Hello,

Many pictures of the 8.8cm Flak 37 mit Behelfslarette show them using the Sd.Anh 202 trailer with the inner wheels of the front & rear bogies left off. Any ideas as to whether the inner hub ( wheel rim) was just left off? If so, how was the outer hub ( wheel rim ) connected to the axle?

Thanks,
Sam

Can you provide photos?

The FLAK 18 trailer (Sd.Ah. 201) had single wheels on the front unit, so could it be the Germans were using leftover 201s? The 202s were dual-wheeled.

This is the best site for Wehrmacht trailers:
http://www.kfzderwehrmacht.de/Homepage_english/Trailers/Special_trailers/Sd__Ah__201/sd__ah__201.html

That doesn't mean late in the war the Wehrmacht wasn't short of spare parts and did with what they had.

Bill: the 8.8cm Flaks 36 and 37 could never be attached to SdAnh 201s. The mounting hardware was completely different on these and the Flak 18.

Here's a picture I posted earlier.

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu124/artiemus/flak88.jpg

Thanks, Roy, I didn't know that, the guy who runs the DAK site claimed it could be done.

Sam, that photo isn't clear to me they're using only single wheels, nor that it's a 37 since we can't see the Azimuth controls on the right side.

that's OK Bill. I studied the heck out of 8.8cm Flaks when I was building my Flak 41/36 conversion from the DML kit (excellent kit BTW). Lots of confusion still exists about the differences among the Flaks 18, 36 and 37.

The most egregious reference I came across is the fantastically inaccurate book published by Osprey "88 mm FlaK 18/36/37/41 and PaK 43 1936-45" by John Norris.

The drawings were so ridiculously captioned I had to wonder if the author/artist ever even saw a actual artillery piece in real life. Run away from that book.

BTW, I wrote an article for Boresight with lots and lots of errata from well-known 8.8cm Flak reference books as well as pointers to ID which type of Flak gun you see in pictures. Contact me and I can send you the list.

Bill,

Here's a link to a couple of pictures. The first two.

http://forum.panzer-archiv.de/viewtopic.php?t=6765&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Sam

Thanks, Sam.

The first two photos from Remagen do not, IMO, show enough to say whether this is a 36 or 37. The trailer is wrecked, so it's possible the Germans were running it with 1 tire per array with, say a spacer, or the tires were destroyed at the same time the gun was wrecked.

"Bad Honnef 1945" shows a 36 (you can see the blinking light azimuth array (37s have dials-- see below).

"Königsberg 1945" looks like a 36, but I can't tell, the photo is too dark. Roy? Can you tell?

"Köln 1945" is the late war 88mm Flak 37 mit Behelfslafette.

"Bebra 1945" is a very stripped-down affair, and since the photo is taken from the left side, I can't tell what type of gun it is.

Ditto "Deutschland 1945." Too far away.

"Leipzig 1945" is definitely at 37 because it has the dials for the azimuth control, a distinctive feature of the later 37 and an improvement on the blinking light array on the 36.

"Königsberg 1945" could be a FLAK 18 because it has the Flakrohr 18 1-piece gun barrel. The later models of 88 had a 2-piece gun barrel that was easier to replace. It's the one with the distinctive bulge about 1/3 from the end of the barrel. Some FLAK 36s had Flakrohr 18 barrels, so it could be an earlier-model FLAK 36.

"Vilnius 1944 " is a 36.

The photo labeled "Mario Lippert Collection" (Sammlung Mario Lippert) is a 37 (see the dials on the right side).

Hope this helps you and others.

And just so we're clear: you ARE distinguishing between the trailer-mounted, mobile FLAK 37 and the static Flak 37 mit Behelfslafette?

Bill,

The static Flak 37 mit Behelfslafette. Here's another link.

http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8710952

Sam

Thanks, Sam.

Another term you might want to add to your vocabulary is ortsfest ("fixed" & abbreviated "o" in German records) as opposed to verlegbar ("movable" and abbreviated "v"). The middle photo in your link is also reproduced in Ampersand's The Eighty-Eight, a really good book on the subject for the price (though it mis-spells ortsfest as "Orstfest").