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109-484: Anti-aircraft warfare is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action". It encompasses surface-based, subsurface ( submarine-launched ), and air-based weapon systems, in addition to associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons ). It may be used to protect naval , ground , and air forces in any location. However, for most countries,

218-538: A rocket (although these too can also be guided ). Missiles have four system components: targeting and/or missile guidance , flight system, engine, and warhead. Missiles come in types adapted for different purposes: surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles ( ballistic , cruise , anti-ship , anti-tank , etc.), surface-to-air missiles (and anti-ballistic ), air-to-air missiles , and anti-satellite weapons . All known existing missiles are designed to be propelled during powered flight by chemical reactions inside

327-575: A rocket engine , jet engine , or other type of engine. Non-self-propelled airborne explosive devices are generally referred to as shells and usually have a shorter range than missiles. In ordinary British-English usage predating guided weapons, a missile is " any thrown object ", such as objects thrown at players by rowdy spectators at a sporting event. The advent of the unmanned aerial vehicle has dramatically revolutionised aerial warfare with multiple nations developing and/or purchasing UAV fleets. Several benchmarks have already occurred, including

436-599: A 75 mm 12-pounder, and even a 105 mm gun. Erhardt also had a 12-pounder, while Vickers Maxim offered a 3-pounder and Schneider a 47 mm. The French balloon gun appeared in 1910, it was an 11-pounder but mounted on a vehicle, with a total uncrewed weight of two tons. However, since balloons were slow moving, sights were simple. But the challenges of faster moving aeroplanes were recognised. By 1913 only France and Germany had developed field guns suitable for engaging balloons and aircraft and addressed issues of military organisation. Britain's Royal Navy would soon introduce

545-480: A UAV-fighter jet dogfight , probes of adversary air defense with UAVs, replacement of an operational flight wing's aircraft with UAVs, control of UAVs qualifying the operator for 'combat' status, UAV-control from the other side of the world, jamming and/or data-hijacking of UAVs in flight, as well as proposals to transfer fire authority to AI aboard a UAV. UAVs have quickly evolved from surveillance to combat roles. The growing capability of UAVs has thrown into question

654-644: A full military structure. For example, the UK's Anti-Aircraft Command, commanded by a full British Army general was part of ADGB. At its peak in 1941–42 it comprised three AA corps with 12 AA divisions between them. The use of balloons by the U.S. Army during the American Civil War compelled the Confederates to develop methods of combating them. These included the use of artillery, small arms, and saboteurs. They were unsuccessful, and internal politics led

763-450: A large traverse that could be easily transported on a wagon. Krupp 75 mm guns were supplied with an optical sighting system that improved their capabilities. The German Army also adapted a revolving cannon that came to be known to Allied fliers as the " flaming onion " from the shells in flight. This gun had five barrels that quickly launched a series of 37 mm artillery shells. As aircraft started to be used against ground targets on

872-542: 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 nonspecialist troops. Other terms from the late 20th century include "ground based air defence" (GBAD) with related terms " short range air defense " (SHORAD) and man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS). Anti-aircraft missiles are variously called surface-to-air missiles , ("SAMs") and surface-to-air guided weapons (SAGWs). Examples are

981-513: A new 3.6-inch gun, in 1918. In 1928 a 3.7-inch (94 mm) gun became the preferred solution, but it took six years to gain funding. Production of the QF 3.7-inch gun began in 1937; this gun was used on mobile carriages with the field army and transportable guns on fixed mountings for static positions. At the same time the Royal Navy adopted a new 4.5-inch (113 mm) gun in a twin turret, which

1090-636: A new field mounting was introduced in 1916. Since most attacks were at night, searchlights were soon used, and acoustic methods of detection and locating were developed. By December 1916 there were 183 AA sections defending Britain (most with the 3-inch), 74 with the BEF in France and 10 in the Middle East. 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

1199-691: A par with the army, navy, or air force. In the Soviet Union, this was called Voyska PVO , and had both fighter aircraft, separate from the air force, and ground-based systems. This was divided into two arms, PVO Strany, the Strategic Air defence Service responsible for Air Defence of the Homeland, created in 1941 and becoming an independent service in 1954, and PVO SV, Air Defence of the Ground Forces. Subsequently, these became part of

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1308-486: A position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. It relies on offensive and defensive basic fighter manoeuvring (BFM) to gain an advantage over an aerial opponent. Airborne forces are military units, usually light infantry , set up to be moved by aircraft and "dropped" into battle, typically by parachute . Thus, they can be placed behind enemy lines, and have the capability to deploy almost anywhere with little warning. The formations are limited only by

1417-420: Is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft . This role can fulfil a variety of requirements, including the collection of imagery intelligence , observation of enemy maneuvers and artillery spotting . Air combat manoeuvring (also known as ACM or dogfighting ) is the tactical art of moving, turning and situating a fighter aircraft in order to attain

