[WW2]The German Flak Towers

[wautd]

Quick question. Were they worth their investment or were they just another waste of recources?

[Spoonist]

Quick question. Were they worth their investment or were they just another waste of recources?

Which flak towers?

If you are asking about the air defence system vs allied bombing over germany proper, then yes they were worth the investment. It meant that allied airial powers had to bomb from higher altitudes and preferably at night. Leading to a massiv decrease in accuracy.
Which was one reason for switching to areal bombardment of residential areas instead, like the firebombing of dresden.

[wautd]

Quick question. Were they worth their investment or were they just another waste of recources?

Which flak towers?

If you are asking about the air defence system vs allied bombing

Yes

[CaptHawkeye]

Part of what enabled the towers to work as well as they did was the use of the 12.8cm Flak 40, a far superior AA gun to the 88. Compared to the AA guns of other nations the 88 wasn't actually that impressive, though it made up the backbone of Germany's AAA network for the war. The 88's advantages were mostly tactical though, because of its flexible design. The 12.8 was a better gun but it's not like you could easily mount it on anything since it was so heavy and huge. I think the cost of one 12.8cm gun was greater than most of the Wehrmacht's tank types.

[Mr Bean]

Part of what enabled the towers to work as well as they did was the use of the 12.8cm Flak 40, a far superior AA gun to the 88. Compared to the AA guns of other nations the 88 wasn't actually that impressive, though it made up the backbone of Germany's AAA network for the war. The 88's advantages were mostly tactical though, because of its flexible design. The 12.8 was a better gun but it's not like you could easily mount it on anything since it was so heavy and huge. I think the cost of one 12.8cm gun was greater than most of the Wehrmacht's tank types.

Flak Towers mounted standard 88's used everywhere, they also mounted 20mm Flak Verilings (Quad Barrel 20mms) and the 37mm Flakzwilling 43 (Dual Barrel 37ms) for local defense and 105mm and 128mm Flak guns for the really long range stuff. They were incredibly nasty things considering how tightly and protected they managed their guns and downed many a allied plane.

Were they worth it? Hell yes, your talking about a massive quantitative improvement to standard AA guns as well as letting you merge your flak and repair and management to the same platform. Which not to mention made excellent blockhouses the few that were encountered by the Soviets in their advance had to be avoided or starved out because even massed artillery fire was no good way to destroy them, not to mention the 128mm's made excellent counter-battery guns given their height and LoS placement. I don't recall if any of them were ever stormed classical style but I do know that several were still in seige when the war ended.

[Raesene]

For an overview, you can access a (german-only) diploma thesis at the Technical University Vienna library. Just search their database for 'Flaktum', and you'll find an entry for the pdf of the thesis.

They were well liked as shelters for the civilian population living in the vicinity and used as factory location for crucial industries (I don't think their output was significant in any way).

Vienna still has six of these things standing around, with discussions about their future use and fate emerging periodically.
One of the command towers is now the home of the Vienna Aqua Zoo (Haus des Meeres).

[CaptHawkeye]

A lot of the Flak towers were built so tough and so close to residential areas no practical amount of explosives could safely demolish them. So a lot of them ended up being converted into things like storehouses, apartments, prisons, galleries, etc.

[Sea Skimmer]

The initial urban flak towers were actually designed to take four single 150mm guns of a model which was never approved for service, but was tested. Several initially mounted single 88mm until the later option of twined 128mm guns became available, some may have had 88mm the whole war. The supporting fire control towers as well as lower galleries on flak towers mounted 20mm and 37mm weapons. Earlier flak towers existed in Air Defense Zone West; the flak belt behind the West Wall which mostly mounted single 37mm guns.

