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The Macintosh SE was released at the same time as the Macintosh II for $2900 (or $3900 with hard drive), as the first compact Mac with a 20 MB internal hard drive and an expansion slot. The SE's expansion slot was located inside the case along with the CRT, potentially exposing an upgrader to high voltage. For this rea... |
In recent years, Apple has seen a significant boost in sales of Macs. This has been attributed, in part, to the success of the iPod and the iPhone, a halo effect whereby satisfied iPod or iPhone owners purchase more Apple products, and Apple has since capitalized on that with the iCloud cloud service that allows users ... |
In response, Apple introduced a range of relatively inexpensive Macs in October 1990. The Macintosh Classic, essentially a less expensive version of the Macintosh SE, was the least expensive Mac offered until early 2001. The 68020-powered Macintosh LC, in its distinctive "pizza box" case, offered color graphics and was... |
Starting in 2006, Apple's industrial design shifted to favor aluminum, which was used in the construction of the first MacBook Pro. Glass was added in 2008 with the introduction of the unibody MacBook Pro. These materials are billed as environmentally friendly. The iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac Mini lines cur... |
The Macintosh project was begun in 1979 by Jef Raskin, an Apple employee who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh, but the spelling was changed to "Macintosh" for legal reasons as the original was the same sp... |
After the Lisa's announcement, John Dvorak discussed rumors of a mysterious "MacIntosh" project at Apple in February 1983. The company announced the Macintosh 128K—manufactured at an Apple factory in Fremont, California—in October 1983, followed by an 18-page brochure included with various magazines in December. The Ma... |
The Macintosh (/ˈmækᵻntɒʃ/ MAK-in-tosh; branded as Mac since 1997) is a series of personal computers (PCs) designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh computer on January 24, 1984. This was the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user inte... |
In 1985, the combination of the Mac, Apple's LaserWriter printer, and Mac-specific software like Boston Software's MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker enabled users to design, preview, and print page layouts complete with text and graphics—an activity to become known as desktop publishing. Initially, desktop publishing wa... |
Raskin was authorized to start hiring for the project in September 1979, and he immediately asked his long-time colleague, Brian Howard, to join him. His initial team would eventually consist of himself, Howard, Joanna Hoffman, Burrell Smith, and Bud Tribble. The rest of the original Mac team would include Bill Atkinso... |
From 2001 to 2008, Mac sales increased continuously on an annual basis. Apple reported worldwide sales of 3.36 million Macs during the 2009 holiday season. As of Mid-2011, the Macintosh continues to enjoy rapid market share increase in the US, growing from 7.3% of all computer shipments in 2010 to 9.3% in 2011. Accordi... |
In 1987, Apple spun off its software business as Claris. It was given the code and rights to several applications, most notably MacWrite, MacPaint, and MacProject. In the late 1980s, Claris released a number of revamped software titles; the result was the "Pro" series, including MacDraw Pro, MacWrite Pro, and FileMaker... |
Two days after "1984" aired, the Macintosh went on sale, and came bundled with two applications designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint. It was first demonstrated by Steve Jobs in the first of his famous Mac keynote speeches, and though the Mac garnered an immediate, enthusiastic following, some label... |
Apple has generally dominated the premium PC market, having a 91 percent market share for PCs priced at more than $1,000 in 2009, according to NPD. The Macintosh took 45 percent of operating profits in the PC industry during Q4 2012, compared to 13 percent for Dell, seven percent for Hewlett Packard, six percent for Le... |
The Macintosh's minimal memory became apparent, even compared with other personal computers in 1984, and could not be expanded easily. It also lacked a hard disk drive or the means to easily attach one. Many small companies sprang up to address the memory issue. Suggestions revolved around either upgrading the memory t... |
In 1988, Apple sued Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard on the grounds that they infringed Apple's copyrighted GUI, citing (among other things) the use of rectangular, overlapping, and resizable windows. After four years, the case was decided against Apple, as were later appeals. Apple's actions were criticized by some in th... |
Furthermore, Apple had created too many similar models that confused potential buyers. At one point, its product lineup was subdivided into Classic, LC, II, Quadra, Performa, and Centris models, with essentially the same computer being sold under a number of different names. These models competed against Macintosh clon... |
In early 2001, Apple began shipping computers with CD-RW drives and emphasized the Mac's ability to play DVDs by including DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM drives as standard. Steve Jobs admitted that Apple had been "late to the party" on writable CD technology, but felt that Macs could become a "digital hub" that linked and enable... |
