Flak Towers: Useless? Response with
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
- On my video about the Flak Towers (Flaktürme) in WW2 I got a rather "interesting" comment, claiming that these towers had no military value and were only for propaganda. Bismarck from Military Aviation History and I address some of the points made in the comment.
Please refrain from answering to the comment itself, since well, it is a bit "interesting".
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Military History not Visualized How useful were anti air artillery? I heard that they caused more casualties to civillians in cities than downed planes. Good only for morale.
From what I remember the main thing that made them so tough was the amount of rebar used in their construction. We're talking multiple times the amount of rebar used in concrete bunkers let alone standard construction. I couldn't find the link but I remember the figure of 16 times normal being tossed around, but don't quote me on that.
@Chris_Wooden_Eye I knew a man (recently deceased) who was one of those boys. He told me at first it was exciting, until he realized what was falling out of the aircraft, humans. "Jojo Rabbit" is really close to truth.
@@rndompersn3426 I think AA was useful, regarding civilian casualties, yes they happened from falling shrapnel but why are you outside in an air raid? Get under cover. Secondly even if the AA doesn't succeed in bringing down a bomber I'm fairly confident it would affect the accuracy of the bombing, and there's also the effect of damage to the aircraft and crews who did get back. How would you feel about flying a mission after seeing (for example) the remains of your rear gunner being removed from the aircraft after the last one?
Pull the microphone away from your deviated septum. Jesus!
Just a note on dismantlling such a tower: my father's company dismantled 1 bunker in Hannover and it took them 3 months. Everything hat to be done with water cutters. The blocks that were cut waighed about 2 tones a piece. The issue is that the bunkers are build in such a way that they can't be torn down any other way. The Americans tried blowing the bunkers in Hannover.
Thes towers are biger and it woud turn our parks in to a destruction sight fore months.
As Aristotle said "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it." I believe it fits rather well here.
Bring out the dancing dogs and ponies! "Here's my _thought_ it's kinda _hot_ ..."
I love commenters who’s entire expertise of history, firearms, tanks, etc. hinges on, “I was in the military!”
And who knows if that is even true.
Don't you understand that being a plumber or a cook in "The Military" makes you an expert on everything. Pretty sure that's in the manual somewhere as most Generals and Officers feel that way about themselves. LOL.
@@jager6863 Totally... But in all seriousness, the average grunt aint gonna know shit about anything beyond what they do specifically.
You've gotta understand... He pointed out that he was older than him. Obviously, age always equals more knowledge and ability to resonate. Military History not Visualised must bow before the authority of age.
Being a member of the military myself I can say many of us are stupid and opinionated.
I hope to someday leave a comment good enough to warrant a response video, maybe i'll try to do it with out insults.
This guy whose comment you responded to is a good example of why I've been more annoyed by anti-Wehraboos than actual Wehraboos lately. Just because I am interested in studying a piece of Wehrmacht equipment does not mean I am trivializing negative aspects of the Nazi regime. Is the fact that a Tiger tank or an ME 262 was probably assembled at least in part by slave labor relevant? Definitely. Is it an important aspect to consider when I ask about the combat effectiveness of these weapons systems? Mostly not, unless aspects like sabotage or poor training of the slave labor come into play.
There are a lot of people who don't know much about military history and don't have the patience to learn it who still want to boost their egos. Instead of taking the time to learn proper context for things, why not just yell loudly about how virtuous you are because you hold the right beliefs, and therefore how bad anyone who opposes you is by implication? It's a cheap, tawdry rhetorical technique and I frankly am sick of it, but it's hardly uncommon.
Totally agree. Just because Germany made great stuff doesn't mean you applaud the political part if you love the tech.
Indeed, it can be hard for some to separate out the politics of.
That I am starting to really appreciate when I'm talking about things, my sources, research for projects as a game designer these days. I want to talk Cold War, yet somehow, it means as I discuss, say the specifics of Soviet armament procurement, I must have an interest in a communist political agenda. That I am aware of the nomenklatura, I must be a proponent of it.
Which is most certainly not the case.
And oddly enough, also being called a USA fanboy for pointing out that one of the KGB chief electorates was about influencing elections. From memory.
It's an Australian summer at it's finest, it's hot, humid and the minimum temperature is close to 25 celcius.
Look at it this way, a lot of the people I know are convinced I'm some sort of Nazi because I have an interest in military history and weapons in general. Some people are just stupid like that, you learn to dismiss their capacity to contribute anything of value to any conversation and just move on.
Basically if you have an opinion or facts that they don't like you are a Nazi fan boy because you have to be wrong because the Germany lost the war.... lol
Why is everything associated with "Nazi regime", was it like this prior to WW1? Should we call it the Imperialistic Regime of Germany that's responsible for its slave labor?
Like "Being in the Austrian Army" is some relevant citation of authority to AA defenses constructed 75 plus years ago. Those bombers were coming in at anywhere from 5k meters, British at night; to 7k meters Americans in daylight. By putting the AA guns on top of 35 meter towers, low hIlls a mile or two away ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY A CONSIDERATION. PERIOD. FULL STOP. They ALSO were providing immediate access to extensive Air Raid protection facilities. The ones in Berlin could hold up to 3,000 people; many of whom were post raid Civil Defense workers ie. rescue teams, paramedics, etc. ALL you did was "Virtue signal" your complete and utter ignorance.
Gentlemen. Your response was far more restrained than mine would have been. Kudos for keeping your cool (and a straight face) debunking the idiot trolls claims. Keep up the good work.
Exactly what I was going to say, it reminds me of the Chieftain reminding us that because he's a Abrams officer it does not make him an expert WW2 armor, his extensive research does.
Just as a side note I wonder if he served with a missile AA system. Maybe those are more suited to being on the previously mentioned hills.
Is/Was there a required service period (conscription, national service, etc) in the Austrian military? And would the required time be 1-2 years? In that case, couldn't a sizeable proportion of the adult population could make the same claim as the OP?
@@charlesbaker7703 Yeah, Austria has conscription, so the guy is literally bragging about something that is also true of MHV, ironically enough.
@@mensch1066 MHV was in artillery I believe.
