UK killed its own citizens during the Blitz

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Webb is talking bollocks, although falling debris from exploded shells probably caused some casualties. As already said, AA guns fired shells with proximity fuses and not contact fuses. The whole idea of 'heavy' AA defences is to force the aircraft to fly higher above their target so that they are less likely to hit what they are aiming for, and to do that you need your shells to explode at given altitudes. If the guns bring anything down, that's just a bonus. I'm ex AD and prior to being part of the Rapier trials, I was on the 40/70 Bofors guns. I learnt all the principles of air defence while serving in Germany. Don't always believe the crap you read from so-called experts.

Cheers,
Steve

[vegetius]

Yes LED 125,

The Ordnance Board Proceedings cover the failure rates when they become problematic, (over 20% would be seen as a serious problem). The HE shells would fail exceptionally rarely, the Fuzes more often but take for instance the 3.7 In, it could be fitted with the No 199,207,208,211,214,223,223A,230,233 so a bad batch of fuzes would be quickly changed and also the quantity or chance of repeat failures diluted by the quantity available to be fired of varying types!

Yes I can find out the exact percentages but will not bother because if they had been a problem then that would have been in big bold letters!

Did people get killed by AA fire returning to earth, YES, but not many and by far the most common cause of the death was tampering, the moving or otherwise interfering with a blind shell.

As I said before about this character his claimed expertise is just annoying to those of us who are. His supposition has no basis in truth and I'm afraid that his sole purpose is to grab klicks by using unsubstatiated headlines.

Sad really!

R