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48-520: The Flakpanzer IV "Ostwind" ( East Wind in English) was a German self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on the Panzer IV tank. It was developed in 1944 as a successor to the earlier Flakpanzer IV/2 cm Vierling Wirbelwind . The Panzer IV's turret was removed and replaced with an open-top, hexagonal turret that housed a 3.7 cm Flak 43 . In addition to its intended role as an anti-aircraft weapon,

96-671: A M3 Half-track . The British developed their own SPAAGs throughout the war mounting multiple machine guns and light cannon on various tank and armoured car chassis and by 1943, the Crusader AA tanks , which mounted the Bofors 40 mm gun or two-three Oerlikon 20 mm cannon . Although used during the Normandy landings, by that point German aircraft were contained by the Allies own air forces and they were largely unneeded. The introduction of jet engines and

144-656: A Japanese-sponsored "Conference for the Cessation of Hostilities" was held at Saigon, with preliminary documents for an armistice between the governments of Marshal Philippe Pétain 's French State and the Kingdom of Thailand signed aboard the cruiser Natori on 31 January 1941. On 9 May, a peace treaty was signed in Tokyo , with the French being coerced by the Japanese to relinquish their hold on

192-573: A battalion of engineers . The Vichy French Army had a shortage of armor , and it could field only 20 Renault FT tanks against the nearly one hundred Royal Thai Army armored vehicles. The bulk of the French forces stationed near the Thai border consisted of the Indochinese infantry of the 3rd and 4th Regiments of Tonkinese Rifles ( Tirailleurs Tonkinois ), together with a battalion of Montagnards (indigenous Vietnamese highlanders), French regulars of

240-500: A high rate of fire. In addition, most anti-aircraft guns can be used in a direct-fire role against surface targets to great effect. Today, surface-to-air missiles (generally mounted on similar turrets) have largely supplanted anti-aircraft guns, but they may return as a cheap way to counter unmanned aerial systems (drones), cruise missiles, and ultralight aircraft. Anti-aircraft machine guns have long been mounted on trucks, and these were quite common during World War I . A predecessor of

288-791: A lower fire rate. To solve this problem a project was undertaken to arm the Ostwind with two 37 mm cannons, known as the Ostwind II. A single prototype was built but the war ended before anything truly became of it. Although an order for 100 vehicles was placed in August 1944, only 44 vehicles were completed (22 converted from existing Panzer IVs and 22 new production vehicles) from December 1944 to March 1945. Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon Specific weapon systems used include machine guns , autocannons , larger guns, or surface-to-air missiles , and some mount both guns and longer-ranged missiles (e.g.

336-529: A secret oral promise to support them in an attack on Malaya and Burma. Phibun did not keep his word. Relations between Japan and Thailand were subsequently stressed, as a disappointed Phibun switched to courting the British and Americans to ward off what he saw as an imminent Japanese invasion. However, on 8 December 1941, the Japanese invaded Thailand at the same time as the Japanese invasion of Malaya . Pearl Harbor

384-647: A twin 15 mm version based on the Light Tank Mk.V was built. Among early pre-war pioneers of self-propelled AA guns were the Germans. By the time of the war, they fielded the Sd.Kfz. 10/4 and Sd.Kfz. 6/2 , cargo half-tracks mounting single 20 mm or 37 mm AA guns (respectively). Later in the war similar German half-tracks mounted quadruple 20 mm weapons . Larger guns followed on larger trucks, but these mountings generally required off-truck setup in order to unlimber