It was not long until Apple released their first portable computer, the Macintosh Portable in 1989. Although due to considerable design issues, it was soon replaced in 1991 with the first of the PowerBook line: the PowerBook 100, a miniaturized portable; the 16 MHz 68030 PowerBook 140; and the 25 MHz 68030 PowerBook 17... |
In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, based on Darwin and NEXTSTEP; its new features included the Dock and the Aqua user interface. During the transition, Apple included a virtual machine subsystem known as Classic, allowing users to run Mac OS 9 applications under Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier on PowerPC machines. Apple int... |
In 2000, Apple released the Power Mac G4 Cube, their first desktop since the discontinued Power Macintosh G3, to slot between the iMac G3 and the Power Mac G4. Even with its innovative design, it was initially priced US$200 higher than the comparably-equipped and more-expandable base Power Mac G4, while also not includ... |
Historically, Mac OS X enjoyed a near-absence of the types of malware and spyware that affect Microsoft Windows users. Mac OS X has a smaller usage share compared to Microsoft Windows (roughly 5% and 92%, respectively), but it also has traditionally more secure UNIX roots. Worms, as well as potential vulnerabilities, w... |
By March 2011, the market share of OS X in North America had increased to slightly over 14%. Whether the size of the Mac's market share and installed base is relevant, and to whom, is a hotly debated issue. Industry pundits have often called attention to the Mac's relatively small market share to predict Apple's impend... |
Notwithstanding these technical and commercial successes on the Macintosh platform, their systems remained fairly expensive, making them less competitive in light of the falling costs of components that made IBM PC compatibles cheaper and accelerated their adoption. In 1989, Jean-Louis Gassée had steadfastly refused to... |
Starting in 2002, Apple moved to eliminate CRT displays from its product line as part of aesthetic design and space-saving measures with the iMac G4. However, the new iMac with its flexible LCD flat-panel monitor was considerably more expensive on its debut than the preceding iMac G3, largely due to the higher cost of ... |
The sales breakdown of the Macintosh have seen sales of desktop Macs stayed mostly constant while being surpassed by that of Mac notebooks whose sales rate has grown considerably; seven out of ten Macs sold were laptops in 2009, a ratio projected to rise to three out of four by 2010. The change in sales of form factors... |
In 1998, after the return of Steve Jobs, Apple consolidated its multiple consumer-level desktop models into the all-in-one iMac G3, which became a commercial success and revitalized the brand. Since their transition to Intel processors in 2006, the complete lineup is entirely based on said processors and associated sys... |
Burrel's innovative design, which combined the low production cost of an Apple II with the computing power of Lisa's CPU, the Motorola 68K, received the attention of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. Realizing that the Macintosh was more marketable than the Lisa, he began to focus his attention on the project. Raskin le... |
Jobs stated during the Macintosh's introduction "we expect Macintosh to become the third industry standard", after the Apple II and IBM PC. Although outselling every other computer, it did not meet expectations during the first year, especially among business customers. Only about ten applications including MacWrite an... |
Updated Motorola CPUs made a faster machine possible, and in 1987 Apple took advantage of the new Motorola technology and introduced the Macintosh II at $5500, powered by a 16 MHz Motorola 68020 processor. The primary improvement in the Macintosh II was Color QuickDraw in ROM, a color version of the graphics language w... |
Microsoft Windows 3.0 was released in May 1990, and according to a common saying at the time "Windows was not as good as Macintosh, but it was good enough for the average user". Though still a graphical wrapper that relied upon MS-DOS, 3.0 was the first iteration of Windows which had a feature set and performance compa... |
Intel had tried unsuccessfully to push Apple to migrate the Macintosh platform to Intel chips. Apple concluded that Intel's CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) architecture ultimately would not be able to compete against RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processors. While the Motorola 68040 offered the same f... |
In 1998, Apple introduced its new iMac which, like the original 128K Mac, was an all-in-one computer. Its translucent plastic case, originally Bondi blue and later various additional colors, is considered an industrial design landmark of the late 1990s. The iMac did away with most of Apple's standard (and usually propr... |
Apple discontinued the use of PowerPC microprocessors in 2006. At WWDC 2005, Steve Jobs announced this transition, revealing that Mac OS X was always developed to run on both the Intel and PowerPC architectures. All new Macs now use x86 processors made by Intel, and some were renamed as a result. Intel-based Macs runni... |
