Re: Was the Type 99 Antiaircraft Sight ever Used?
 

I recall reading that the US flew F-111s up a particular valley very low at night, making use of their terrain following radar so the valley masked them from SAMs. the North Vietnamese apparently got cheesed off with this, and stuffed chaff into some dispensing mortar shells (flare bodies or such) and then one evening as the F-111 did their regular trip, filled the valley with mortar dispensed chaff up ahead of them, which the terrain following radar read as a cliff and ordered a quick pop-up into the clear air above. The SAMs and/or radar AAA got a shot off, and the F-111 drivers needed a change of underwear...

As for Japanese AA mortars - so did the British, the Holman Projector, a pneumatic mortar no less. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holman_Projector

A dozen or so kills, so not too bad for a lashed-up emergency contraption.

Re: Was the Type 99 Antiaircraft Sight ever Used?
 

I was thinking it was a normal mortar, hoping to score an impact-hit with its curved trajectory. That's just silly!

Now, that parashute thing is ingenious!

Well, in war soldiers need to be ingenious. Like what the Russians did by attaching hooks on their grenades so camouflage nets might catch them (airburst grenades!). Or an official recommendation by Hitler that troops use artillery fires and grenades to break up the steel-hard ice, for digging foxholes. Ah yes, they even lit up campfires under their trucks to thaw off oil & gasoline so it might "ignite."

But even weirder is the stories from the East Timor war, where rebels used magic and mystic rituals so bullets and knives won't affect them. Incredibly, these shenanigans work! Captured rebels were shot point blank with no effect whatsoever; ditto with bayonets & knive stabs. Nothing would do the trick except hanging; it is said the magic "wears off" if the person is lifted from the ground.

Atheists and evolutionists would offer "stories" for that, but I wouldn't buy it. There are supernatural things in this world, it's a fact.

Sorry for the OOT.

Re: Was the Type 99 Antiaircraft Sight ever Used?
 

WW2 British PAC (Parachute and Cable) launchers PAC consisted of a small rocket trailing a steel cable, which shot vertically 300-400ft into the air and then descended on parachute. The rockets were grouped in batteries of nine, to be launched simultaneously in a curtain pattern. The idea was that of creating a web of steel cables across the path of a low-flying aircraft, causing it to catch the wires and stall to the ground.

The parachute had a dual function. Once the rocket burned out, the canopy slowed the cable’s fall, allowing the “curtain” to stay up in the air for a longer time. Secondly, if the cable caught a bomber’s wing, the added drag from the parachute was hoped to be sufficient to foul its flight. There was also a smaller parachute at the lower end of the cable designed to balance the drag of the first one and thus prevent the cable from it from sliding off the wing of the aircraft. Later versions had an additional explosive charge hung at the bottom of the cable, intended to detonate on contact with the aircraft.

http://spitfiresite.com/2010/08/batt...ute-cable.html

Re: Was the Type 99 Antiaircraft Sight ever Used?
 

When Guderian heard of that recommendation in late 1941 somewhere in the eastern front, he felt like pointing out that the front line divisions had very limited number of artillery rounds available, and that those would be needed to counter possible enemy attacks, and thus could not be wasted on blowing holes on the frozen ground. And being at the end of extended supply chain, providing extra munitions was not trivial - keep in mind that the German logistics had not even been able to ship the winter clothes to the front lines in time.

As for funky AA-weapons, Germans also trialled with a man-portable AA rocket launcher called Fliegerfaust, launching a salvo of small rockets to the sky:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fliegerfaust

Not many were made - don't expect this to make an appearance in SPWW2!