432-1753: Is more limited. The U.S. Army did use the M163 VADS and developed the prototype design of the M247 Sergeant York . Modern SPAAGs usually have short-range missiles for longer range engagement. The Pantsir system from Russia is primarily a missile battery, although it does have twin cannons as secondary armament. Some examples of modern SPAAG: 2 × FN-6A — 4 × QW-2 IR missiles 4 × FN-6 IR missiles PGL-XX (Code name 625) 4 to 8 × FN-16 (for PGZ 625E ) Thales A3B-T programmed telescoped ammunition (Israeli Aircraft Industries) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger — (Consortium Iveco OTO Melara ) "OTO Main Anti-aircraft Tank for Intercept and Combat" "Maneuver Short Range Air Defense" 1 M240 (7.62mm) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger 2 × AGM-114L Hellfire 7.62 × 51 mm — — (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) HEI ammunition MADIS RWS "Marine Air Defense Integrated System US Marine Corps Ground Based Air Defense" Franco-Thai war Indecisive [REDACTED]   Vichy France [REDACTED] Thailand 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1941 1942 1944 1945 Second Sino-Japanese War Taishō period Shōwa period Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups Second Third The Franco-Thai War (October 1940 – January 28, 1941, Thai : กรณีพิพาทอินโดจีน , romanized :  Karani Phiphat Indochin ; French : Guerre franco-thaïlandaise )

480-586: The Franco-Thai war (1940–1941) along with 30 Vickers Mk.E Type B 6-ton tanks. Despite being the first tracked SPAAG en masse, the open-top design of the Vickers Type 76 made it outdated even by the early 1930s. The first modern SPAAG to be produced was most likely the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti in 1936, featuring a tracked armoured body with a revolving turret, a so-called anti-aircraft tank . It

528-504: The Mekong frontier. The superior Royal Thai Air Force then conducted daytime bombing runs over military targets in Vientiane , Phnom Penh , Sisophon , and Battambang with impunity. The French retaliated with their own air attacks, but the damage they caused was less than equal. The activities of the Thai air force, particularly in the field of dive-bombing, was such that Admiral Jean Decoux ,

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576-475: The Pantsir-S1 ). Platforms used include both trucks and heavier combat vehicles such as armoured personnel carriers and tanks , which add protection from aircraft, artillery, and small arms fire for front line deployment. Anti-aircraft guns are usually mounted in a quickly-traversing turret with a high rate of elevation, for tracking fast-moving aircraft. They are often in dual or quadruple mounts, allowing

624-700: The Royal Thai Air Force held both a quantitative and qualitative edge over the local Armée de l'Air units. Among the 140 aircraft that composed the Royal Thai Air Force 's first-line strength were 24 Mitsubishi Ki-30 light bombers, nine Mitsubishi Ki-21 heavy bombers, 25 Curtiss Hawk 75N fighter planes, six Martin B-10 medium bombers, and 70 Vought O2U Corsair observation / attack aircraft . While nationalist demonstrations and anti-French rallies were being held in Bangkok , several border skirmishes erupted along

672-718: The United Nations . This led to the conclusion of the Franco-Siamese Settlement Treaty of 1946 that settled the issue and paved the way to restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The French army suffered a total of 321 casualties, of whom 15 were officers. The total number of missing after 28 January was 178 (six officers, 14 non-commissioned officers and 158 enlisted men). The Thais had captured 222 men (17 North Africans, 80 Frenchmen, and 125 Indochinese). The Thai army suffered 54 men killed in action and 307 wounded. 41 sailors and marines of

720-720: The "Carrier, SP, 4x4, 40 mm AA"), a Bofors 40 mm AA gun mounted on a chassis derived from the Morris "Quad" Field Artillery Tractor truck. Similar types, based on 3-ton lorries, were produced in Britain, Canada and Australia, and together formed the most numerous self-propelled AA guns in British service. The U.S. Army brought truck-towed Bofors 40 mm AA guns along with truck-mounted units fitted with mechanized turrets when they sailed, first for Great Britain and then onto France. The turrets carried four .50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were designed to be adjusted to converge at

768-487: The British developed the "en portee " method of mounting an anti-tank gun (initially a 2 pounder ) on a truck. This was to prevent the weapon from being damaged by long-distance towing across rough, stony deserts, and it was intended only to be a carrying method, with the gun unloaded for firing. However, crews tended to fire their weapons from their vehicles for the mobility this method provided, with consequent casualties. This undoubtedly inspired their Morris C9/B (officially

