"The Holman Projector - A stopgap that worked (Well, once)" Topic

A new bit if kit to me, although not to many of you I'm sure and it even apparently helped to bring down a (!) German seaplane in action.

Fitted to " trawlers and merchant ships, minesweepers and destroyers", before being quickly supplanted by more effective weaponry. However an interesting, to me anyway bit of wartime history here:

link

The purpose of anti-aircraft weapons is not to bring down aircraft, that rarely happens. It's to make the pilots drop their weapons from higher/further so that they miss.

So even if this thing only knocked down one enemy aircraft it still saved a lot of lives. I am always ready to salute the humble, practical, clever innovations that make a difference even if they don't make a nam.

Never heard of it so looked it up.Actually in it's 3 marks over 4500 were made and the last version was good to up to 1000 ft. It was used in the Atlantic and Mediterranean against German and Italian aircraft.

Even their deterrent value against low flying attackers was, at best, doubtful. The coastal forces had them, too, and their best use was throwing potatoes.

Weapons of this kind were familiar to those of us reading British comics in the 50's. Publications such as the Rover and Adventure used feature this kind of strange-but-true weaponry on a regular basis.

Doug