@Uncle Joe S No his purpose was to "virtue signal". His tone was shrill and accusatory ie "slave labor and NNAAZZZIIISSS!!!!". What he did was demonstrate the accuracy of "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
I was watching this video in the background and that censoring sound scared the heck out of me.
mission accomplished ;)
Just Bernhard and his terror sounding campaigns. Keep calm and carry on.
I had to go back and replay.
When ordinary people get angry, they curse.
When MHV gets angry, he arranges an MG ambush just to make a point.
That was the sound of the censor being shot before he could hit his little "beep" button.
Flak towers also make a known hard-point of defence... therefor limiting directions of approach.
Good vid!
1 Flak Tower = Infinite Hordes of Allies
This was the case in Berlin, when the Germans used the AA guns from the Zoo flak tower against approaching Soviet ground forces.
To be fair, the russians tried approaching these things and the AA guns up top would keep knocking out any tank that got in sight, and 203mm mortar fire still didnt do any significant structural damage even after sustained bombardments. Incredibly tough doesnt begin to describe these things.
@Stimpy&Ren took them 3 tries with around 150 tonnes of explosives in total. All they managed to do was crack it in 2 and sink it a bit.
Yeah that's completely irrelevant. If the enemy is in Berlin the war is over.
To paraphrase the US Army's Air Defense Artillery branch history, the purpose of ADA is not to shoot down individual planes but rather to deny a given volume of airspace to the enemy. Putting towers in the city allow protected guns in the city to better deny the airspace over the city.
Yet Hamburg burned in the fire storm after flakturm IV was completed.
@@Jakob_DK Yes and? It would have burned more quickly and at lower cost to the allies.
You can overwhelm any static defense, it's job is to force you to spend time and resources to deal with them.
Same with the Maginot Line. Worked great for what it was for: force the Germans to attack through Belgium.
@@TheStephaneAdam
They used “window” for the first time, blocking nazi-german radar.
Yes they could have use that for a different attack.
You can always argue. Even today som will say the 2-3 % of the population vanished, is not a problem. The burning city was a success because the smoke made further bombing difficult.
I have had "discussions" with people who get all their history watching PBS and History Channel "documentaries" about AAA oder FLAK defenses. The often ridiculously inappropriate footage that is inserting with the dialog seems to be taken literally by a lot of people. I have seen multiple instances where footage of a light, trailer mounted multi-barrel AA was inserted while the presentation was about heavy bombers. Sure, a 2 cm flakvierling firing at night looks cool, but such a weapon simply does not have the range to fire at the heavies. Lots of misconceptions, and far too many people believe anything they see on TV (or see/hear on the internet for that matter).
There are three models of learning, the man who learns from reading, the men who learn from example, and the majority who have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
The only way a 2cm gun has the range to shoot at a B-17 is if you strap it to a plane first.
When commenting in the RUclips comments section, always go all out. Troll like a Russian bot and scream like a 12-year old playing video games. YOU ONLY LIVE LIFE ONCE!
You forgot the Victors who always say Axis bad, Allies good. These people are just brainwashed by their government to the point everything about Germany or any other former Axis countries are bad. History was written by the victors. It's sad they didn't read much books that has less Allies bias and just being brainless sheep in general.
@@yousefseed1874 Wow, your comment perfectly demonstrates the point above.
@@yousefseed1874 Well no matter your interest in the military tactics and equipment of the Axis, you can't just start calling the Axis good for hopefully obvious reasons
@@yousefseed1874 Its not like axis was any good and had any righteous reasons to start this war.
Everything I know about Flak Towers I learned from playing Medal of Honor: Airborne. Great level.
Hedgehobbit Damn Nazi Storm Elite lol
@@kermitderfrosch1704
Threat level: 10
Weapons: a fcking MG-42 shoot from the hip ! And those are litteraly bulletproof everywhere !
I remember the little cinematic when you first encounter them and damn i remember i was scared to fight them how they were frightening.
@@Pantsugrenadiere And gas masks! Imagine running in rubble with armor, MG, ammo... and not breathing. Prolly the reason they were scary tbh.
@@dlifedt well the threat lv9 ennemy with the panzershreck also have a gaz Mask but at least this one *DIE* when you shoot him.....damn i suddenly want to Replay this game
@@Pantsugrenadiere I quickly went into the MOH:A files and edited the Storm Trooper hit damage value to 1 shot kills......they were never a threat, as it wouldve been in reality
To the extent that they were used as propaganda it might be fair to see it as a way for Germany to show the people of Vienna that Germany was doing something to protect them from bombers and to remind them that they were under attack and needed to be ready to fight. Yes, they could also be a show of force but I think its a bit overly simplistic to claim they were just there to scare the locals.
They remind me of the castles William the bastard put up after he invaded england
He did it to show his power and I don't think he thought some would last 1000 years and beyond
A lot of things done in the war was also to reassure the people
I guess it would be a good lucky drop if a British tall boy hit one on the top
The "hills around the city" would be an ideal staging site for self propelled surface-to-air missile batteries, but I don't think the Wehrmacht had many of those in the mid 1940s.
@Félix Sánchez They had a few, even padt the prototype stage. Either Bismarck or MHV has a video on them.
@@ineednochannelyoutube5384 aliens
@@aOldRustyTruck Obviously.
Germany did have multiple guided surface to air missile system in development at the end of the war but was filed before the ware ended. What they managed to build and use were guided air-launch glide bombs. A problem with all was that they where Manual command to line of sight so the airplane neede to be close by but out of AAA range and the allied did construct jamming devices. It was primarily allied air superiority that stored from getting used a lot.
@@target844 None of these were SACLOS systems. The Fritz-X was command guided, and the SAMs were all radar beamriders. The letter of which was not possible to jam with the technology of the day.
Hi I was also in The Military. Actually, the Char B1 Bis was the most bestest tank ever and even a single one could stop an entire German division cold in its tracks. Citation:I think multi-gun tanks are cool.
8:12: I come from Südtirol (South Tyrol) in Italy, and there are actually dozens of former German Flak sites all over the Alpine mountains surrounding the capital city of Bozen/Bolzano. I once worked for a farmer whose farm is located on a mountain slope facing the city, and there is a flak position a few hundreds metres up the mountain from his farm. He told me that his two boys once went playing there and came back with a rusted 88mm shell (apparently, they left the thing leaning against the wall of the house until a routine inspection by the Carabinieri (police); the Carabinieri were shocked, immediately evacuated the family and called their explosives experts to remove the thing).
