As a rule, the war starts suddenly. The armed forces of a country subjected to aggression are absolutely unprepared for it. It is also true that the generals are preparing not for the future, but for the past wars. This fully applies to the state of the air defense systems of the British ground units.
However, by the time the full-scale hostilities began, such a situation existed in the armies of most states that participated in the war. The situation with the air defense systems of the Red Army in 1941 was even more difficult.
In August 1938, the British infantry adopted a light machine gun "Bren" Mk 1 caliber 7, 7-mm (.303 "British"), which is a British modification of the Czech machine gun ZB-30 "Zbroevka Brno". The machine gun got its name from the first two letters of the names of the cities of Brno and Enfield, in which production was deployed. By June 1940, the British army had over 30,000 Bren machine guns.
British soldier demonstrates to King of Great Britain) George VI 7, 7-mm (.303 british) anti-aircraft machine gun Bren (Bren Mk. I)
For the machine gun, several variants of anti-aircraft machines were developed, including for a twin installation. The effective firing range at air targets did not exceed 550 m, that is, the machine gun could only fight low-altitude targets. The Bren machine gun was used as an anti-aircraft weapon for tanks, self-propelled guns and armored vehicles, and was installed on ships, boats and cars.
As an anti-aircraft "Bren" had a number of disadvantages:
Small-capacity magazines - for 30 rounds.
Low rate of fire - 480-540 rounds per minute (the rate of fire of the German MG-42 was twice as high).
The location of the store from above partially blocked the front view during firing and made it difficult to track air targets. Nevertheless, due to its wide distribution, the Bren was used to combat low-flying enemy aircraft throughout the war.
After the unsuccessful start of the war in Europe for the British and the hasty evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, where they were forced to leave the enemy with the most modern weapons that the British army had at that time. To compensate for the lack of weapons, under the threat of the invasion of the German landing in Britain, the return to the army of the old systems was initiated, as well as a number of improvisations. Among other things, about 50 thousand Lewis machine guns were returned to service from the warehouses.
"Lewis" of various modifications in anti-aircraft installations were installed on armored trains of local defense, cars and even motorcycles.
In a hurry to strengthen the air defense of infantry units, several hundred paired and quadruple anti-aircraft installations were created.
The Bren was used by the British Army as an infantry squad light machine gun. The role of the company-level machine gun was assigned to machine guns "Vickers" Mk. I caliber 7, 7-mm (.303 british) with water cooling, which was an English version of the heavy machine gun "Maxim".
Compared to the Bren, it was possible to fire more intense fire from it, but the mass of weapons on the machine was many times greater. For anti-aircraft versions of the machine gun, a special muzzle was used - a barrel rollback accelerator, which used the pressure of powder gases on the muzzle of the barrel to increase the rollback energy, thereby increasing the rate of fire.
A significant number of obsolete Vickers-K rifle-caliber aviation machine guns, created on the basis of the Vickers-Berthier machine gun, were also transferred from the warehouses to the air defense.
Paired installations with disk magazines with a capacity of 100 rounds were installed on "Land Rovers" of increased cross-country ability for SAS units and "desert long-range reconnaissance groups".
Due to the lack of domestic designs of machine guns suitable for installation in armored combat vehicles, the command of the British army in 1937 signed a contract with the Czechoslovak company "Zbroevka-Brno" for the production under license of ZB-53 heavy machine guns of 7.92 mm caliber. The design of the ZB-53 machine gun was modified to meet British requirements, and it was put into service under the name BESA, composed of the initial letters of the words Brno, Enfield, Small Arms Corporation.
British "infantry" tank "Matilda" Mk.2 with anti-aircraft machine gun "Bes"
Machine guns "Imp" were widely used on various British armored vehicles, including as anti-aircraft. The "Bes" machine guns of all modifications were powered from a metal belt with a capacity of 225 rounds.
British light anti-aircraft tank Vickers AA Mark I, armed with four 7, 92-mm machine guns "Bes"
In the early 1920s, work began in England on the creation of large-caliber machine guns to combat armored vehicles and airplanes. Initially, a weapon was created chambered for 5 Vickers (12, 7x81-mm in the metric system), not much different, except for dimensions, from the Vickers Mk. I machine gun.
Marine anti-aircraft quadruple mount Vickers.5 Mk.3
In 1928, the Vickers.5 Mk.3 heavy machine guns were adopted by the Royal Navy, the machine gun was not widely used in the army, in a limited number large-caliber machine guns were mounted on armored vehicles.
