Capturing the 88 FLAK

This short film depicts a captured German 88mm FLAK gun, which is currently displayed at the Puckapunyal Tank Museum, located one hour north of Melbourne in the State of Victoria, near the town of Seymour. It is recommended that visitors check before travelling all the way there as the Museum is open at idiosyncratic hours.

This gun was captured at the Battle of El Alamein by Australian troops, troops from the same units that formed the legendary "Rats of Tobruk".

The 88mm FLAK gun was used in huge variety of theatres throughout World War 2, and variants of the gun were used as field artillery, anti-aircraft guns and with further modifications it was mounted in the dreaded Tiger Tank.

The 88mm FLAK gun was powerful enough to penetrate over 150 mm of armour at ranges of 2 km or more, making it an unparalleled anti-tank weapon during the early war. It was still formidable against all but the heaviest tanks at the end of the war. It was arguably most effective in the flat and open terrains of the North African campaign and the Eastern Front, although it was also devastatingly effective in the Battle of Normandy following the D-Day landings in June 1944. The gun was especially effective due to its mounting, which allowed it to fire in a wide variety of arcs, from almost vertically to below the horizontal, in 360 degrees.

Once again, we have elected to disable comments, as we have found that comments in military history videos have displayed an unfortunate tendency to degenerate into abuse and irrelevance.

See also the AustHeritage productions "Riding the T 34", "Bathurst Class Corvettes" and more. More films are planned, including one on the Australian Spitfire. This video may be shared freely.

SEE our website at: www.austheritage.org

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