Apple was initially reluctant to embrace mice with multiple buttons and scroll wheels. Macs did not natively support pointing devices that featured multiple buttons, even from third parties, until Mac OS X arrived in 2001. Apple continued to offer only single button mice, in both wired and Bluetooth wireless versions, ... |
Following the release of Intel-based Macs, third-party platform virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and VirtualBox began to emerge. These programs allow users to run Microsoft Windows or previously Windows-only software on Macs at near native speed. Apple also released Boot Camp and Mac-sp... |
Although the PC market declined, Apple still managed to ship 2.8 million MacBooks in Q2 2012 (the majority of which are the MacBook Air) compared to 500,000 total Ultrabooks, although there were dozens of Ultrabooks from various manufacturers on the market while Apple only offered 11-inch and 13-inch models of the MacB... |
Anti-aircraft warfare or counter-air defence is defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action." They include ground-and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be u... |
Non-English terms for air defence include the German Flak (Fliegerabwehrkanone, "aircraft defence cannon", also cited as Flugabwehrkanone), whence English flak, and the Russian term Protivovozdushnaya oborona (Cyrillic: Противовозду́шная оборо́на), a literal translation of "anti-air defence", abbreviated as PVO. In Rus... |
Initially sensors were optical and acoustic devices developed during the First World War and continued into the 1930s, but were quickly superseded by radar, which in turn was supplemented by optronics in the 1980s. Command and control remained primitive until the late 1930s, when Britain created an integrated system fo... |
The most extreme case was the Soviet Union, and this model may still be followed in some countries: it was a separate service, on a par with the navy or ground force. In the Soviet Union this was called Voyska PVO, and had both fighter aircraft and ground-based systems. This was divided into two arms, PVO Strany, the S... |
On 30 September 1915, troops of the Serbian Army observed three enemy aircraft approaching Kragujevac. Soldiers shot at them with shotguns and machine-guns but failed to prevent them from dropping 45 bombs over the city, hitting military installations, the railway station and many other, mostly civilian, targets in the... |
AA gunnery was a difficult business. The problem was of successfully aiming a shell to burst close to its target's future position, with various factors affecting the shells' predicted trajectory. This was called deflection gun-laying, 'off-set' angles for range and elevation were set on the gunsight and updated as the... |
World War I demonstrated that aircraft could be an important part of the battlefield, but in some nations it was the prospect of strategic air attack that was the main issue, presenting both a threat and an opportunity. The experience of four years of air attacks on London by Zeppelins and Gotha G.V bombers had particu... |
From the early 1930s eight countries developed radar, these developments were sufficiently advanced by the late 1930s for development work on sound locating acoustic devices to be generally halted, although equipment was retained. Furthermore, in Britain the volunteer Observer Corps formed in 1925 provided a network of... |
Until this time the British, at RAF insistence, continued their World War I use of machine guns, and introduced twin MG mountings for AAAD. The army was forbidden from considering anything larger than .50-inch. However, in 1935 their trials showed that the minimum effective round was an impact fused 2 lb HE shell. The ... |
During the 1930s solid fuel rockets were under development in the Soviet Union and Britain. In Britain the interest was for anti-aircraft fire, it quickly became clear that guidance would be required for precision. However, rockets, or 'unrotated projectiles' as they were called could the used for anti-aircraft barrage... |
The British had already arranged licence building of the Bofors 40 mm, and introduced these into service. These had the power to knock down aircraft of any size, yet were light enough to be mobile and easily swung. The gun became so important to the British war effort that they even produced a movie, The Gun, that enco... |
The interceptor aircraft (or simply interceptor) is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bombers, usually relying on high speed and altitude capabilities. A number of jet interceptors such as the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-106 Delta Dart, and the MiG-25 w... |
Another potential weapon system for anti-aircraft use is the laser. Although air planners have imagined lasers in combat since the late 1960s, only the most modern laser systems are currently reaching what could be considered "experimental usefulness". In particular the Tactical High Energy Laser can be used in the ant... |
Area air defence, the air defence of a specific area or location, (as opposed to point defence), have historically been operated by both armies (Anti-Aircraft Command in the British Army, for instance) and Air Forces (the United States Air Force's CIM-10 Bomarc). Area defence systems have medium to long range and can b... |