816-712: The Colonial Infantry ( Troupes coloniales ), and French Foreign Legion units. The Vichy French Navy had the light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet and four avisos in French Indochina. The Vichy French Air Force ( Armée de l'Air ) had approximately 100 aircraft, of which roughly 60 could be considered front-line. These included thirty Potez 25 TOE reconnaissance / fighter-bombers , four Farman 221 heavy bombers , six Potez 542 bombers, nine Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighters , and eight Loire 130 reconnaissance/bomber flying boats . The slightly larger Thai Army

864-507: The French operation was stopped and fighting ended with a French retreat from the area. However, the Thais were unable to pursue the retreating French, as their forward tanks were kept in check by the gunnery of French Foreign Legion artillery. With the situation on land rapidly deteriorating for the French, Admiral Decoux ordered all available French naval forces into action in the Gulf of Thailand . In

912-515: The French to allow them to set up military bases. The French's seemingly subservient behavior lulled the Phibun regime into believing that France would not seriously resist a military confrontation by Thailand. The French military forces in Indochina consisted of an army of approximately 50,000 men, 12,000 of whom were French, organized into forty-one infantry battalions , two artillery regiments , and

960-966: The Soviet/Russian Tunguska-M1 , which supplanted the ZSU-23 in service, the newer versions of the Gepard, the Chinese Type 95 SPAAA , and the British Marksman turret , which can be used on a wide variety of platforms. Some forces, like the US Army and USMC have mostly forgone self-propelled guns in favor of systems with short-range infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles in the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger and M6 Linebacker , which do not require radar to be accurate and are generally more reliable and cost-effective to field, though their ability to provide ground support

1008-544: The Thai navy were killed, and 67 wounded. At the Battle of Ko Chang , 36 men were killed, of whom 20 belonged to HTMS Thonburi , 14 to HTMS Songkhla , and two to HTMS Chonburi . The Thai air force lost 13 men. The number of Thai military personnel captured by the French was just 21. About 30 percent of the French aircraft were rendered unserviceable by the end of the war, some as a result of minor damage sustained in air raids that remained unrepaired. The Armée de l'Air admitted

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1056-489: The Thais' negotiating position to regain the vassal state territories that were ceded to France during King Chulalongkorn 's reign. The German and Italian military occupation of Metropolitan France rendered France's hold on French Indochina and its other overseas territories tenuous. The colonial administration was cut off from outside help and supplies. After the invasion of French Indochina in September 1940, Japan forced

1104-667: The WWII German "88" anti-aircraft gun, the WWI German 77 mm anti-aircraft gun, was truck-mounted and used to great effect against British tanks. The British QF 3 inch 20 cwt was mounted on trucks for use on the Western Front . The British also had a first dedicated anti aircraft weapon, the QF 1-pounder pom-pom . Mounted on an armoured truck titled the Pierce-Arrow armoured AA lorry , which

1152-492: The aircraft will have moved hundreds of meters during the flight time of the shells, greatly complicating the aiming problem to the point where close passes were essentially impossible to aim using manual gunsights. This speed also allowed the aircraft to rapidly fly out of range of the guns; even if the aircraft passes directly over the SPAAG, it would be within its firing radius for under 30 seconds. SPAAG development continued through

1200-537: The better-equipped Thai forces. The Thai army swiftly overran Laos , but the French forces in Cambodia managed to rally and offer more resistance. At dawn on January 16, 1941, the French launched a large counterattack on the Thai-held villages of Yang Dang Khum and Phum Preav, initiating the fiercest battle of the war. Due to poor coordination and nonexistent intelligence against the entrenched and well-prepared Thai forces,

1248-625: The celebration of its construction. The Japanese wanted to maintain both their working relationship with Vichy and the status quo; therefore, the Thais were forced to accept only a quarter of the territory that they gained from the French, in addition to having to pay six million piastres as a concession to the French. However, the real beneficiaries of the conflict were the Japanese, who were able to expand their influence in both Thailand and Indochina. The Japanese wanted to use Thailand and Indochina as their military bases to invade British Burma and British Malaya later. The Japanese won from Phibun

1296-573: The conflict was a bitter reminder of their isolation after the Fall of France . They felt that an ambitious neighbor had taken advantage of a distant colony being cut off from a weakened parent. Without hope of reinforcements, the French had little chance of offering a sustained resistance. To commemorate the victory, Phibun erected the Victory Monument in Bangkok. Thailand invited Japan and Germany to join in

