1940 British Barrage Balloons

British Newsreel. February 22, 1940. In 1938 the British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports and harbours. Balloons were intended to defend against dive bombers flying at heights up to 5,000 feet (1500 m), forcing them to fly higher and into the range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire—anti-aircraft guns could not traverse fast enough to attack aircraft flying at low altitude and high speed. By the middle of 1940 there were 1,400 balloons, a third of them over the London area.While dive-bombers were devastatingly effective against undefended targets, such as Guernica and Rotterdam, they were very vulnerable to attack by fighter aircraft, and their use by Germany against Britain with its effective Royal Air Force was rapidly discontinued. Balloons proved to be of little use against the German high-level bombers with which the dive-bombers were replaced, but continued to be manufactured nonetheless, until there were almost 3,000 in 1944. They proved to be mildly effective against the V-1 flying bomb, which usually flew at 2,000 feet (600 m) or lower but had wire-cutters on its wings to counter balloons. Two hundred and thirty-one V-1s are officially claimed to have been destroyed by balloons.Many bombers were equipped with devices to cut barrage balloon cables. Britain used large numbers of balloons, so Germany developed the most capable cable-cutters. Their systems consisted of small C-shaped devices attached to the leading edge of the wing. When a cable entered the device after sliding down the wing, it triggered a small explosive charge that drove a blade through the cable. British bombers were also equipped with cable-cutters although the Germans used few barrage balloons.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Barrage
• Balloons
• Anti-Aircraft
• Battle
• Britain
• Defense
• London
• Aircraft
• Luftwaffe
• Dive-Bombers
• 1940

[KingfisnPunk]

@TheFutureLooksGrimm still not shure exatly wht these where used for

[TheFutureLooksGrimm]

Interesting info there. Says the Germans put c shaped cutters on wings to cut the barrage balloon cables? Sounds crazy for a pilot to risk damage to a plane's wings & he would have to be very accurate.

[NapanTR]

en.wikipedia has a nice picture with this barrage balloons at work

tks for vid