Point is: you can have flak batteries in the mountains, and the Germans did.
Exactely, just because they place some in the city doesn't mean they didn't place any on the hills.
Excellent collaboration video, and a good measured response that didn’t end up trading insults with the original poster.
Well argued. We had similar arguments in the UK about ack-ack fire during the Blitz.
You guys are too good. Paying so much attention to answering some stupid comments!
Kimo Andrews 🤔🤔🤔
God bless MHV for combating those rabid victors in the comment section. We don't need more of that Allies bias any longer
@@yousefseed1874 - It's too bad that nobody is fighting them in the US Congress. It is the most dangerous bunch of idiots on the planet - if not the most annoying.
Great video lads. There is still a WWII AA battery on the Isle of Dogs in London, and sure enough it's in a park, which was a park at the time. The park itself was in the middle of the largest expanse of flat ground & river in London and close to the main strategic target; the docks. The battery suffers all the disadvantages regarding ammunition storage, etc you mention, but the problem was dealt with by concrete walls and buildings. It doesn't seem to have been hit; not every German pilot had Bismark's expertise in IL2. The reason, I think, why it, and other AA guns in London were not on towers is that London has quite large parks. My grandfather told me there were large AA batteries in Regent's Park (he was a firewatcher, so it was his business to know) and that park's longest axis is 1.5 km whereas the longest axis of the Augarten in Vienna is less than 900 metres, and the buildings around it considerably higher (London was very low rise). The size of the parks and the short buildings would have given gunners wide arcs of fire, not necessarily available in Vienna. In the modern London that would imply that any AA defence would also have to be tower mounted, now that the city has become more high rise.
Well today you have missiles you can launch from any spot of land. You would have radars on towers though.
@@lars7935 any recent war we've seen has involved missiles, it is true, but also a very great deal of old-fashioned AA fire.
@@99Hokusai True. But mostly for point defense. Depending on the price relations of small missiles they might be pushed out of that role too.
Yeah, I think reinforced concrete is in English the most used term for "Stahlbeton". Really good and from my point absolutely plausible explanations. Thank you both for your great effort!
Correct, but actually that type of concrete had the term panzer Beton because it is nearly as much steel as cement. I believe US term is extra harden concrete
Jan Tschierschky someone from the US here. Reinforced concrete is the term regardless of the percentage of reinforcement. Hardened concrete is a different mix of high strength, extremely dense concrete. It might translate to hardened reinforced concrete but reinforced concrete would likely be the correct term.
@@RaeSyngKane thanks, well I heard the term used on a documentary about missile silos. Especially about the atlas 2 I believe. However the type of concrete is different, the US seems use very fine aggregate, were the German used river gravel known as kies that is coarse and very hard.
The war against the trolls begins...
Bernhard and Bismarck!
This is an intelligent and respectful reaction to an emotional, yet insightful comment.
When dealing with cultural and historical topics, especially "this" history, it is inevitable that one might pull up some rather personal, vitriolic, and rather nasty feelings, these things happen.
But it's also always possible to give things time, to let them chill, and to reflect, upon historic things like propaganda, slave labor, poor grammar and spelling... Well done gentlemen.
As the German wikipedia page on the Flaktürme mentiones: these towers managed to halt the advance of Russian forces around them in the Battle of Berlin.
Dunno about their use but the first time I saw the one in Hamburg, I was blown away by it's scale.
Informative and interesting discussion, thank you for inviting us.
I was on the top floor of the flak tower in Hamburg recently. The Nazis had to do something about the bomber stream coming into the Reich. Those flak towers were not useless at all. The served to direct the Allied bombers into killing zones. The Luftwaffe and the Flak batteries were very, very efficient in downing those bombers. The 8th Air Force lost almost 5,000 bombers and could not get crews replaced fast enough. Schweinfurt, Nurnberg etc. up to 40% losses, each with a ten men crew. The U.K. did even worse. It lost about 8,000 bombers all in all. By the end of '44 the Luftwaffe itself had run out of crews, but not out of planes. So, making a blanket statement of how useless those towers were doesn't hack it with me. The numbers tell a different story.
Considering how many medieval castles still exist today, these flak towers will still be around in a thousand years. Maybe buried under the jungle or at the bottom of the ocean but still intact.
The USAAF FLAK! training video is fascinating. So is the USAAF "side gunner" training video. They add considerable perspective to the discussion.
Thanks. I’ll check them out.
People who think that being in the armed forces qualifies them to make counter points is rather silly. As the chieftain says, him being a tanker has nothing to do with his knowledge of ww2 tanks and their usefulness.
I fail to see how any level of training in the modern austrain army would qualify someone to comment on the effectiveness of WW2 anti air emplacements since, even if the commenter was in and air defense unit, modern AA is vastly different in implementation and ability compared to their ww2 counterparts.
Not to say that being in the armed forces precludes one from making counter points. But arguments should be backed up with facts and logic not with claims of expertise.
1st Flak Division in Berlin located in Flak Towers was best armed division in Berlin Defense area in march 1945 , source Anthony Beevor "La Chute de Berlin"
As a former Australian soldier (Being ex-military has no bearing on the argument as I was not Anti-air, nor Flak Leader of a 1943 gun group) and military history enthusiast of the era from US Civil War to current times I agree that the Flak Towers were a practical asset response to gun solution coordination, protection of crews, protection of equipment and a shelter for people. How they were built was typical of the time with elements (or wholly) of forced labour being involved. These towers would have been popularised as an easy demonstration of how the the political regime was protecting "you" but they did protect but propaganda was not the purpose, rather a minor player. The point about the load (weight) bearing design specifications is also valid. I work in the communications industry these days and a fibre optic linked mobile site on a building requires strengthening every time, so having heavy guns on top of a civilian structure would not be practical without significant extra works. PS: When are you reprinting the Panzer book for auslanders? 😜
I had to order the signed edition, as the unsigned edition was not available to be shipped to Australia.
So..... yeah, we could get them. Just had to be signed.
Also, fellow Australian.