1344-460: The disputed border territories. France ceded the following provinces to Thailand from Cambodia and Laos : The resolution of the conflict was widely acclaimed by the people of Thailand, and was seen as a personal triumph for Phibun. For the first time in its history, Thailand had been able to extract concessions from a European power, albeit a weakened one. For the French in French Indochina ,

1392-403: The early 1950s with ever-larger guns, improving the range and allowing the engagement to take place at longer distances where the crossing angle was smaller and aiming was easier. Examples including the 40 mm U.S. M42 Duster and the 57 mm Soviet ZSU-57-2 . However, both were essentially obsolete before they entered service, and found employment solely in the ground-support role. The M42

1440-518: The early morning of 17 January, a French naval squadron caught a Thai naval detachment by surprise at anchor off Ko Chang island. The subsequent Battle of Ko Chang was a tactical victory for the French and resulted in the sinking of two Thai torpedo boats and the disabling of a coastal defense ship, with the French suffering no casualties. Fearing the war would turn in France's favor, the Japanese intervened, proposing an armistice be signed. On 24 January,

1488-504: The fast-firing gun was highly effective against light vehicles and minor fortifications. A closed-top design would have been preferable, but this was not possible due to the heavy smoke generated by the gun. The Ostwind's main improvement over the Wirbelwind was the FlaK 43's increased range and stopping power over the 2 cm Flakvierling 38 and slightly better armor on its turret, albeit it had

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1536-514: The final air battle took place when Thai bombers raided the French airfield at Angkor , near Siem Reap . The last Thai mission bombing Phnom Penh commenced at 07:10 on 28 January, when the Martins of the 50th Bomber Squadron set out on a raid on Sisophon, escorted by thirteen Hawk 75Ns of the 60th Fighter Squadron. Japan subsequently stepped in to mediate the conflict. A general ceasefire had been arranged to go into effect at 10:00 on 28 January, and

1584-457: The governor of French Indochina, grudgingly remarked that the Thai planes seemed to have been flown by men with plenty of war experience. On 5 January 1941, following the report of a French attack on the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet , the Thai Burapha and Isan Armies launched an offensive on Laos and Cambodia . French response was instantaneous, but many units were simply swept aside by

1632-502: The helicopters would often be within range of the guns for a rapid counterattack. Notable among these later systems is the German Gepard , the first western SPAAG to offer performance equal to or better than the ZSU. This system was widely copied in various NATO forces. SPAAG development continues, with many modern examples often combining both guns and short-range missiles. Examples include

1680-457: The presence of SAMs forced aircraft to fly low to avoid their radars, placing them within range of the ZSUs. The success of the ZSU-23 led to a resurgence of SPAAG development. This was also prompted by the introduction of attack helicopters in the 1970s, which could hide behind terrain and then "pop up" for an attack lasting only a few tens of seconds; missiles were ineffective at low altitudes, while

1728-549: The single point where enemy aircraft were expected to appear at low altitude in conduction of strafing runs directed at large infantry and field artillery units. Interest in mobile AA turned to heavier vehicles with the mass and stability needed to easily train weapons of all sizes. Probably the desire, particularly in German service, for anti-aircraft vehicles to be armoured for their own protection also assisted this trend. The concept of using armored SPAAG (anti-aircraft tanks) en masse

1776-463: The stabilizing legs these guns needed. One exception to this rule was the Italian Cannone da 90/53 which was highly effective when mounted on trucks, a fit known as the " autocannoni da 90/53 ". The 90/53 was a feared weapon, notably in the anti-tank role, but only a few hundred had been produced by the time of the armistice in 1943. Other nations tended to work on truck chassis. Starting in 1941,

1824-459: The subsequent rough doubling of aircraft speeds greatly reduced the effectiveness of the SPAAG against attack aircraft. A typical SPAAG round might have a muzzle velocity on the order of 1,000 metres per second (3,300 ft/s) and might take as long as two to three seconds to reach a target at its maximum range. An aircraft flying at 1,000 kilometres per hour (620 mph) is moving at a rate of about 280 metres per second (920 ft/s). This means