Armored car "Crossley" D2E1 with anti-aircraft installation of coaxial 12, 7-mm machine guns "Vickers"
Realizing the insufficient power of the 12.7x81 mm rounds (especially in comparison with the American 12.7x99 mm and the French 13.2x99 mm), the Vickers company in the late 1920s developed a more powerful ammunition of the same caliber, known as the.5 Vickers. HV (12.7x120 mm). This cartridge accelerated a 45-gram armor-piercing bullet to a speed of 927 m / s. Under this cartridge, an enlarged version of the same water-cooled Vickers machine gun, known as the.5 Vickers Class D, was developed. Outwardly, these machine guns differed from the less powerful "naval" Vickers of the same caliber by a noticeably longer length. The machine gun had a rate of fire of 500-600 rds / min and a range of fire at air targets up to 1500 m.
Twin installation Vickers - Vickers.5 Class D
Large-caliber 12, 7-mm machine guns of the firm "Vickers" were used mainly in the fleet; due to their excessive weight and water cooling on land, they were used mainly in object air defense and for arming armored vehicles.
Coaxial ZPU 12, 7-mm Browning M2 machine guns
The most common anti-aircraft machine gun of 12.7 mm in Great Britain was the Browning M2 supplied under Lend-Lease.
ZSU T17E2
At British enterprises, the ZSU T17E2 was mass-produced on the basis of the American Staghound armored car. It differed from the base vehicle with a single cylindrical turret without a roof, with two Browning M2HB heavy machine guns.
In 1937, a large-caliber ZB-60 machine gun was created in Czechoslovakia, chambered for the new 15x104 Brno cartridge, which was originally intended as an anti-aircraft weapon. In 1937, the British company Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) acquired a license for the production of a 15-mm ZB-60 machine gun and cartridges for it, where these machine guns were produced in a small series, and the cartridges received another designation - 15-mm Besa.
The 15-mm BESA machine gun weighed 56, 90 kg, the rate of fire was 400 rounds per minute, the muzzle velocity was 820 m / s. The firing range at air targets is up to 2000 m.
Anti-aircraft 15-mm machine gun "Imp"
For a number of reasons, the 15-mm machine gun "Bes" did not receive wide distribution, because of the "non-standard" ammunition in the second half of the war, attempts were made to alter it for the 20-mm round "Hispano-Suiza".
British light anti-aircraft tank Vickers Mark V with coaxial 15 mm machine guns "Imp"
In the British navy during the war years, 20 mm Oerlikon automatic anti-aircraft guns were widely used. Their modifications were designated Mk 2, Mk 3 and Mk 4, on their basis, single-barreled and quadruple units were created. In much smaller quantities, "Oerlikons" were installed on the shore.
In 1942, the ZSU Crusader AA Mk II was created. The cruising tank "Crusader" ("Crusader") was used as a base. A lightly armored turret of circular rotation, open from above, with a paired installation of two 20-mm automatic anti-aircraft guns "Oerlikon" with a barrel length of 120 calibers was mounted on the base chassis.
ZSU Crusader AA Mk II
At the beginning of 1944, the 20-mm Polsten anti-aircraft gun was put into production. The prototype of the gun was created on the eve of the war in Poland. Polish engineers tried to simplify the design of the Oerlikon anti-aircraft machine, making it faster, lighter and cheaper. The developers managed to escape to the UK along with the blueprints.
The anti-aircraft 20-mm machine gun "Polsten" gave a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute, a maximum firing range of 7200 m, an altitude reach of 2000 m. The initial velocity of an armor-piercing projectile was 890 m / s; ground targets.
Canadian anti-aircraft gunners at the built-in installation "Polsten"
"Polsten" turned out to be much simpler and cheaper than its prototype, not inferior to it in terms of combat characteristics. The possibility of installing the gun on the machine from "Erlikon" was retained. The antiaircraft gun had a record low weight in the firing position, only 231 kg, the cartridges were fed from 30 charging magazines. In addition to single installations, triple and quadruple guns were produced, as well as an even lighter collapsible version of anti-aircraft guns for parachute troops.
After the First World War, the British Navy had a significant number of 40-mm Vickers anti-aircraft machine guns in one-, two-, four- and eight-barreled installations.
Four-barreled launchers were used on destroyers and cruisers of the Royal Navy, eight-barreled on cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. Because of the characteristic sound they made when firing, they were widely known as "Pom-pom".
The 40-mm Vickers assault rifle was a lightweight and somewhat simplified 37-mm Maxim machine with a water-cooled barrel.