I applaud you guys taking on this comment. Regardless of the insults it's good to counter people who disagree with you when there disagreement is not absurd. 👍
Another reason a flake tower would not work on a building, logically you'd have to reinforce the building otherwise if the bomb collapses the building the tower goes with it. So after all that you might as well of built the while damn tower.
great video. I suspect the reason or one of the reasons there were no flack towers around the Rhur was the smoke from the industry, as they realised that the RAF had managed to miss it by miles for that very reason during the early war years. Just a thought. Keep up the good work, Always enjoy it.
Have you seen the land at ruhr its not capable of supporting such superstructures.
Where would you rather be, in the Flack tower or in the B-17?
In the tower.
I have an utterly enormous amount of respect for these behemoths. Something so satisfying about seeing these things stand in defiance against everything, bombs, artillery, 150 tonnes of explosives detonated in one which only managed to crack it in 2 and sink it a bit.
From using a telescope to look at the stars you quickly learn that in a built up area locations that look like they have an uninterrupted view of the sky simply don't. Having a purpose built tower resolves this by getting you above the surrounding buildings and also provides accommodation for all of the other supporting equipment, crews and ammunition. I would also guess that short of a direct hit even the biggest bomb is not going to damage such a solid structure and the top where the guns are situated will be out of the direct blast of near misses. Nowadays it probably wouldn't be a good idea because a concentrated target would be 'smart munitioned' in short order but in the 1940s looks like a bloody good idea. Maybe they did help raise the morale of the inhabitants but that is an equally valid purpose.
Big (anti-aircraft) guns have also a big recoil problem, keeping the guns steady. This problem can be handled better on an AA tower than on a random hill.
It's also better to feed in the ammo by an elevator system from a safe ammo storage (bunker), so the bunkers were some sort of AA cruisers on land.
I heard something on the radio the other day. Is it true that the land owners really can't demolish the old flak towers because the amounts of explosives that it would require would also end up destroying adjacent buildings in the same neighbourhood?
If this is is true, then "built to last" is certainly a bit of an understatement
They could probably dismantle them, but they would have to use stuff like Jackhammers. It would be loud, dirty, and take bloody ages. Probably far less hassle just to repurpose them.
To drop it in one go, probably, 3m of reinforced old concrete is a serious lump of masonry.
Doing it piecemeal, with small charges & heavy percussion tools, is the only realistic method.
This makes absolutely no sense though, you have a building that's extremely well insulated, practically indestructible, and in a city, and a historic site. Why would you want to get rid of it / blow it up?
Picture this, these land owners put up a nice facade on the flak towers and then renovate them with modern amenities. You have a building that you have to spend hardly anything on heating (once it's warmed up) and maintenance. People would go there just for a historical thing too. Sure it would have high initial costs but it's a lot cheaper than tearing down and rebuilding it from scratch. The only real problem would be if it was a hotel it wouldn't have windows, but hey, I bet there's a pretty large clientele for people who want no windows and want to live in a fortified room.
@@dirtydan2721 It's because of germans and austrians being the way they are. The war is an extremely touchy subject, and having Hitlers giant flak towers sitting right smack in the middle of your city would be a constant reminder of the reich.
They are raised and taught to hate their countries past before they can even walk after all.
I'm going to visit Vienna, also Budapest in a few weeks and I'm especially looking forward to seeing Flakturm.
I suspect that guy is just virtue signaling. A current year favorite past time for people with too much time on their hands.
Keep up the good work, guys!
What makes you think he is virtue signaling?
@@axeavier Exactly, it's more likely a troll. Virtue signalling turns up x1000 times as a dog whistle, and about twice as an actual activity
Many thanks for this video, and all the trouble you go to. I am only sorry that I did not have this access to knowledge when I was at school. No school kid today has any excuse for failing an exam, (if they have the internet). Kind regards and greetings from Africa.
I have been in the austrian army. As such I can say it's the prime place to learn about useless for military purpose. There are a few corners that would make for a good laugh in any encounter (others to be fair would be a capable fighting force).
I think a very important point that gets overlooked is that flak towers, or Hochbunker in general are very cheap compared to underground bunkers, construction wise. So in order to figure out the actual value you have to take other things into account for example if the city in question has a large underground subway network that can be used for sheltering civilians or not. If not building an above ground bunker is the fastest and cheapest way of creating shelter. Those bunkers are also quite common. The flak tower is the logical extension of a common type of shelter in that regard.
The first Hamburg flakturm was completed in 1942 yet the city burned in July 1943.
As to what you said at about 10:00, about regular buildings not being able to handle the stress of those guns firing:
Completely agree. People don't really understand just how fucking huge and substantial a >12 cm gun is, let alone how much force is released when firing one. Remember Newton's third law; these machines are hucking a 50 kg object eight to ten kilometers into the sky (further, if the bursting charges didn't go off). The recoil force involved is going to be stupendous.
Now picture a single mount with two of these things on it. That's not even a gun anymore, it's a significant piece of industrial equipment. Not the sort of thing you just put on your rooftop.
Germany managed to have the best ground-based AA guns in WW2. allied bombing raids were extremely unsucesfull and very dangerous for their crew. At the end of the day, despite the civilian bombing campaigns and the massive bomb runs against many german cities, the western allies only managed to reduce german production by a 6%.
With all that in mind i really don't think germans were that much improvised in their AA warfare, so if they built FlakTowers they shurely had pretty good reasons to use their extremely limited resources in that
Some points on putting FLAK installations on existing buildings that nobody seems to have mentioned:
1) Tall buildings in cities in the 1940s were moderately rare. They were clustered in the center of the city. They also weren't generally all that tall by modern standards, even in Europe which until recently has largely eschewed "skyscrapers" in most urban centers.
2) Putting air defenses in the center of the city means that they are farther from the planes at the start of (and thus the median of) the bombing run in many cases. A longer side distance means a lower gun training angle. This means it will take the shell longer to reach the attacking bombers. It also may mean that you can't reach the altitude of the bombers because the bomber height will be out of range at the needed deflection angle.
3) As well as not being designed for high roof loads greater than the original design limit, buildings tended to burn. cf the British night raids with incendiaries.
4) Relevant to 2 and 3, if the building right next to you starts burning, there is a moderate chance that your building will too. A burning building makes a poor FLAK tower. A completely burned build makes an even less effective FLAK tower.
