AAA pic.

[brian]

a little somthing for everyone.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l? ... %26hl%3Den

BB

[DM Carpenter]

That's a battery of 90mm Skysweepers, I believe. Neat picture, particularly with the radar set as well.

[brian]

yea,
you can see
the scr-584 radar
the directors trailer
the gen. sets
the quadmount MG's
artillery tractors
is that a bulldozer on the back trailer?
BB

[DM Carpenter]

Yup, that would be a dozer. Not a bad idea to have the means to dig in as organic, rather than as an attachment. Did the Skysweeper use proximity fuzes or strictly time?

[RANGER]

Not the Skysweeper, but appear to be 90mmAA.
Dozer was almost a necessity in sand, even the 5 Ton had a time of it.

[42cckw]

Looks like a M2 90 mm AA gun .

[DM Carpenter]

Guys:

Thanks for the ID.

[RANGER]

Sky Sweeper was an interesting weapon, it was a Cold War era weapon, units were located around the USA in air corridors that were possible routes for the Soviet threat. They were a short lived weapon and retired for the most part in the late 50s. Aberdeen Proving Ground still had evidence of the Skysweeper when I was there in 1962, some buildings still had the structures on rooftops where Skysweepers were mounted.
Units that had these trained with target sleeves towed by aircraft from tow target squadrons. The aircraft were usually B-26(A-26) Invaders. It could get dangerous as the acquisition Radar was sensitive enough to track the tow cable and the rapid firing 75 would follow it towards the aircraft. The Skysweeper units were normally issued M-54 5 Ton Cargo trucks to haul them around. My hometown National Guard unit was selected to have several Skysweepers posted around the airbase and watertower in 1957. They became obsolete before this could happen and the batallion turned them in for M-42 Dusters.

[DM Carpenter]

Thanks for the synopsis of the system history.

[brian]

bump