An anti-aircraft vehicle, also known as a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) or self-propelled air defense system (SPAD), is a mobile vehicle with a dedicated anti-aircraft capability.
Anti-aircraft guns are usually mounted in a quickly-traversing turret with a high rate of elevation, for tracking fast-moving aircraft. They are often in dual or quadruple mounts, allowing a high rate of fire. In addition, most anti-aircraft guns can be used in a direct-fire role against surface targets to great effect. Today, surface-to-air missiles (generally mounted on similar turrets) have largely supplanted anti-aircraft guns, but they may return as a cheap way to counter unmanned aerial systems (drones), cruise missiles, and ultralight aircraft.
History
World War I
A World War 1, British, truck-mounted, QF 3 inch gun
Anti-aircraft machine guns have long been mounted on trucks, and these were quite common during World War I. A predecessor of the WWII German "88" anti-aircraft gun, the WWI German 77mm anti-aircraft gun, was truck-mounted and used to great effect against British tanks.
The British QF 3 inch 20 cwt was mounted on trucks for use on the Western Front. The British also had a first dedicated anti aircraft weapon, the QF 1-pounder pom-pom. Mounted on a armoured truck titled the Pierce-Arrow armoured AA lorry, which was produced in limited numbers and only seeing service throughout 1915. Towards the end of the war Germany produced three prototype SPAAGs with AA guns mounted on A7V chassis known as the A7V Flakpanzer.[1]
Inter-war period
Between the two World Wars, the United Kingdom developed the Birch gun, a general-purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis capable of maintaining formation with their current tanks over terrain. The gun could be elevated for anti-aircraft use.
Vickers Armstrong "Type 76" SPAAG loaded onto a train.
The first tracked SPAAG-design to be manufactured in series was most likely the British/Siamese Vickers Armstrong "Type 76" (per Buddhist year 2476 = 1933 CE), as named by the Royal Siamese Army, a SPAAG based on the chassis of the Dragon, Medium, Mark IV artillery tractor (Vickers Mk.E 6-ton light tank derivative), mounting a revolving Vickers 40mm QF 2 pounder pom-pom autocannon in an open fighting compartment. About 26 were sold to Siam in 1932 and saw action as infantry support guns and AA guns during the Franco-Thai war (1940-1941) along with 30 Vickers Mk.E Type B 6-ton tanks. Despite being the first tracked SPAAG en masse, the open-top design of the Vickers Type 76 made it outdated even by the early 1930s.
Landsverk L-62 Anti-prototype in 1939.
The first modern SPAAG to be produced was most likely the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti in 1936, featuring a tracked armoured body with a revolving turret, a so-called anti-aircraft tank. It was based on a widened chassis of the Landsverk L-60 light tank and was armed with a Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 in an open-top revolving turret. The design was bought by Hungary just prior to the war and Finland ordered a refined model in 1941, known as the Anti II.
By the late 1930s, the British had developed a version of the Mk.VI Light Tank armed with four machine guns that were known as Light Tank AA Mk.I, and also a twin 15mm version based on the Light Tank Mk.V was built. Among early pre-war pioneers of self-propelled AA guns were the Germans. By the time of the war, they fielded the Sd.Kfz. 10/4 and Sd.Kfz. 6/2, cargo half-tracks mounting single 20mm or 37mm AA guns (respectively). Later in the war similar German half-tracks mounted quadruple 20mm weapons.
Larger guns followed on larger trucks, but these mountings generally required off-truck setup in order to unlimber the stabilizing legs these guns needed. One exception to this rule was the Italian Cannone da 90/53 which was highly effective when mounted on trucks, a fit known as the "autocannoni da 90/53". The 90/53 was a feared weapon, notably in the anti-tank role, but only a few hundred had been produced by the time of the armistice in 1943.
Other nations tended to work on truck chassis. Starting in 1941, the British developed the "en portee" method of mounting an anti-tank gun (initially a 2 pounder) on a truck. This was to prevent the weapon from being damaged by long-distance towing across rough, stony deserts, and it was intended only to be a carrying method, with the gun unloaded for firing. However, crews tended to fire their weapons from their vehicles for the mobility this method provided, with consequent casualties. This undoubtedly inspired their Morris C9/B (officially the "Carrier, SP, 4x4, 40 mm AA"), a Bofors 40mm AA gun mounted on a chassis derived from the Morris "Quad" Field Artillery Tractor truck. Similar types, based on 3-ton lorries, were produced in Britain, Canada and Australia, and together formed the most numerous self-propelled AA guns in British service.