1526-440: Is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying their morale or their economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations , or both. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers , long- or medium-range missiles , or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to

1635-483: Is assisted but not governed by identification friend or foe (IFF) electronic devices originally introduced during the Second World War . While these rules originate at the highest authority, different rules can apply to different types of air defence covering the same area at the same time. AAAD usually operates under the tightest rules. NATO calls these rules "weapon control orders" (WCO), they are: Until

1744-638: Is deployed in several ways: Air defence has included other elements, although after the Second World War most fell into disuse: 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 minimise the effectiveness of air and/or missile attack". It remains a vital activity by ground forces and includes camouflage and concealment to avoid detection by reconnaissance and attacking aircraft. Measures such as camouflaging important buildings were common in

1853-681: Is named in honor of Saint Cyril . Since the script was conceived and popularised by the followers of Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria, rather than by Cyril and Methodius themselves, its name denotes homage rather than authorship. The Cyrillic script was created during the First Bulgarian Empire . Modern scholars believe that the Early Cyrillic alphabet was created at the Preslav Literary School ,

1962-454: Is operated by specialists, batteries may have several dozen teams deploying separately in small sections; self-propelled air defence guns may deploy in pairs. 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

2071-577: Is the standard script for writing the following languages: Slavic languages : Non-Slavic languages of Russia : Non-Slavic languages in other countries : The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska, Slavic Europe (except for Western Slavic and some Southern Slavic ), the Caucasus , the languages of Idel-Ural , Siberia , and the Russian Far East . The first alphabet derived from Cyrillic

2180-414: 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 hit the target, or aimed at the predicted position of the target at the time the projectile reaches it, taking into account

2289-522: Is typically based on ⟨p⟩ from Latin typefaces, lowercase ⟨б⟩ , ⟨ђ⟩ and ⟨ћ⟩ are traditional handwritten forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs. Cyrillic typefaces, as well as Latin ones, have roman and italic forms (practically all popular modern computer fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However,

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2398-586: Is usually accomplished via the combined use of systems optimized for either short-, medium-, or long-range air defence. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War , the Soviet Union , and modern NATO and the United States, 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), forces in

2507-593: The faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems; in some cases, such as ж with k -like ascender, no such approximation exists. Computer fonts typically default to the Central/Eastern, Russian letterforms, and require the use of OpenType Layout (OTL) features to display the Western, Bulgarian or Southern, Serbian/Macedonian forms. Depending on the choices made by the (computer) font designer, they may either be automatically activated by

2616-548: The use of planes and zeppelins for strategic bombing also emerged . The rise of fighter aircraft and of air-to-air combat led to a realisation of the desirability of achieving air superiority . Closer integration of attacking aircraft with ground operations ("battlefield support") also developed during World War I . During World War II (1939-1945), the use of strategic bombing increased, while airborne forces , missiles, and early precision-guided munitions were introduced. Aircraft carriers gained particular importance in

2725-424: The 13-pr QF 9 cwt and these proved much more satisfactory. However, in general, these ad hoc solutions proved largely useless. With little experience in the role, no means of measuring target, range, height or speed the difficulty of observing their shell bursts relative to the target gunners proved unable to get their fuse setting correct and most rounds burst well below their targets. The exception to this rule

2834-518: The Caucasus , Central Asia , North Asia , and East Asia , and used by many other minority languages. As of 2019 , around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of

2943-524: The Cyrillic alphabet that originated in medieval period . Paleographers consider the earliest features of script had likely begun to appear between the 10th or 11th century, with the Humac tablet to be the first such document using this type of script and is believed to date from this period. Was weak used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century. With

3052-782: The European Union , following the Latin and Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great , probably by the disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius , who had previously created the Glagolitic script . Among them were Clement of Ohrid , Naum of Preslav , Constantine of Preslav , Joan Ekzarh , Chernorizets Hrabar , Angelar , Sava and other scholars. The script

3161-460: The QF 3-inch and QF 4-inch AA guns and also had Vickers 1-pounder quick firing "pom-poms" that could be used in various mountings. The first US anti-aircraft cannon was a 1-pounder concept design by Admiral Twining in 1911 to meet the perceived threat of airships, that eventually was used as the basis for the US Navy's first operational anti-aircraft cannon: the 3-inch/23 caliber gun . On

3270-669: The RIM-66 Standard , Raytheon Standard Missile 6 , or the MBDA Aster missile. Non-English terms for air defence include the German Flak or 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 Russian,

3379-673: The Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was manning AA guns and searchlights assembled from various sources at some nine ports. The Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) was given responsibility for AA defence in the field, using motorised two-gun sections. The first were formally formed in November 1914. Initially they used QF 1-pounder "pom-pom"s (37 mm versions of the Maxim Gun ). All armies soon deployed AA guns often based on their smaller field pieces, notably

