Just spoke to my friends dad (he was a AA gunner in WWII). I asked him about the flak guns. He talked a bit about the German 88's he came into contact with after D-Day.
Wally said that the range limit for most 88 German Flak guns was pretty effective up to around 20000ft but it's range was 35000ft or 6 1/2 miles, and could fire 100 shells a minute. The higher the aircraft, the harder it was to hit. He also mentioned that a lot of AAA/88 guns were also used in ANTI-TANK roles.
Side notes: - Gen. LeMay calculated, based on some practical testing using US AAA, that it would take 372 88mm or equivalent shells to down one bomber.
- General der Flakartillerie a. D. von Renz estimated that in actuality it required 4,000 88mm shells to down one bomber.
- Allied AAA had proximity fuzes while German AAA had none.
- It took the 88mm shell apprx. 20 seconds to reach its maximum effective altitude of 20,000 ft: the fuze delay was set at 20 seconds.
- prior to allied radar AAA, a mechanical computer, the Kerrison Predictor, was used in most AAA air defences during the later part of WWII where a single operator could command an battery of AAA guns.
Good reference site is :
http://www.ww2guide.com/flak.shtml