The term air defence was probably first used by Britain when Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) was created as a Royal Air Force command in 1925. However, arrangements in the UK were also called 'anti-aircraft', abbreviated as AA, a term that remained in general use into the 1950s. After the First World War it was som... |
The essence of air defence is to detect hostile aircraft and destroy them. The critical issue is to hit a target moving in three-dimensional space; an attack must not only match these three coordinates, but must do so at the time the target is at that position. This means that projectiles either have to be guided to hi... |
Passive air defence is defined by NATO as "Passive measures taken for the physical defence and protection of personnel, essential installations and equipment in order to minimize the effectiveness of air and/or missile attack". It remains a vital activity by ground forces and includes camouflage and concealment to avoi... |
The basic air defence unit is typically a battery with 2 to 12 guns or missile launchers and fire control elements. These batteries, particularly with guns, usually deploy in a small area, although batteries may be split; this is usual for some missile systems. SHORAD missile batteries often deploy across an area with ... |
The first issue was ammunition. Before the war it was recognised that ammunition needed to explode in the air. Both high explosive (HE) and shrapnel were used, mostly the former. Airburst fuses were either igniferious (based on a burning fuse) or mechanical (clockwork). Igniferious fuses were not well suited for anti-a... |
Two assumptions underpinned the British approach to HAA fire; first, aimed fire was the primary method and this was enabled by predicting gun data from visually tracking the target and having its height. Second, that the target would maintain a steady course, speed and height. This HAA was to engage targets up to 24,00... |
The US ended World War I with two 3-inch AA guns and improvements were developed throughout the inter-war period. However, in 1924 work started on a new 105 mm static mounting AA gun, but only a few were produced by the mid-1930s because by this time work had started on the 90 mm AA gun, with mobile carriages and stati... |
In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union and NATO's Allied Command Europe, ground based air defence and air defence aircraft have been under integrated command and control. However, while overall air defence may be for homeland defence including military facilities, f... |
After World War I the US Army started developing a dual-role (AA/ground) automatic 37 mm cannon, designed by John M. Browning. It was standardised in 1927 as the T9 AA cannon, but trials quickly revealed that it was worthless in the ground role. However, while the shell was a bit light (well under 2 lbs) it had a good ... |
Germany's high-altitude needs were originally going to be filled by a 75 mm gun from Krupp, designed in collaboration with their Swedish counterpart Bofors, but the specifications were later amended to require much higher performance. In response Krupp's engineers presented a new 88 mm design, the FlaK 36. First used i... |
A plethora of anti-aircraft gun systems of smaller calibre were available to the German Wehrmacht combined forces, and among them the 1940-origin Flakvierling quadruple-20 mm-gun antiaircraft weapon system was one of the most often-seen weapons, seeing service on both land and sea. The similar Allied smaller-calibre ai... |
Another aspect of anti-aircraft defence was the use of barrage balloons to act as physical obstacle initially to bomber aircraft over cities and later for ground attack aircraft over the Normandy invasion fleets. The balloon, a simple blimp tethered to the ground, worked in two ways. Firstly, it and the steel cable wer... |
The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure. However, many different definitions are used but unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only the ascending part of the trajectory can be usefully used. One... |
As this process continued, the missile found itself being used for more and more of the roles formerly filled by guns. First to go were the large weapons, replaced by equally large missile systems of much higher performance. Smaller missiles soon followed, eventually becoming small enough to be mounted on armored cars ... |
Unlike the heavier guns, these smaller weapons are in widespread use due to their low cost and ability to quickly follow the target. Classic examples of autocannons and large caliber guns are the 40 mm autocannon and the 8.8 cm FlaK 18, 36 gun, both designed by Bofors of Sweden. Artillery weapons of this sort have for ... |
Smaller boats and ships typically have machine-guns or fast cannons, which can often be deadly to low-flying aircraft if linked to a radar-directed fire-control system radar-controlled cannon for point defence. Some vessels like Aegis cruisers are as much a threat to aircraft as any land-based air defence system. In ge... |
Rocket-propelled grenades can be—and often are—used against hovering helicopters (e.g., by Somali militiamen during the Battle of Mogadishu (1993)). Firing an RPG at steep angles poses a danger to the user, because the backblast from firing reflects off the ground. In Somalia, militia members sometimes welded a steel p... |