Flak towers are complete and utter wastes of money for military purposes. Nothing at all was wrong with digging flak batteries of any caliber into the ground or behind a simple raised concrete parapet; raise the fire control gear made sense, but not at the price paid. Much smaller simpler towers or reinforcing existing buildings would have done the exact same thing. You needed heavy cranes to lift the guns on a flak tower into position, never mind constantly hauling the ammo up, this was not very practical at all. I’ve got pictures around too of the 50 metric ton armored hatch covers the Germans installed on top of the flak tower ammo elevators, excellent waste of resources. As ground defenses they were totally preposterous wastes compared to what such enormous bulk of steel and concrete could have done building smaller positions. Never mind the massive dead space around the tower in which the heavy guns are useless. For all the protection of the flak towers to those under the roof... the damn guns are still on the roof and wide open to hits from above. Not good considering the trouble. An armored turret on ground level would be the best option; the British installed some 5.25in twins in this manner.

But the point of the flak towers was never military; it was propaganda, they were powerful signs of Hitler’s devotion to defending the German people from British terror raids. The flak towers were so massive in part because they also served as air raid shelters, and while designed for about 18,000 people each they at times held as many as 50,000 people in the largest Berlin towers. In this respect the towers were entirely successful, and Hitler was able to convince the German people to fight on to the bitter bitter end. Up until 1942 the Nazis also built a parallel series of similarly massive, but completely dedicated above ground air raid shelters which had sloping roofs to deflect bombs and with neo classical elements designed in to make them more appealing. This was also intended for the flak towers, but the designs were simplified to reduce the absurd costs. I can post some pictures of the model work done later.

For now here are pics of the 15cm guns Hitler actually wanted. At least four different designs were considered, this is the 15 cm Gerät 50 with on mount autoloader refilled manually in-between bursts, of the others less is known as they were later and didn't get as far. Notice absurd massiveness. With a weapon like this a totally fixed position makes a bit of sense.. for 128mm, you could still tow that if you wanted in two pieces and railroad cars provided ample mobility for defending industrial centers. Certainly more mobility then a gun on a tower! The 15cm guns weighed more then Panzer IV tanks and could never have been more then 'relocatable'.


http://en.valka.cz/files/p1000419_190.jpg
http://en.valka.cz/files/p1000423_575.jpg
http://en.valka.cz/files/p1000416_127.jpg

[montypython]

The Japanese built fixed positions for their 150mm AAA guns and it seemed to work well enough, particularly being fixed also simplified the construction too.

[Sea Skimmer]

Giant armored ammunition elevator vault beside 88mm gun and sweeping view of Berlin. Great propaganda photo! Amazing that the builders of this in the same year that Stalingrad and North Africa turned into complete disaster managed to loose the war?


Armored vault being transported; its in the range of 60-80mm thick all around if I recall correctly and about 50 metric tons in total.


This is a protected ground level 105mm flak pit with armored shield. Its a far superior type of combat position compared to a giant flak tower, and you could build I dunno, 50-100 of them them for the cost of one flak tower? Other types existed for other flak calibers, and some had living bunkers and additional ammunition storage bunkers attached in a modular fashion... the Nazis had a few thousand type classified sorts of bunker designs including dozens laid out by Hitler personally.

[Sea Skimmer]

Here is the earlier concept, which one can see more then slightly resembles the an old medieval citadel.

[Raesene]

The advantage of the Flaktower was its use as a civilian shelter; you couldn't use the smaller position for it but would have to build them in addition.
That's their true worth: large, durable shelters for the population - the 4-8 guns on the roof would not be very significant against an allied attack I'd assume.

[Simon_Jester]

But were they cost-effective as shelters, either?

[Mr Bean]

But were they cost-effective as shelters, either?

They succeed in there goal if you happen to be one as either 500 kilo bombs and 210mm artillery failed to do much to them and Allied forces on the Soviet and American/British/Canadian/French/Polish side of the equation simply avoided the things.

Cost effective as in they kept the people in them alive, how much is life worth?

