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An air burst or airburst is the detonation of an explosive device such as an anti-personnel artillery shell or a nuclear weapon in the air instead of on contact with the ground or target. The principal military advantage of an air burst over a ground burst is that the energy from the explosion, including any shell fragments , is distributed ...
Airburst effect from 40mm round on dummy soldiers. An airburst round is a type of tactical anti-personnel and anti-aircraft explosive ammunition, typically a shell or grenade, that detonates in midair, causing air burst effect fragment damage to enemy personnel or aircraft (notably comparably unsophisticated unmanned aircraft systems such as modified racing drones).
Nazi Germany believed that air warfare would allow the country to rebuild itself in a racial compact. During World War II, air warfare became a means for rejuvenating authority domestically and increasing imperial influence abroad. Galland, Adolf. The First and the Last: German Fighter Forces in World War II (1955) Murray, Williamson.
The idea of a proximity fuse had long been considered militarily useful. Several ideas had been considered, including optical systems that shone a light, sometimes infrared, and triggered when the reflection reached a certain threshold, various ground-triggered means using radio signals, and capacitive or inductive methods similar to a metal detector.
By the beginning of World War II the Luftwaffe ' s anti-aircraft artillery employed 6,700 light (2 cm and 3.7 cm) and 2,628 heavy flak guns. Of the latter, a small number were 10.5 cm Flak 38s or 39s , the majority were 8.8 cm Flak 18s, 36s or 37s. [ 14 ]
Like most strategic bombing during World War II, the aim of the air offensive against Japan was to destroy the enemy's war industries, kill or disable civilian employees of these industries, and undermine civilian morale. [39] [40] Over the next six months, the XXI Bomber Command under LeMay firebombed 64 Japanese cities. [41]
In 1983, the U.S. Office of Air Force History attributed the event to a case of "war nerves" triggered by a lost weather balloon and exacerbated by stray flares and shell bursts from adjoining batteries. As an example of incompetence, the incident was derisively referred to as the "Battle of Los Angeles" or the "Great Los Angeles Air Raid". [5]
27 January: The first World War II US mission flown against the German homeland bombs Kriegsmarine submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven. [27]: 107 5/6 March: The first raid of the Battle of the Ruhr [2] flew RAF Bomber Command's 100,000th sortie of World War II, with 160 acres destroyed and 53 Krupps buildings bombed at Essen.