The British adopted "effective ceiling", meaning the altitude at which a gun could deliver a series of shells against a moving target; this could be constrained by maximum fuse running time as well as the gun's capability. By the late 1930s the British definition was "that height at which a directly approaching target ... |
Until the 1950s guns firing ballistic munitions were the standard weapon; guided missiles then became dominant, except at the very shortest ranges. However, the type of shell or warhead and its fuzing and, with missiles the guidance arrangement, were and are varied. Targets are not always easy to destroy; nonetheless, ... |
The British recognised the need for anti-aircraft capability a few weeks before World War I broke out; on 8 July 1914, the New York Times reported that the British government had decided to 'dot the coasts of the British Isles with a series of towers, each armed with two quick-firing guns of special design,' while 'a c... |
In Britain and some other armies, the single artillery branch has been responsible for both home and overseas ground-based air defence, although there was divided responsibility with the Royal Navy for air defence of the British Isles in World War I. However, during the Second World War the RAF Regiment was formed to p... |
The British dealt with range measurement first, when it was realised that range was the key to producing a better fuse setting. This led to the Height/Range Finder (HRF), the first model being the Barr & Stroud UB2, a 2-metre optical coincident rangefinder mounted on a tripod. It measured the distance to the target and... |
By the early 20th century balloon, or airship, guns, for land and naval use were attracting attention. Various types of ammunition were proposed, high explosive, incendiary, bullet-chains, rod bullets and shrapnel. The need for some form of tracer or smoke trail was articulated. Fuzing options were also examined, both ... |
All armies soon deployed AA guns often based on their smaller field pieces, notably the French 75 mm and Russian 76.2 mm, typically simply propped up on some sort of embankment to get the muzzle pointed skyward. The British Army adopted the 13-pounder quickly producing new mountings suitable for AA use, the 13-pdr QF 6... |
The Treaty of Versailles prevented Germany having AA weapons, and for example, the Krupps designers joined Bofors in Sweden. Some World War I guns were retained and some covert AA training started in the late 1920s. Germany introduced the 8.8 cm FlaK 18 in 1933, 36 and 37 models followed with various improvements but b... |
However, the problem of deflection settings — 'aim-off' — required knowing the rate of change in the target's position. Both France and UK introduced tachymetric devices to track targets and produce vertical and horizontal deflection angles. The French Brocq system was electrical, the operator entered the target range ... |
Poland's AA defences were no match for the German attack and the situation was similar in other European countries. Significant AA warfare started with the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. 3.7-inch HAA were to provide the backbone of the groundbased AA defences, although initially significant numbers of 3-inch ... |
Britain had successful tested a new HAA gun, 3.6-inch, in 1918. In 1928 3.7-inch became the preferred solution, but it took 6 years to gain funding. Production of the QF 3.7-inch (94 mm) began in 1937; this gun was used both on mobile carriages with the field army and transportable guns on fixed mountings for static po... |
Service trials demonstrated another problem however: that ranging and tracking the new high-speed targets was almost impossible. At short range, the apparent target area is relatively large, the trajectory is flat and the time of flight is short, allowing to correct lead by watching the tracers. At long range, the airc... |
Rheinmetall in Germany developed an automatic 20 mm in the 1920s and Oerlikon in Switzerland had acquired the patent to an automatic 20 mm gun designed in Germany during World War I. Germany introduced the rapid-fire 2 cm FlaK 30 and later in the decade it was redesigned by Mauser-Werke and became the 2 cm FlaK 38. Nev... |
The Germans developed massive reinforced concrete blockhouses, some more than six stories high, which were known as Hochbunker "High Bunkers" or "Flaktürme" flak towers, on which they placed anti-aircraft artillery. Those in cities attacked by the Allied land forces became fortresses. Several in Berlin were some of the... |
The developments during World War II continued for a short time into the post-war period as well. In particular the U.S. Army set up a huge air defence network around its larger cities based on radar-guided 90 mm and 120 mm guns. US efforts continued into the 1950s with the 75 mm Skysweeper system, an almost fully auto... |
The solution was automation, in the form of a mechanical computer, the Kerrison Predictor. Operators kept it pointed at the target, and the Predictor then calculated the proper aim point automatically and displayed it as a pointer mounted on the gun. The gun operators simply followed the pointer and loaded the shells. ... |
Although the firearms used by the infantry, particularly machine guns, can be used to engage low altitude air targets, on occasion with notable success, their effectiveness is generally limited and the muzzle flashes reveal infantry positions. Speed and altitude of modern jet aircraft limit target opportunities, and cr... |