[Sea Skimmer]

But you don’t need 5 meter thick walls to repel a 500kg bomb. Half as much protection would have worked fine against 99% of allied weapons, or even more, I am not sure just what you’d need to withstand the 8000lb HC and 12,000lb HC bomb (not Tallboy, these were just two or three 4000lb HC bombs welded together). Being so large the designs had the potential to be efficient uses of material for shelter space; but any hope of that was counter balanced by the demand for being near indestructible, least the propaganda value be undermined. Large central air raid shelters are generally not good because people have to travel too far to reach them; and it can be time consuming simply to get people in and up the stairs as much as five stories tall. Ultimately the shear scale and length of RAF raids made that less important then it might have been, but the idea of being called upon to travel as much as 1km to reach a bomb shelter is not very attractive! As it was pretty damn weak air raid shelters were very successful in the war. Even the most massive bombing attack just wasn't that likely to score many direct hits on shelters.

Other smaller shelter designs had varying problems too, but they would not for example require the deep foundations that a massively heavy flak tower did nor so much use of cranes and other machinery to lift materials to build them. Also the demand to mount guns meant not only was the top floor given up to the gun crews, completely separate fire control towers were required; and they didn’t make as good of shelters as the flak towers did, being smaller and round and yet usually equally thickly protected.

All and all, not a complete waste of resources, but not a good one either. Nazi Germany was plagued by poor choices as much as by the complete white elephants of programs. It’s certainly not as wasteful as some British underground construction during the war, but the allies had the resources to blow on absurdity, as shown by the Mulberry harbors. Germany was already facing a critical war situation by the time the bulk of the flak towers were constructed in 1942. To the Nazi’s slight credit I do believe they abandon work on a couple towers later on and left them incomplete.

In propaganda terms, money well spent. Nazi Germany fought as long as Hitler could himself endure. The Soviets BTW did have 280mm mortars at Berlin which could have started taking the flak towers apart given some time to do so, but the USSR was not interested in taking its time to take the city. All you needed was an 82mm mortar to make the roof galleries unusable.

[Sea Skimmer]

Here I hunted down briefly quickly an example of a more moderately scaled German blockhouse shelter. Shelters like this were usually B+Werk or A-Werk which meant 2.5m or 3.5m concrete.

[Simon_Jester]

Were the Mulberry harbors a waste? Could you expand on that?

[Sea Skimmer]

Well as shown by the actual invasion they were a flawed self destructing design (floating breakwater = BAD) and the allied invasion could be supplied over the beach anyway. Far more tonnage went over the beach then came across the handful of piers each Mullberry had. The allies didn’t want to trust over the beach supplies, but given the results of earlier invasions, and the really optimistic timetables they set for beachhead break out it didn’t really make sense.

[Sea Skimmer]

So I was perusing some information on German air raid bunkers in The Architecture of War; and it seems German efficiency was SO GREAT that no uniform standard for air raid shelters was published until December 1944 when the Todt Organization was given control of everything. Great job on the Germans part, it helps explain why almost every single flak tower is different.

Once standards were published the largest approved shelter was 4,000 person, and required 1.8 cubic meters of concrete per person, the smallest was 500 person and 3.0 cubic m per person. The largest one also had five stories so the Germans may not have viewed this as much of a problem; though the tallest flak tower is ten stories to the roof battery IIRC. It looks like the flak towers ought to have been economical at that rate of economy even if they required more expensive construction methods.

Also thinking at bit more on the Mulberries, its experience was very useful as there was to be artificial harbor as part of Operation Coronet off Asahi Japan which was to be a greatly improved version. This harbor would have been much more important because the beachhead was open to direct typhoon strikes, and the nearest major port for American invasion force to capture would have been Tokyo and Tokyo Bay. Can’t blame allied commanders for being cautious, but they simply had the concrete and resources to spare. Germany never had an end of need for concrete; Hitler’s fortresses are simply an amazing accomplishment all things considered.