The U.S. Army brought truck-towed Bofors 40mm AA guns along with truck-mounted units fitted with mechanized turrets when they sailed, first for Great Britain and then onto France. The turrets carried four .50inch (12.7mm) machine guns, which were designed to be adjusted to converge at the single point where enemy aircraft were expected to appear at low altitude in conduction of strafing runs directed at large infantry and field artillery units.
Interest in mobile AA turned to heavier vehicles with the mass and stability needed to easily train weapons of all sizes. Probably the desire, particularly in German service, for anti-aircraft vehicles to be armoured for their own protection also assisted this trend.
The concept of using armored SPAAG (anti-aircraft tanks) en masse was pioneered by Hungary during World War II with the production of the 40M Nimrod, a license-produced version of the previously mentioned late 1930s Landsverk L-62 Anti I SPAAG. Germany followed later with their "Flakpanzer" series. German World War II SPAAGs include the Möbelwagen, Wirbelwind, Ostwind and Kugelblitz. Other forces followed with designs of their own, notably the American M16 created by mounting quadruple M2HB Browning machine guns on a M3 Half-track.
The British developed their own SPAAGs throughout the war mounting multiple machine guns and light cannon on various tank and armoured car chassis and by 1943, the Crusader AA tanks, which mounted the Bofors 40 mm gun or two-three Oerlikon 20 mm cannon. Although used during the Normandy landings, by that point German aircraft were contained by the Allies own air forces and they were largely unneeded.
Cold War and later
Czechoslovak self-propelled anti-aircraft gun M53/59 Praga developed in the late 1950s.Flakpanzer Gepard, combining radars, fire control and two 35mm guns in a new turret mounted on a Leopard chassis.Typical of more modern designs, the Tunguska-M1 mounts both missiles and cannons.
The introduction of jet engines and the subsequent rough doubling of aircraft speeds greatly reduced the effectiveness of the SPAAG against attack aircraft.[dubious–discuss] A typical SPAAG round might have a muzzle velocity on the order of 1,000 metres per second (3,300ft/s) and might take as long as two to three seconds to reach a target at its maximum range. An aircraft flying at 1,000 kilometres per hour (620mph) is moving at a rate of about 280 metres per second (920ft/s). This means the aircraft will have moved hundreds of meters during the flight time of the shells, greatly complicating the aiming problem to the point where close passes were essentially impossible to aim using manual gunsights. This speed also allowed the aircraft to rapidly fly out of range of the guns; even if the aircraft passes directly over the SPAAG, it would be within its firing radius for under 30 seconds.
SPAAG development continued through the early 1950s with ever-larger guns, improving the range and allowing the engagement to take place at longer distances where the crossing angle was smaller and aiming was easier. Examples including the 40mm U.S. M42 Duster and the 57mm Soviet ZSU-57-2. However, both were essentially obsolete before they entered service, and found employment solely in the ground-support role. The M42 was introduced to the Vietnam War to counter an expected North Vietnamese air offensive, but when this failed to materialize it was used as an effective direct-fire weapon. The ZSU-57 found similar use in the Yugoslav Wars, where its high-angle fire was useful in the mountainous terrain.
By the late 1950s, the US Army had given up on the SPAAG concept, considering all gun-based weapons to be useless against modern aircraft. This belief was generally held by many forces, and the anti-aircraft role turned almost exclusively to missile systems. The Soviet Union remained an outlier, beginning the development of a new SPAAG in 1957, which emerged as the ZSU-23-4 in 1965. This system included search-and-track radars, fire control, and automatic gun-laying, greatly increasing its effectiveness against modern targets. The ZSU-23 proved very effective when used in concert with SAMs; the presence of SAMs forced aircraft to fly low to avoid their radars, placing them within range of the ZSUs.
The success of the ZSU-23 led to a resurgence of SPAAG development. This was also prompted by the introduction of attack helicopters in the 1970s, which could hide behind terrain and then "pop up" for an attack lasting only a few tens of seconds; missiles were ineffective at low altitudes, while the helicopters would often be within range of the guns for a rapid counterattack. Notable among these later systems is the German Gepard, the first western SPAAG to offer performance equal to or better than the ZSU. This system was widely copied in various NATO forces.
SPAAG development continues, with many modern examples often combining both guns and short-range missiles. Examples include the Soviet/Russian Tunguska-M1, which supplanted the ZSU-23 in service, the newer versions of the Gepard, the Chinese Type 95 SPAAA, and the British Marksman turret, which can be used on a wide variety of platforms. Some forces, like the US Army and USMC have mostly forgone self-propelled guns in favor of systems with short-range infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles in the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger and M6 Linebacker, which do not require radar to be accurate and are generally more reliable and cost-effective to field, though their ability to provide ground support is more limited. The U.S. Army did use the M163 VADS and developed the prototype design of the M247 Sergeant York.
