Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

Chapter 1
Antiaircraft Defense through
World War II
The genesis of antiaircraft defense appeared soon after man
took to the air. There are reports of antiballoon artillery in the
American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. During the
latter, 66 balloons are known to have left the besieged city of
Paris, with one destroyed by Prussian guns. 1 The first aircraft
downed in combat fell to ground fire in the Italo-Turkish War
of 1912.
So, when World War I began, there were clear precedents for
ground-based air defense systems. However, the ground problem
clearly was much more important than dealing with the
few insignificant aircraft. Although the Germans had built a
few guns designed for antiaircraft duty in the decade before
World War I, little attention was given to this issue. Germany
began the war with 18 antiaircraft guns: six of them motorized
and 12 of them horse drawn. The other European powers gave
the matter even less attention. 2 Most of the first antiaircraft
guns were artillery pieces modified to elevate higher and traverse
through a wider arc than standard artillery pieces (fig.
1). The task of the antiaircraft gunner proved much more
demanding than that of the traditional artilleryman. But the
target problem was much more difficult. In contrast to the
standard artillery problem of hitting a target located in two dimensions,
the antiaircraft gunner was working in three dimensions,
having to adjust not only for range and deflection
but also for elevation. In addition, the aerial target was moving,
possibly in all three dimensions, and possibly varying in
speed, altitude, and direction. Finally, the projectile was unguided
once it left the tube, following a ballistic course over a
number of seconds while en route to the target. The technology
of the day was inadequate for the tasks of detection, tracking,
and fire control.
During World War I, both sides bombed their opponents’ cities.
German attacks on London and Paris tied down considerable
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