A comment on relative ack strengths -
We've been flying over Iraq for around 12 years now, and in the last 2 years Iraq has been actively trying to shoot down US and British planes. They have sophisticated height finders and have been rebuilding their air defense networks since the gulf war ended, yet to date they haven't downed a single aircraft in over 2 years of trying. They've been using heavy AAA traps, and the best they've done is to get an occasional fighter to jettison it's drop tanks.
This is with modern anti aircraft artillery, thousands of spotters on the ground linked electronically, both active and passive height finders, and computer flight path prediction. And they still haven't downed a plane in over 2 years of trying.
During Desert Storm there were AAA losses, but those tended to be due to extremely high risk missions like flying straight and level at 500 ft alt directly over heavily defended airfields. AAA is really good at hitting planes doing that kind of thing...
In Kosovo, the USAF and other Nato countries bombed the snot out of a country with one of the most compact air defense regions in the world, much of which we weren't allowed to bomb due to the risk of non-combatant casualties. In one incident (which earned the pilot a DFC), an F-16 went one on one against dense heavy, medium, and light AAA to bomb an active SAM site that had just shot at him and his wingman. Again, no AAA losses even against modern AAA weapons when flying our most fragile fighter (the F-16).
I'm not sure what conclusion to draw since WWII had flak densities that haven't been seen since that war, but it does point to the idea that the long range capabilities of AH AAA is amazingly accurate and lethal.
Either that, or HT could have a glorious career programming real life gun director systems
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