Putting FLAK installations in surrounding hills could have the reverse problem of putting them in the center of the city:
a) They could be too far out to get a good angle on the bombers when they started the bombing run. As mentioned, FLAK before the bombing run was largely avoidable, and would have come close to being "for propaganda purposes".
b) They also would not have been useful as bomb shelters except to the crews and some local herders or farmers; the population density is much less in the hills.
c) Possibly the logistics of resupply could have been more difficult, costing valuable motor transport fuel if nothing else.
2) the FLAK towers in Vienna are basically in the center of the city.
The thing is, i found pictures that on some of the mentioned hills AA guns were placed. I think there is the misconception that they only used the towers. I support the notion that if you only place them on the hills (as they are a bit apart) you are limited to have them fly directly over your position. And then i don't know of any hills to th east of vienna. (maybe i am wrong) but if you only rely on the hills you have an opening in the AA defense of the city to the east. (fly in path).
Dedicated, purpose-built gun emplacements do make sense - you can't just put them on streets or on roofs.
But they're twice or 4x as tall as they needed to be for AA. Civilians and workshops would be safer, and better distributed, in regular (probably cheaper) underground shelters. They had more urgent needs for all that steel and concrete and labor.
If they weren't great for propaganda then yeah, they were kinda useless or, more accurately, the overkill was useless.
(Probably Speer thought they would look nice and Nazi.)
That would depend on the height of the surrounding buildings. In London at the same time yeah, overkill as London was low rise, but central Berlin was much more high rise. These things would need to be at least around the same height as the taller buildings around them to give them good fields of fire, as well as better radar coverage. I would assume that those are the primary reasons for their size. That and their secondary role as shelters for civilians.
@@alganhar1 agreed. Multiple levels for civilian bunkering and an entire hospital sounds mighty useful right below a major AA emplacement, in case allies are crazy enough to strafe at nap of earth altitude.
I remember visiting Vienna's Flakturm in Augarten and was told by to German speaking guide the efficiency of the Flaktower was only 4% or even less. It was more like a sturdy anti-aircraft shelter.
Random fact: It was known that the Flaktowers were build to last therefore Friedrich Tamms had the idea to use them as giant memorials for the fallen soldiers. E.g. the one in the Augarten would have been cased with black marble plates. The names of the fallen soldiers would have been written (in wooden letters) on these plates. I read this in the book "Nur in Wien by Smith". If you like such storys and speak German (haha) follow me on Instagram "WiensGeschichten".
I think in Berlin they even shot down from a Flaktower at approaching Russian Tanks and stopped an advance at least for some time.
Kudos for facing down your harsher criticism.
wow...How to school trolls on flak towers...
The Towers that are dominant/very visible aren't the only Towers in Vienna. For example, there is one in Stiftskaserne (Military barracks), that you'd miss if you don't look for it. There used to be a Train System from Westbahnhof to the Towers to resupply them with ammo. Each Tower could also shelter 40.000 People (wiki states 30k, but I am quite certain that in Haus des Meeres they Claim it's 40k). They certainly were built to impress the People and uphold the morale. But one more usefulness was that Bombers Crews on their final Approach were more frightened - some would fake techical Problems (Robert S.Macnamarra talsk About Curtis Lemay in that respect - for pacific Theater) or miss their target (the cheiftain talks About AA guns on tanks, that aren't meant to take down planes in one of his Videos). Finally: not all usefullness is measurable.
I think what a lot of people look at is “How many aircraft were confirmed destroyed by flak towers” and not any of the major other benefits they provided. It’s like asking “How many enemy tanks have been destroyed by the Sherman” and completely neglecting its role as infantry support
If your opponent is a propeller driven bomber it is a good design. A napalm bomb or explosive must hit spot on a tower to make a real damage whereas a hill placed is exposed even in a pit for ground blasts. They did not use proximity fuse , shells existed in the later years of the war but was not distributed to bombs so the sturdy construction prevented carpet bombings being effective from high altitude. These were also not alone, belin had several in groups of various size. The shells were piled in a safe storage and provided a shelter so overall its much better than a ground placed
There is one aspect which gave many germans the impressions that the AA guns were mostly useless: The ability of the B 17 to absorb damage. I read and heard quite a few times that germans got demoralized because it looked to them as if the american bombers were invulnerable to all the AA fire thrown at them. They simply could not see from the ground all the damage done to the bombers, they could only see those immediately going down and these were not that many because of the toughness of the B 17.
Flak towers did tremendous damage to Soviet armor during the Battle of Berlin, as well as providing refuge to thousands of civilians. Is this not so?
Dunno about Berlin, but I have read that one of the main factors that has stretched the suege of Budapest to nearly three months was the numerous AAA batteries reporpoused as direct fire support by the defenders.
Any major undertaking will be co opted for propaganda.They were shelters that still stand.And the 'slave labour' is'nt so easy to quantify.My Grandfather was captured at Dunkirk and was a POW at a a large 'Prison camp' in poland,he survived the the poor rations and disease of camp by working as 'slave labour' outside the wire.It was'nt a 'concentration camp like Auschwitz or a' death camp' but the survival rates over six years weren't good.
Didnt it take the british three times to blow up the Flak tower in Berlin - Tiergarten? The soviets could blow a hole into it during the actual battle with their biggest guns.
The things are so strong that, if Hitler and his SS took over one of the towers and barricaded themself in their they could have propably survived one or two days longer after the surrender of the rest of Berlin. The soviets would first have to get the explosives to blow it open which wouldnt be your average satchel.
Yes, the Tiergarten towers were demolished. The gun tower took multiple attempts. And even once they finally spent a really long time weakening the walls and connections, they still used an almost absurd about of explosives. And still the tower only sort of collapsed. They eventually just threw dirt on it, and it is a nice little hill today. It was simply too much work to actually remove it. I do believe that the Tiergarten tower's resistance to demolishment, resulted in the other towers being left alone.
@ It would be more an issue of cost/benefit - they could of course be destroyed simply with jack hammers and manpower - it's just concrete after all. The issue would be that it was not worth the time and effort given that the allies wanted to stabilize Germany and get it functioning again.
So the towers were overbuild as it could have done many things and remained indestructible after the war while offering shelter for a mere 250 people
Neil Rosh - reinforced concrete is reinforced concrete, explosives are probably the worst tool to chose when trying to pulverise concrete.
As you said you literally need something that will mulch it, explosives will not rip concrete apart and turn it to dust.
