Flak 88 Owners' Workshop Manual: 8.8cm Flugzeugabwehrkanone (Models 18/36/37/41)

by Chris McNab

The 8.8cm Flugzeugabwehrkanone 18/36/37/41 - more popularly known as the ‘Flak 88’ - was one of the most successful and influential artillery gun types in the German arsenal in the Second World War. Developed during the 1920s and 1930s, the gun combined accuracy, a high muzzle velocity and a rapid rate of fire (15–20rpm). Although at first developed as an anti-aircraft gun, it went on to achieve equal repute as an anti-tank weapon, imposing horrific casualties on Allied armor across all major European and North African theaters of war. In one clash in Normandy, in June 1944, for example, a single Luftwaffe 8.8cm battery destroyed some 40 Allied tanks. 

192 pages, Hardcover

Published March 27, 2018

About the author

Dr Chris McNab has written over a hundred books in a career spanning over two decades. He is a historian with a specialisation in military history.

Reviews

[Sebastian Palmer]

I recently bought and built a 1/72 Flak 36 88mm gun, by Hasegawa. Looking at that and my other 88s, one an Airfix 1/76, the other a Zvezda 1/72, I felt a hankering for further knowledge.

A quick look online revealed the existence of this Haynes 'Owners' Workshop Manual' title. Looking around for the best deal, I found The Works had new copies for just £7. So I shoe-horned a trip to the Huntingdon branch into our daily round yesterday, and bagged my swag.

Funnily enough on perusing the photographs I found that there were many that I'd already hoovered up in my online quest for ref, whilst building the Hasegawa kit. But no matter, I prefer having these images in print to looking at them digitally. There are, of course, also lots of images I didn't have. Although actually I do have lots of photos uncannily similar to the Muckleborough images to be found here, from my own trip to that terrific collection.

At this point, although I've dipped into the text - especially as and when I've chanced on stuff that tickles my interest - I've mostly used this excellent book as a purely visual aid. An invaluable source of reference and detail, it's sheer unadulterated fun just perusing it, and a font of inspiration for detailing and colour schemes, etc.

Some little details that I've discovered or learned more about, thanks to this book, include: the stakes (extra precautions against movement/recoil) attached to the folding legs; the numerous types of shells and their containers (I particularly like the wicker boxes); crew size/roles; the electronic gizmos; the sextant, tools, toolboxes and the jack (for removing the trailing arms from the bogies); assault coated radar and other ranging and sighting stuff; the different types of bogies, etc.

I'm left wanting to both build more of this fascinating gun, and to better detail the models I already have. The three I've made so far all have the shield. I fancy having a similar 'unit' without the shield. And it'd be nice to have some deployed off their bogies, and some on them. Yet others could be on their bogies but in transportation mode. Then there are the prime movers. And it'd be nice to have a few oddments like searchlights, acoustic locators, stuff like the Kommandogerät 36, etc.

[Robert Hepple]

Published in 2018, 'Flak 88' is a novelty Haynes workshop manual devoted to the iconic German dual purpose artillery piece of WW2 and its derivatives. Historical detail is supported by numerous well captioned wartime photos, whilst technical and maintenance detail is supported by close up photos of preserved examples and excerpts from manuals. I was impressed at how well the book tried to explain the differences between the Flak 18, 36, 36 and 41 variants of the weapon as this is often a bit muddled or even totally misleading in many publications. Even so, it only scratches the surface of this fantastic subject - I found myself looking at the historic photos and wondering about some of the unexplained differences between what were identical versions according to the captions.