[Winston Blake]

So in hindsight, the best option for the Nazis, rather than flak towers, would have been a optimised mix of:

- Large numbers of relatively small blockhouses (500 ~ 4000 people).
- Tall fire control towers.
- Fortified gun turrets at ground level (or on top of the 'small' blockhouses if ground area is limited?).

Is that right?

And perhaps a small gun on each fire control tower, so as to generate the desired magnificent propaganda photos. Could also add some giant horizontal poles off the sides of the fire control towers, for hanging giant Nazi vexilla.

[Sephirius]

Wouldn't the height of the towers also aid in near-misses being less deadly than if the AA batteries were on the ground or slightly buried?

[Sea Skimmer]

So in hindsight, the best option for the Nazis, rather than flak towers, would have been a optimised mix of:

- Large numbers of relatively small blockhouses (500 ~ 4000 people).
- Tall fire control towers.
- Fortified gun turrets at ground level (or on top of the 'small' blockhouses if ground area is limited?).

I don't think they really needed the fire control towers at all considering that most German cities, certainly Berlin, seem to have had plenty of parkland around the city center. Hack down the trees and install the fire control gear. I suspect Hitler didn't want to do that since in 1941-42 he was still trying to keep life 'normal' in Germany. Big flak towers were 'okay' for 'peacetime', and would look okay as part of post war Nazi victory land, tearing up parks less so since the nice big oaks that date to before the Kaiser won’t regrow quickly.

Is that right?

And perhaps a small gun on each fire control tower, so as to generate the desired magnificent propaganda photos. Could also add some giant horizontal poles off the sides of the fire control towers, for hanging giant Nazi vexilla.

I suspect the propaganda goal could have been accomplished with positions on the roofs of major public buildings, but yeah. In general Germany tended to have ideas which were sort of good... but then scaled them up to a level which was just dumb. We’ve said it may times before, Germany needed quantity with a slight edge in quality out of its weapons and fortifications, not low numbers of superwaffen. And as I’ve said before, the roof mounts mean you can’t move the guns to respond to changing allied bombing patterns. I think this thread has actually softened my poor opinion of German flak towers; but they were still propaganda over utility.

Wouldn't the height of the towers also aid in near-misses being less deadly than if the AA batteries were on the ground or slightly buried?

Yeah it would; though it does nothing to help against falling fragments and anti aircraft shells which will come down even miles away from the bombing zone, this is why I like the idea of using the steel for overhead cover on the gun, rather then rebar for a giant tower. Height also makes it more likely that the structure will take a direct hit as bombs fall at an angle rather then horizontal. Thus the need to make the things ever more totally massive to ensure that such extra hits won’t matter

But as far as I can tell German flak crews did not usually take major losses in air raids. Even a pretty simple gun pit with even timber as a liner gives you a damn lot of protection. Also keep in mind that many German flak gun sites actually had Russian POWs (from certain parts of the USSR, like Mongols the Nazis trusted more, racial nonsense be damned) and other conscripted foreign labor doing a fair bit of the ammunition handling.... bizarre war the Nazis fought. Murder your own people so you can use Russians and stolen children as labor. BRILLIANT!

[Thanas]

One flak tower is actually responsible for pretty much singehandedly rescuing the entire contents of the Pergamon museum and other collections. It saved the vast majority of all the ancient artifacts that were stored in Berlin.

Too bad that the Russians then found the stuff all neatly packaged up, stole it and to this day refuse to give it back/even acknowledge that they have it.

[fgalkin]

I seem to remember seeing parts of the collection in the Hermitage, so I wonder how Russia "refuses to acknowledge it."

As for returning them....well, we might do that when you guys return the original Amber Room.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thanas]

I seem to remember seeing parts of the collection in the Hermitage, so I wonder how Russia "refuses to acknowledge it."

Parts. There are still tons of stuff that is missing and the Russian claims they do not have it, despite the inventory lists showing they clearly do.

As for returning them....well, we might do that when you guys return the original Amber Room.

Yeah, how funny. Because clearly having the things rot somewhere with no access to it is so much better.