I think that the most important point was missed here. If the flak towers were under local command, then they would not be effective as they would have little or no warning due to the hills. BUT, they are not under local control. They are part of an integrated air defence system. Any bombers headed towards Vienna would have been detected crossing the English Channel by radar and then they would have been tracked all the way to Vienna. The towers would have had at least two hours warning that their could be an attack. Then if you put radar stations on top of the hills, the flak towers would know the size, direction, speed and altitude of the attacking formation before they even came into view. They would then just be waiting for the enemy to come into range. They would not be useful against low level Mosquitoes, but against Lancasters and B17s they would be a serious threat.
The Berlin towers were part of the defense grid for Berlin. Putting them on towers gave them a 360 degree firing arc for the 4 x 128mm flakzwilling mounted on the roof. These were also used at anti-tank guns (same size as the jagdtiger) in the final assault of Berlin. Smaller AA guns (20mm flakvirling and 30mm single flak guns were mounted in the swallows nests below the main gun deck.
From a propaganda point of view, building them was admitting that the enemy could bomb Berlin, something Herr Meyer promised would never happen. As air raid shelters and above ground bunkers, they worked quite well as even the heaviest Russian howitzers couldn't damage them. After the war, the British were determined to destroy the zoo tower (a G type flakturm) and it took over 4 months and 3 attempts. The first took 25 tons of dynamite and failed to destroy the building. The last attempt required extensive drilling of the walls and packed the holes with 35 tons of explosive. for some reason, they never got around to destroying the others.
From a modelling point of view, there is now a 1/35 scale model of the 128mm flakzwilling used on the Berlin flak towers.
The Gesundbrunnen Flak Tower is amazing, especially when you see how little damage the soviet army did when they tried to take it
Good one, gents. I have read that there were plans to construct decorative facades on the outer walls of the oblong Flaktürme after the war was won (for the Vaterland), transforming them into monuments to the vainglorious conquest. Throughout history, there have been functions of domination, repression and celebration of superior strength associated with fixed fortifications, sometimes manifest in specific architectural features, especially associated with gates for instance. Were there not smaller structures to elevate Flak guns over surrounding terrain which may be referred to as flak towers?
I had no idea how complex AAA emplacements were in WW2 until I found one in the woods. I saw a mound off in the woods near an existing Air Force Base and I went to look. It was really complex, it had elevators and steel cabinets (ammo?) and wires, wires, wires coming out of conduit everywhere. The gun mounts were there but the guns long gone.
I remember when the one in Hamburg heiligen Geist Feld was dismantled. First control explosion, nearly no effect. Than it was Jack hammered, taking long time. Those walls were solid 3.5m I believe roof 4m. The steel reinforcement was incredible, that's why the demolition took I believe nearly 2 years. My grandmother was a gunner on a 12.8 cm and she told me she hat to fire in a specific way that not all 4 fired same time. So using a normal building would be impossible due the weight of guns ammo, recoil of those guns. I was told that you can feel the vibration of those guns in the whole building
In 2008 I lived in Klosterneuburg and stumbled on an article about a 88mm flak position in the Wienerwald Northwest of Wien. I am sure it was connected with the larger caliber guns in the Flak towers in Vienna. Just FYI.
Another important point about Flak placement is how to ensure the shrapnel front he hundreds of misses as well as part of bombers and unexploded ordnance doesn't fall onto the are you want to protect. Thus placing the flak towers centrally would have allowed for a 360 degree field of fire.
Because IMO the goal was to stop the bombers before the flew directly above the city.
As for the propaganda purpose of flak towers. Of course they had a propaganda purpose. But in my opinion that was just one more point for why they were erected where they were. There is little point after all in building those towers in places where no one can see them if you want to convince your population that those towers will keep them safe.
Unfortunately, there aren't many left... but I'd be interested in hearing from British, American and Canadian WWII bomber crews with regard to the effectiveness of flak and flak towers.
Many years ago, while visiting The Planes of Fame Air Museum, I spoke with an ex-Luftwaffe pilot who was one of the first to fly the Me-262 into combat as a fighter.
I asked him, "What was it like when you saw the 262 for the first time?"
He said, "It was like looking at the future!"
Then later I asked him, "When did you know the war was over?"
He smiled wryly, "When we looked up during the day and saw all those thousands of brand new shiny bombers massed overhead. We knew we could never match that."
Fixed fortifications are an anachronism meant to be isolated and bypassed. Flak Towers are impressive, awe inspiring, and somewhat reassuring, but so are all the huge castles that dot the European countryside. (Castles, like Flak Towers, are also now used as Discos and Hotels.)
These flak towers did not stop the Eighth, Ninth, or Twelfth Air Force, or RAF Bomber Command from devastating targets within the Third Reich. It was a long war of attrition but the Allies prevailed and gained total Air Superiority in European skies during World War Two.
The Arsenal of Democracy transcended the Arsenal built using slave labor.
See: Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II
by Daniel Uziel
"Fixed fortifications are an anachronism meant to be isolated and bypassed" This comment shows you didn't listen at all.. Those towers were placed in the center of the main targets, so no, they couldn't be bypassed.
It is often discussed how some nations took incorrect lessons in military doctrine after the First World War, leading to struggles in the Second World War. But you don’t hear as much about failures to interpret the Second World War as much. Could you do a video where you discuss examples were nations learned the wrong lessons from the Second World War and how that adversely affected their military doctrine in the post war period?
The US going for the M14 is probably a good example for a "wrong lesson learned"...
@ Actually the US wasn't going for terror bombing in Vietnam, it was destruction of infrastructure and industry which was what they switched to against Germany in 1943/44. Problem is, in a country with only minor industry, already pretty shitty infrastructure and people used to adapt to these conditions and fight on for over 2000 years, this is not a sound strategy. Indochinese nations had repulsed any foreign invaders from China and India for the past 2000 years, and while the French managed to achieve a somewhat effective colonial repression for some time, they were quickly thrown out as soon as they were weakened and the people saw a sliver of hope to become "free" again.
Another one to add would be British Naval Doctrine Post War until 1982 when the Falklands War revealed serious flaws in the designs of RN ships of the period. As the RN had been basically forced into an almost purely Antisubmarine Warfare Role in NATO its ships were excellent ASW platforms, but had much more limited Anti Air and Anti Surface capabilities. Something they have been slowly changing since, the two new Carriers being the ultimate expression of that moving from pure ASW to a more balanced Combat Capability across the Navy.