Some nations started rocket research before World War II, including for anti-aircraft use. Further research started during the war. The first step was unguided missile systems like the British 2-inch RP and 3-inch, which was fired in large numbers from Z batteries, and were also fitted to warships. The firing of one of... |
The introduction of the guided missile resulted in a significant shift in anti-aircraft strategy. Although Germany had been desperate to introduce anti-aircraft missile systems, none became operational during World War II. Following several years of post-war development, however, these systems began to mature into viab... |
The future of projectile based weapons may be found in the railgun. Currently tests are underway on developing systems that could create as much damage as a Tomahawk (missile), but at a fraction of the cost. In February 2008 the US Navy tested a railgun; it fired a shell at 5,600 miles (9,000 km) per hour using 10 mega... |
The ammunition and shells fired by these weapons are usually fitted with different types of fuses (barometric, time-delay, or proximity) to explode close to the airborne target, releasing a shower of fast metal fragments. For shorter-range work, a lighter weapon with a higher rate of fire is required, to increase a hit... |
Air defence in naval tactics, especially within a carrier group, is often built around a system of concentric layers with the aircraft carrier at the centre. The outer layer will usually be provided by the carrier's aircraft, specifically its AEW&C aircraft combined with the CAP. If an attacker is able to penetrate thi... |
If current trends continue, missiles will replace gun systems completely in "first line" service.[citation needed] Guns are being increasingly pushed into specialist roles, such as the Dutch Goalkeeper CIWS, which uses the GAU-8 Avenger 30 mm seven-barrel Gatling gun for last ditch anti-missile and anti-aircraft defenc... |
Most modern air defence systems are fairly mobile. Even the larger systems tend to be mounted on trailers and are designed to be fairly quickly broken down or set up. In the past, this was not always the case. Early missile systems were cumbersome and required much infrastructure; many could not be moved at all. With t... |
Most Western and Commonwealth militaries integrate air defence purely with the traditional services, of the military (i.e. army, navy and air force), as a separate arm or as part of artillery. In the United States Army for instance, air defence is part of the artillery arm, while in the Pakistan Army, it was split off ... |
Armies typically have air defence in depth, from integral MANPADS such as the RBS 70, Stinger and Igla at smaller force levels up to army-level missile defence systems such as Angara and Patriot. Often, the high-altitude long-range missile systems force aircraft to fly at low level, where anti-aircraft guns can bring t... |
Israel, and The US Air Force, in conjunction with the members of NATO, has developed significant tactics for air defence suppression. Dedicated weapons such as anti-radiation missiles and advanced electronics intelligence and electronic countermeasures platforms seek to suppress or negate the effectiveness of an opposi... |
NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) as "measures taken to defend a maritime force against attacks by airborne weapons launched from aircraft, ships, submarines and land-based sites." In some armies the term All-Arms Air Defence (AAAD) is used for air defence by non-specialist troops. Other terms from the late 20th... |
Throughout the 20th century air defence was one of the fastest-evolving areas of military technology, responding to the evolution of aircraft and exploiting various enabling technologies, particularly radar, guided missiles and computing (initially electromechanical analog computing from the 1930s on, as with equipment... |
Batteries are usually grouped into battalions or equivalent. In the field army a light gun or SHORAD battalion is often assigned to a manoeuvre division. Heavier guns and long-range missiles may be in air-defence brigades and come under corps or higher command. Homeland air defence may have a full military structure. F... |
German air attacks on the British Isles increased in 1915 and the AA efforts were deemed somewhat ineffective, so a Royal Navy gunnery expert, Admiral Sir Percy Scott, was appointed to make improvements, particularly an integrated AA defence for London. The air defences were expanded with more RNVR AA guns, 75 mm and 3... |
As aircraft started to be used against ground targets on the battlefield, the AA guns could not be traversed quickly enough at close targets and, being relatively few, were not always in the right place (and were often unpopular with other troops), so changed positions frequently. Soon the forces were adding various ma... |
In 1925 the British adopted a new instrument developed by Vickers. It was a mechanical analogue computer Predictor AA No 1. Given the target height its operators tracked the target and the predictor produced bearing, quadrant elevation and fuse setting. These were passed electrically to the guns where they were display... |
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