009, 05:32:18 PM »
Hi Perry commoner,

A good many didn't sit at home waiting, but began enlisting when Neville Chamberlain (not one of brum's most asute products, well meaning as he was) returned from Munich in 1938 waving his ''Peace in our Time'' scrap of paper.  My dad and his 2 brothers immediately each joined one of the Armed Forces a year before the war started.

Your comment ''for the amount of effort put in the returns were poor'' applies much more to the 'tank traps' - as you said they'd have driven through people's gardens, or come across the parks - the easiest routes would have been to follow tram tracks - long after the war we used to do that in Berlin.

AA guns were extremely effective as they forced the Germans to fly higher, faster and with much less ''straight & level'' time on their bombing runs - the key to accuracy - and so far fewer intended targets were struck or destroyed - this saved the country an incalculable amount of otherwise lost plant and production, and of course the lives of skilled factory workers.

perry commoner

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2009, 06:12:14 PM »
I agree with your final point Tramp, AA did make them fly higher but my point was that at actually bringing down aircraft, reults for the effort made was poor.

That was the consensus of opinion by Government after the war.
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tramp

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #18 on: June 26, 2009, 07:04:10 PM »
Luftwaffe crews have written that they were very scared of the intense flak over brum, Liverpool and London, moreover, as they were forced to keep high, fast and not straight, there was obviously less likelihood of bringing them down, although the number of damaged bombers was higher than forecast - as was the case with the RAF over the Ruhr

perry commoner

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #19 on: June 26, 2009, 07:10:55 PM »
Thank you for your exchanges Tramp...I concede your point
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tramp

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #20 on: June 26, 2009, 07:38:55 PM »
Hi perry commoner,

I've had a long term interest in AA, especially the German 88mm (which was also the best anti tank gun of WWII) as an uncle I never knew went down over the Ruhr.   I do appreciate that ''the sound and fury'' of AA was very important for civilians being bombed - it showed them that ''we were having a go back'' which was the the point you first made O0

Phil

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Re: war years anti aircraft guns in and around brum
« Reply #21 on: June 28, 2009, 05:30:11 PM »
I don't know what they are doing here in Church Rd in Yardley in 1940. They are either building a shelter or tunnelling into the bank.

Phil
Phil died in 2020. RIP.


 

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