If they haven't done so, they should re-purpose them, possibly dedicating a small area as a museum and then the rest into shopping malls with roof top bars or gardens/parks. Just thinking out loud.
An additional argument against guns in open placements on ground level, is that the concussion would break the windows around the park. Granted, this seems like a small consideration when at war and when struck by a bombing raid.
But not all raids, that the flaktowers were to engage with guns, would cause damage in the near vicinity of the towers. Therefore, if it was an open battery, even though the battery was not in the target zone, it would break the windows all around, regardless - adding to the damage caused by the raid.
The radar / firecontrol system required data from all 3 towers to get a 3d radar picture. This required somewhat of a triangle placement. Further all 3 radars needed to be on the same elevation above sea level. For this reason not all towers where the same hight.
Each 127/61 Flakzwilling 40 gun weighs 4800kg
Here in Berlin I used to know an old guy who claimed that he was a "Flakjunge" during the war. He had only praise for the flak placements on those towers. He said that they had easily twice to three times the success rate of the flak guns placed down below. They had a far greater angle of shot compaired to the ones below because they didn't have buildings standing in the way.
Bernhard and Bismarck . I like your videos . Learning about Flak Towers is interesting even if some of the information is Missing . Thank you for giving me your thoughts about the Towers . I will never have the chance to visit these places so even the Images alone are valuable to me . Perfection is not required for my Use . Keep up the good work . Please tell us about the Chocolate , I must have missed that part . I like Dark Chocolate myself .
thank you, besides that comment I never knew that Vienna is famous for chocolate. I guess he meant some sweet dish or cake, one of the most famous is Sacher Torte (Sacher Cake).
Sacher Torte and Towers wow . Thank you for Culturally Enriching my Life . We have a 135 meter / 443 feet Tower in our central Downtown that Dominates the Sky line . It is not abandoned but is no longer Xerox HQ . I will have to use our Tower to visualize the impact the Flak towers had on Approaching Pilots and crews Mood . We still have a Brewery .
Good to see another video from you 2. Very well answered the only thing I can add would be the weight 128 and 105 mm guns twin turrets Crush some buildings Malone when you recoil happen. he would shake the building apart
Last fall I took part in a tour of the inside of one of the last standing AA-towers in Berlin. Well only half standing. The 1st series of AA-towers had a dual use in mind. They had large "windows". It was planned to reuse them after the war for malls, cinemas and so on.
Really interesting gents ... from a former RAF boy lol... not WWII era 80s - 2000s lol ... fascinated with all this I was stationed briefly at the former Luftwaffe, Gatow air base 1984 and it was an amazing place. Stone heads of all the leaders at the time were fixed above the entrances to the buildings ... and on one building one head had been destroyed... no prizes for guessing who that was! An amazing city Berlin and at the time so much and I’m. Sure still is a fascinating place in so many ways, history and art and architecture.
Another thing I would like to find out is, is there any truth in a rumour that the basements to the barrack blocks at Gatow were used as a refuge by the German military when the soviets were advancing and that the soviets opened all the sluice gates of the rivers allowing the water table to rise and therefore drowned the people in the basements?
Those old barrack blocks were very creepy in some ways, the one I stayed in was for temporary personnel and it was pretty much undecorated or changed since the war. The floors in the corridors wooden parquet and in our room, on the walls were racks to hold the former Luftwaffe personnel’s weapons!! I wish I’d taken some photographs.
At the time I was there RAF Gatow as it was called then, was very close to the eastern border and had a lot of very sensitive equipment for intelligence gathering during the war. I was cleared from a security point so that I could work there but all we did was fit electrical cable ducting into a building that was totally empty and nothing to see. When I got back to my base in the U.K. i had to go through a special deindoctrination procedure ... all very interesting
Thanks for your excellent technical and historical point. As you say, flaktürme are logical : concetrated AA firepower against concentrated attack formation (the bomber stream technique), in a dedicated, hence efficient building.
What shall not be missed is that military reinforced concrete german military building of WWII vintage are very sturdy, and highly difficult to destroy by air attack. In France, the submarine pens of La Rochelle had been a priority target for the allied air forces, with dozens of techniques tried to destroy them, including remote-controlled planes, and they are still in one piece today.
A flakturm would have been a more difficult target to hit, its footprint is smaller than a submarine pen, there is not a wide opening at one end where you can try to aim a blockbuster bomb to go inside and blow up into the facility, there is not a wide surface on its upper side to aim for a blockbuster bomb to penetrate through the concrete and blow up inside to destroy everything, and the thickness of the concrete wall was enough to protect the people inside from classical bombs. It is, in fact, a well-thought military building, far away from a propaganda stunt.
The only way which could have been possible to disable a flakturm might have been to try to hit it as close as possible with a blockbuster bomb to shake the foundations by the sismic waves of the explosion of the ordnance and try to make the building collapse or topple over with it. But this is a theoretical guess from me, and might be completely false from a civil engineering point of view. Anyway, blobkbuster bombs were scarce, and they were used on more important targets.
The only limitation of those towers were the ones of the guns manned inside, but that was the common problem of all AA guns of WWII: accuracy, rate of fire, hitting power, fired to kill ratio for the shells. But as you said, dedicated and concentrated AA firepower against contentrated air attacks, with additional protection for the gunners and the ammo inside, that was pretty logical.
It's always a pleasure to see how much attention the two of you pay to details and how often you actually take your time to respond to criticism. Even if it's less polite
Consider a medieval castle keep built much stronger than any modern building. Dover castle keep had to have huge brick built barrel vaults installed to withstand the shock of firing black powder cannons during the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars (cannot remember exactly when they were installed). Bearing this in mind what modern or early 20th C. building would be able to withstand the shock of firing any modern-ish artillery piece? Having seen the muzzle blast of a 105mm pack howitzer I would have thought the muzzle blast of an AA gun would have been enough to cause significant weakening of the building fabric let alone the recoil!
A thought that just hit me is why we didn't try to build something like FLAK towers in or around London rather than having odd guns dotted around all over the place, my dad remember a single gun that was placed in the turning circle at the end of his road with no other anywhere near...