The use of "pom-poms" on land was hampered by the large weight of the installations, the technical complexity of the design, and low reliability. To cool the guns, a significant amount of clean water was required, which was not always possible to provide in the field.
In the late 30s, a license was acquired in Sweden for the production of 40-mm Bofors L60 anti-aircraft guns. In comparison with the naval "pom-poms", this gun had a large effective range of fire and reach in height. It was much easier, simpler and more reliable. A fragmentation 900-gram projectile (40x311R) left the Bofors L60 barrel at a speed of 850 m / s. The rate of fire is about 120 rounds / min. Reach in height - up to 4000 m.
The anti-aircraft gun is mounted on a four-wheeled towed "cart". In case of urgent need, the shooting could be conducted directly from the gun carriage, i.e. "Off the wheels" without additional procedures, but with less accuracy. In the normal mode, the carriage frame was lowered to the ground for greater stability. The transition from the "traveling" position to the "combat" position took about 1 minute.
The British did a tremendous job of simplifying and cheapening the guns. To speed up guidance on fast-moving and diving aircraft, the British used a mechanical analog computer Major Kerrison (A. V. Kerrison), which became the first automatic anti-aircraft fire control system. Kerrison's device was a mechanical calculating and deciding device that allows you to determine the pointing angles of the gun based on data on the position and movement of the target, the ballistic parameters of the gun and ammunition, as well as meteorological factors. The resulting guidance angles were automatically transmitted to the weapon guidance mechanisms using servomotors.
The computer controlled the aiming of the gun, and the crew could only load it and fire. The original reflex sights were replaced by simpler circular anti-aircraft sights, which were used as backups. This modification of the QF 40 mm Mark III has become the army standard for light anti-aircraft guns. This British 40mm anti-aircraft gun had the most advanced sights of the entire Bofors family.
However, when placing the guns not in permanent stationary positions, it was found that the use of the Kerrison device in some situations was not always possible, and in addition, a supply of fuel was required, which was used to power the electric generator. Because of this, when firing, they often used only conventional ring sights without using any external target designation and calculating lead corrections, which greatly reduced the accuracy of shooting.
Based on combat experience, a simple trapezoidal Stiffkey device was developed in 1943, which moved the ring sights to introduce corrections when firing and was controlled by one of the anti-aircraft gunners.
The British used the Bofors L60 to create a number of SPAAGs. Anti-aircraft guns with an open turret were mounted on the chassis of the Crusader tank. This self-propelled anti-aircraft gun was named Crusader III AA Mark.
ZSU Crusader AA Mark III
However, the most common British 40mm SPAAG was the Carrier SP 4x4 40mm AA 30cwt, created by mounting an anti-aircraft gun on the chassis of a four-wheel drive Morris truck.
ZSU Carrier SP 4x4 40 mm AA 30cwt
During the hostilities in North Africa, in addition to their direct purpose, the British 40-mm ZSU provided fire support to the infantry and fought against German armored vehicles.
After the fall of Holland in 1940, part of the Dutch fleet left for Great Britain, and the British had the opportunity to get acquainted in detail with the Hazemeyer 40-mm naval installations, which used the same Bofors L60 gun. Installations "Hazemeyer" favorably differed in combat and service-operational characteristics from the British 40-mm "pom-poms" of the firm "Vickers".
Twin 40-mm Hazemeyer installations
In 1942, the UK began its own production of such installations. Unlike "land" anti-aircraft guns, most of the 40-mm naval guns were water-cooled.
After the Luftwaffe launched massive raids on the British Isles, it turned out that there was a serious gap in the country's air defense. The fact is that there was a gap in the line of British anti-aircraft guns. 40-mm Bofors L60 were effective up to 4000 m, and 94-mm anti-aircraft guns began to pose a serious danger to enemy bombers from an altitude of 5500-6000 m, depending on the course angle. The Germans realized this very quickly, and therefore they bombed from an altitude of 4500-5000 m.
The British engineers were tasked with creating an anti-aircraft gun with a rate of fire of 100 rounds per minute in a 6-pound (57 mm) caliber.
Due to the fact that the fleet also wanted to have an installation of this caliber in service, the work was greatly delayed. With the ready-made anti-aircraft guns, the delay was caused by the unavailability of a number of nodes that did not correspond
naval standards. The sailors demanded the introduction of electric guidance drives, a high-speed supply of shots from the boxes and the possibility of firing at enemy torpedo boats, which led to the alteration of the entire gun carriage. The installation was ready only at the beginning of 1944, when there was no particular need for it.
