Contesting the Air: Guns, Radar, Turrets and Fighters

The Swedish Bofors 40 mm gun entered service in 1934 as the L/43, and the improved L/60 followed in 1936. Both were used heavily in the Second World War aboard warships and on the ground, and the later L/70 of 1948 extended the family into the Cold War, giving it one of the longest service histories of any anti-aircraft gun.

The German 88, developed in the 1930s, was an anti-aircraft gun first. Its flat, high-velocity trajectory and a mount that could lower the barrel below horizontal made it one of the most feared anti-tank guns of the Second World War as well.

Radar detected approaching aircraft by radio reflection before they came into sight. Britain built the Chain Home network along the English coast in stages from 1937 to 1939, and its advance warning is credited as a significant factor in the Royal Air Force victory in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Designed by Sperry, the ball turret hung beneath American bombers such as the B-17 and B-24. It held one gunner and two heavy machine guns in a cramped sphere, with the gunner curled up and usually no room for a parachute, and it was a key defense against fighters attacking from below.

The Rose turret was a rear turret fitted to some British Lancaster bombers in 1944 and 1945, with two .50 caliber Browning machine guns. About 400 were built by the end of the war in Europe, and Lancasters that carried it, mainly in No. 1 Group, were attacked by enemy fighters noticeably less often.

The Soviet Shilka entered service in 1965 with four 23 mm autocannon linked to a radar in an armored turret. It was especially effective in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where Israeli aircraft making low-level attack runs were repeatedly shot down, and about 6,500 were built.

The American F-14 Tomcat first flew on 21 December 1970 and made its first deployment in 1974 aboard USS Enterprise. Its wings could be swept between 20 and 68 degrees in flight, and it served as the Navy primary carrier fighter for fleet air defense until 2006.

The F-15 Eagle entered United States Air Force service in 1976 as an air superiority fighter. Its air-superiority versions have more than 104 aerial victories against no losses to enemy aircraft, including 36 of the 39 air-to-air victories of the United States Air Force in the 1991 Gulf War.

The Russian Su-35S entered operational service in February 2014, with thrust-vectoring engines and an Irbis-E radar able to detect targets at up to 400 kilometers. More than 155 have been built, and the type has seen combat over Syria since 2016 and in the Russo-Ukrainian war.