Single guns were probably more Morale than effect. The main heavy AA positions certainly around London were often very heavily fortified themselves, some of them still exist. There were concentrated batteries located in the various parks as well. The only things Britain built that are close are the Coastal AA Forts in the Mersey and Thames, but while they were AA positions their roles were somewhat different and given that they were 6 miles out to sea for some of them were obviously not used as air raid shelters!
Useful information, clearly presented. This is a topic that I find fascinating. I've never actually seen one, but I have taken a nice walk-around (outside) of the Kriegsmarine headquarters bunker in Kiel. So yeah, very large structures made with that heavily reinforced, super-hardened concrete will probably be around forever. (I almost forgot! Nice job, fellows. Thanks!)
Regardless of flaktowers' usefulness, i think it's evident that they are cool as fuck.
Regarding the efficiency of flak towers downing Allied aircraft, was it Speer who remarked that the ratio of 128 mm (?) shells fired to aircraft downed was something like 32,000 : 1? Whatever the actual ratio, a tremendous number of shells were fired to down a single aircraft, with the point being it better to expend resources on alternative, more efficient weapons.
No that style of number was for older typ of 88mm, widout fancy fire controll. With the best fire controll and radar, a 128mm gun was mutch more effective, they did have a ratio of 600 to 1. 20 shoot/min for a twin munt 4 twin mount in a tower, 12 min time to shoot. is still only 1-2 downed bomber for each tower. But it forced the bomber to bomb form high altitude and make avoidance maneuvers, that greatly reduced the bombers accuracy.
The hills around vienna are mentioned several times, but all the hills i remember are to the west and north. I don't remember any from the east, south east north east. So if you want to try to deny a direct apporach to the city, and only rely on hills there is a big gap. Something else i was missing in both the "question" and the response: just because those towers were build and used doesn't mean that the hills were without AA guns. Just a tiny google search made me find pictures of AA guns at Kobenzl, Nußberg and Hohe Warte. (some of the hills mentioned)
That letter they got was so full of propaganda. Disgusting. The person that wrote the comment knew pretty much nothing. He should shut up in the future and let people that actually understand something of the issue write the comments
Don't be so emotional! explain your knowledge!
Hi, excellent video - team-work very well done ! You should do more videos together. Not sure, if you covered this already: what about invasion of Crete ? Would be a highly interesting topic for both of you. German air-force view - German para landings - German mountain-troops - English and Anzac defence - fierce local civilian defence - British Navy denfence - impact of decoding Enigma, evacuation of the British troops ... would you agree ? A couple of videos would be required to capture key aspects of this WW2 battle ...
I have read accounts from pilots who said you didn't need a navigator, you could fly to Berlin and back by following the flak bursts, Robert Johnson if I recall
Loved your original video! I would think Area denial is the greatest benefit of the flak towers, they simply deny access to that area by large military forces.
I don't know if they were useless, but there's a laundry list of things the Germans spent resources on that ended up shortening the war because they were so misspent. That was good for humanity though.
Flakturm IV built in Hamburg in 1942.
Hamburg fire storm July 1943
Did the flakturm work?
Vienna is pretty flat.
I think the hills around are to far from the center for effective flak fire
(Just my opinion)
The Heavy AA Batteries around my (British) town of Bristol downed just two german planes (and part of a lighthouse), despite Bristol being the fifth most bombed city in Britain.
Military historians said their roles were partly propaganda/morale, with the sound, particularly of purdown battery of 3.7-inch guns (and one 40mm gun) on a hill above the city, bringing some comfort to the population, as it meant the bombers were being 'hit back'.
The other role I've read that they served was forcing axis bombers to change behaviour. They had to fly higher to avoid the risk posed, thus lowering their accuracy. Not sure if there is any validity to this?
If you look at Helsinki air defense over the course of the wars, you can see how effective it can be in protecting a city. The air space would be denied by walls of flak and most times the Russian bombers would drop their bombs before reaching the target. From wikipedia:
"Only 5% of the bombs fell within the city, and some of these fell in uninhabited park areas causing no damage. Some 2,000 bombers participated in the three great raids on the city and dropped some 2,600 tons of bombs. Of the 146 who died, six were soldiers; 356 were wounded. 109 buildings were destroyed. 300 were damaged by shrapnel and 111 were set on fire. The Soviet Air Force lost 25 aircraft."
"After the war, the Allied Control Commission led by Soviet General Andrei Zhdanov came to Helsinki. Zhdanov was perplexed by the limited damage the city had sustained.[7] The Soviet leadership thought that they had destroyed the city completely and that it was these bombings that had forced the Finns to the peace table."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Helsinki_in_World_War_II
They (the towers) were primarily air - raid shelters. In that, they were very successful. The addition of AAA weapons - and construction of radar towers - was an example of multi-purposing the structures. The number of weapons mounted on the towers was likely, statistically, not significant in terms of what was added to a defence. However, the additional weapons would only help to defend a town - they would not be a negative.
The flak tower shelters likely saved hundreds of thousands of lives, in the course of the war.
For overall effectiveness, statistically Vienna's flak towers shot down one of 125 bombers or escorts, and "heavily damaged" one third of all bombers and escorts. 20% of the city was bombed out overall.
The damaged number is impressive but the actual kill count is really bad imho ...
It is still a huge propaganda building to make people feel save, because all the labour that went into it could have been used to build more AA emplacements on the hills or elsewhere, because this building is a waste of resources for the few gun emplacements on it.
I think the real question isn't so much if the Flack Towers were effective, but if they are effective enough to justify the resources that were used to build them. sm
If I was tasked to remove those flak towers after the war, I would have used barrels of concentrated acid instead of high explosives. Acid both weakens the concrete and strips the steel right out of the concrete.
Couple of terms you maw have looking for, "reinforced concrete" and "load bearing structures". Flack towers entire structure is equally load bearing to come degree. As mentioned they are in fact large vertical bunkers. Consequently the walls are not just design to support vertical loads. They are designed to withstand, or if you prefer defeat all loads from all directions, including impact. If you look at the sub pens, I think one was penetrated through the first layer of concrete in to the void between the first and second layer. The RAF and 8th air force tried and failed to penetrate these target other than this one time. The single penetration has done using either a 12000lb tall boy or a 20000lb Grand Slam. I would expect these towers to have been built to a similar level of protection.