Present day
Skyranger 30 at ILA Berlin 2022 exhibition
Modern SPAAGs usually have short-range missiles for longer range engagement. The Pantsir system from Russia is primarily a missile battery, although it does have twin cannons as secondary armament.
An armoured fighting vehicle or armored fighting vehicle (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour, generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked. Examples of AFVs are tanks, armoured cars, assault guns, self-propelled artilleries, infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), and armoured personnel carriers (APC).
A tank destroyer, tank hunter or tank killer is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, predominantly intended for anti-tank duties. They are typically armed with a direct fire artillery gun, also known as a self-propelled anti-tank gun, or missile launcher, also called an anti-tank missile carrier. The vehicles are designed specifically to engage and destroy enemy tanks, often with limited operational capacities.
Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and self-propelled rocket artillery. They are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
The Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind" was a German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on the Panzer IV tank. It was developed in 1944 as a successor to the earlier Möbelwagen self-propelled anti-aircraft gun.
The ZSU-57-2 Ob'yekt 500 is a Soviet self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG), armed with two 57 mm autocannons. 'ZSU' stands for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka, meaning "anti-aircraft self-propelled mount", '57' stands for the bore of the armament in millimetres and '2' stands for the number of gun barrels. It was the first Soviet mass-produced tracked SPAAG. In the USSR, it had the unofficial nickname Sparka, meaning "twin mount," referring to the twin autocannon with which the vehicle is armed.
The Flakpanzer IV Kugelblitz was a German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun developed during World War II. By the end of the war, only a pilot production of five units had been completed. Unlike earlier self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, it had a fully enclosed, rotating turret.
AEC Armoured Car is the name of a series of British heavy armoured cars built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) during the Second World War.
The M42 40 mm Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun, or "Duster," is an American armored light air-defense gun built for the United States Army from 1952 until December 1960, in service until 1988. Production of this vehicle was performed by the tank division of the General Motors Corporation. It used components from the M41 light tank and was constructed of all-welded steel.
The M247 Sergeant York DIVAD was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG), developed by Ford Aerospace in the late 1970s. Based on the M48 Patton tank, it replaced the Patton's turret with a new one that featured twin radar-directed Bofors 40 mm rapid-fire guns. The vehicle was named after Sergeant Alvin York, a famous World War I hero.
The OTO Main Anti-aircraft Tank for Intercept and Combat was an Italian self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG) prototype. Designed and built by OTO Melara, it was armed with a single 76 mm naval gun.
AZP S-60 is a Soviet towed, road-transportable, short- to medium-range, single-barrel anti-aircraft gun from the 1950s. The gun was extensively used in Warsaw Pact, Middle Eastern and South-East Asian countries.
Marksman is a British short range air defense system developed by Marconi, consisting of a turret, a Marconi Series 400 radar and two Swiss Oerlikon 35 mm anti-aircraft autocannons. It is similar to the German Gepard system in terms of engine performance, ammunition carried and effective range of the ammunition.
The Type 95 is a Chinese self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle. It is armed with four 25 mm caliber cannons and optionally four fire-and-forget QW-2 infrared homing missiles. It was first displayed publicly at the Beijing Military Parade in 1999. Earlier in development the system was designated Type 90-II and Type 90-III.
The 40M Nimród was a World War II Hungarian self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on a license-built copy of the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti I SPAAG but with a new turret, and developed independently. Originally, it was intended to be used both in the anti-aircraft and tank destroyer roles, but it proved to be ineffective against heavily armored Soviet tanks like the KV-1. Therefore, it was primarily used against lightly armored vehicles and for air defense.
ZSU-37 was a Soviet-made, light, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun (SPAAG), developed by the end of 1943 and produced at Works No. 40 in Mytishchi. It was the first Soviet series-produced tracked SPAAG. ZSU stands for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka, meaning "anti-aircraft self-propelled mount".
The ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" is a lightly armored Soviet self-propelled, radar-guided anti-aircraft weapon system (SPAAG). It was superseded by the 9K22 Tunguska.
The Pierce-Arrow armoured AA lorry was a self-propelled anti-aircraft carrier mounting a QF 2-pounder AA "pom-pom" gun, it was used by the Royal Marine Artillery during the First World War.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