1872-456: Was a mixture of Krupp guns and modern Bofors guns and howitzers , while 60 Carden Loyd tankettes and 30 Vickers 6-ton tanks made up the bulk of the army's tank force. The Royal Thai Navy included two Thonburi -class coastal defense ships , 12 torpedo boats , and four Japanese-made submarines . The Royal Thai Navy was inferior to the French naval forces in Southeast Asia , but

1920-528: Was a relatively well-equipped force. Consisting of 60,000 men, it was made up of four armies . The largest were the Burapha Army with five divisions and the Isan Army with three divisions. Independent formations under direct control of the army high command included two motorized cavalry battalions, one artillery battalion, one signals battalion, one engineer battalion, and one armored regiment. The artillery

1968-604: Was attacked one-and-a-half hours after Malaya and Thailand were. Fighting between Japanese and Thai forces lasted only five hours before a ceasefire was agreed. Thailand would be allied with Japan until 1945. After the war, in October 1946, northwestern Cambodia and the two Lao enclaves on the Thai side of the Mekong River were returned to French sovereignty when the French provisional government threatened to veto Thailand's membership in

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2016-586: Was based on a widened chassis of the Landsverk L-60 light tank and was armed with a Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 in an open-top revolving turret. The design was bought by Hungary just prior to the war and Finland ordered a refined model in 1941, known as the Anti II . By the late 1930s, the British had developed a version of the Mk.VI Light Tank armed with four machine guns that were known as Light Tank AA Mk.I, and also

2064-447: Was fought between Thailand and Vichy France over certain areas of French Indochina . Negotiations shortly before World War II had shown that the French government was willing to alter the boundaries between Thailand and French Indochina, but only slightly. Following the Fall of France in 1940, Major-General Plaek Pibulsonggram (popularly known as "Phibun"), the prime minister of Thailand, decided that France's defeat strengthened

2112-498: Was generally held by many forces, and the anti-aircraft role turned almost exclusively to missile systems. The Soviet Union remained an outlier, beginning the development of a new SPAAG in 1957, which emerged as the ZSU-23-4 in 1965. This system included search-and-track radars, fire control, and automatic gun-laying, greatly increasing its effectiveness against modern targets. The ZSU-23 proved very effective when used in concert with SAMs;

2160-603: Was introduced to the Vietnam War to counter an expected North Vietnamese air offensive, but when this failed to materialize it was used as an effective direct-fire weapon. The ZSU-57 found similar use in the Yugoslav Wars , where its high-angle fire was useful in the mountainous terrain. By the late 1950s, the US Army had given up on the SPAAG concept, considering all gun-based weapons to be useless against modern aircraft. This belief

2208-652: Was most likely the British/Siamese Vickers Armstrong "Type 76" (per Buddhist year 2476 = 1933 CE), as named by the Royal Siamese Army , a SPAAG based on the chassis of the Dragon, Medium, Mark IV artillery tractor ( Vickers Mk.E 6-ton light tank derivative), mounting a revolving Vickers 40 mm QF 2 pounder pom-pom autocannon in an open fighting compartment. About 26 were sold to Siam in 1932 and saw action as infantry support guns and AA guns during

2256-579: Was pioneered by Hungary during World War II with the production of the 40M Nimrod , a license-produced version of the previously mentioned late 1930s Landsverk L-62 Anti I SPAAG. Germany followed later with their " Flakpanzer " series. German World War II SPAAGs include the Möbelwagen , Wirbelwind , Ostwind and Kugelblitz . Other forces followed with designs of their own, notably the American M16 created by mounting quadruple M2HB Browning machine guns on

2304-692: Was produced in limited numbers and only seeing service throughout 1915. Towards the end of the war Germany produced three prototype SPAAGs with AA guns mounted on A7V chassis known as the A7V Flakpanzer. Between the two World Wars, the United Kingdom developed the Birch gun , a general-purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis capable of maintaining formation with their current tanks over terrain. The gun could be elevated for anti-aircraft use. The first tracked SPAAG-design to be manufactured in series

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