Out of all of my reference I cannot find any photos of the crew using the the Rear limbers dual mounted cable reels.

What were they used for ?

were they used for getting the gun hooked back up to the limbers.

i know they were not used for unhooking

Jim

There was a hook and chain that was attached to the cruciform mount that was then hand winched up in order to lock the cruciform spar beneath the bogie truck. The reels you see on the trailer are communication gear. They allow the Flak to be connected with a central battery controller which fed them target data (altitude, airspeed, direction). When arranged in battery fire like this, the gun crew only traversed and elevated the gun according to the signals, set the ammo to detonate at the correct altitude and loaded it as quickly as possible. They allowed the central computer to track targets.

For a good gallery, see here:
http://svsm.org/gallery/88mm-Flak-18_aberdeen

These lines connected to a round junction box at the rear of the main spar (you see the winch in this pic too)



The later Flaks 36, 37 and 41 actually had four reels rather than two.

thank you

i assume the cable reels are taken off the limber when the gun is deployed and used for air defense.

the cable wire connects to the junction box on the rear spar, where does the other end connect to ?


Jim

I don't know whether the reels were removed in order to lay out the cables. I suppose it could be done that way. The cable connected the Flak's data indicators with a the central aiming station, set some 50M away or so. If you get the new MMIR Flak 88 book, there are pics of this aiming station.

Here's a good research article about how batteries were laid out when firing against air targets
http://www.missing-lynx.com/library/german/flak_dmourtizsen.html