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3488-681: The United States Air Force 's operating bases in the UK. All ground-based air defence was removed from Royal Air Force (RAF) jurisdiction in 2004 . The British Army's Anti-Aircraft Command was disbanded in March 1955, but during the 1960s and 1970s the RAF's Fighter Command operated long-range air-defence missiles to protect key areas in the UK. During World War II, the Royal Marines also provided air defence units; formally part of

3597-408: The local variant locl feature for text tagged with an appropriate language code , or the author needs to opt-in by activating a stylistic set ss## or character variant cv## feature. These solutions only enjoy partial support and may render with default glyphs in certain software configurations, and the reader may not see the same result as the author intended. Among others, Cyrillic

3706-463: The medieval stage to the late Baroque , without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe . Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized as vyaz' and still found on many icon inscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters. Peter the Great , Tsar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms ( ru ) in

3815-648: 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, damaged aircraft may be forced to abort their mission and, even if they manage to return and land in friendly territory, may be out of action for days or permanently. Ignoring small arms and smaller machine-guns, ground-based air defence guns have varied in calibre from 20 mm to at least 152 mm. Ground-based air defence

3924-622: The 19th century). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, some of the former republics officially shifted from Cyrillic to Latin. The transition is complete in most of Moldova (except the breakaway region of Transnistria , where Moldovan Cyrillic is official), Turkmenistan , and Azerbaijan . Uzbekistan still uses both systems, and Kazakhstan has officially begun a transition from Cyrillic to Latin (scheduled to be complete by 2025). The Russian government has mandated that Cyrillic must be used for all public communications in all federal subjects of Russia , to promote closer ties across

4033-471: The 30th of September, 1915, troops of the Serbian Army observed three enemy aircraft approaching Kragujevac . Soldiers fired 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 city. During the bombing raid, private Radoje Ljutovac fired his cannon at

4142-418: The 8.8 cm FlaK 18 in 1933, the 36 and 37 models followed with various improvements, but ballistic performance was unchanged. In the late 1930s the 10.5 cm FlaK 38 appeared, soon followed by the 39; this was designed primarily for static sites but had a mobile mounting, and the unit had 220 V 24 kW generators. In 1938 design started on the 12.8 cm FlaK . Britain had successfully tested

4251-544: The 890s as a more suitable script for church books. Cyrillic spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic Romanians . The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav , in the medieval city itself and at nearby Patleina Monastery , both in present-day Shumen Province , as well as in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery . The new script became

4360-486: The AA systems are called zenitnye (i.e., 'pointing to zenith ') systems. In French, air defence is called Défense contre les aéronefs (DCA) , aéronef meaning 'aircraft'. The maximum distance at which a gun or missile can engage an aircraft is an important figure. However, many different definitions are used and unless the same definition is used, performance of different guns or missiles cannot be compared. For AA guns only

4469-492: 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-inch, the pom-poms being ineffective. The naval 3-inch was also adopted by the army, the QF 3-inch 20 cwt (76 mm),

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4578-546: The British adopted a new instrument developed by Vickers. It was a mechanical analogue computer - the 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 displayed on repeater dials to the layers who "matched pointers" (target data and the gun's actual data) to lay

4687-613: The Byzantine Saints Cyril and Methodius and their Bulgarian disciples, such as Saints Naum , Clement , Angelar , and Sava . They spread and taught Christianity in the whole of Bulgaria. Paul Cubberley posits that although Cyril may have codified and expanded Glagolitic, it was his students in the First Bulgarian Empire under Tsar Simeon the Great that developed Cyrillic from the Greek letters in

4796-472: 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 cwt Mk III was issued in 1915. It remained in service throughout the war but 18-pdr guns were lined down to take the 13-pdr shell with a larger cartridge producing

4905-561: The German Flugzeugabwehrkanone ), "ack-ack" (from the spelling alphabet used by the British for voice transmission of "AA"); and "archie" (a World War I British term probably coined by Amyas Borton , and believed to derive via the Royal Flying Corps , from the music-hall comedian George Robey 's line "Archibald, certainly not!"). NATO defines anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) as "measures taken to defend

5014-473: The Second World War. During the Cold War the runways and taxiways of some airfields were painted green. While navies are usually responsible for their own air defence—at least for ships at sea—organisational arrangements for land-based air defence vary between nations and over time. The most extreme case was the Soviet Union and this model may still be followed in some countries: it was a separate service, on

5123-577: The Serbian constitution; however, the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means. In practice the scripts are equal, with Latin being used more often in a less official capacity. The Zhuang alphabet , used between the 1950s and 1980s in portions of the People's Republic of China, used a mixture of Latin, phonetic, numeral-based, and Cyrillic letters. The non-Latin letters, including Cyrillic, were removed from

5232-635: The Unicode definition of a character: this aspect is the responsibility of the typeface designer. The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improved computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. In Microsoft Windows, the Segoe UI user interface font is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8. Some currency signs have derived from Cyrillic letters: The development of Cyrillic letter forms passed directly from

5341-618: The United States Army's Balloon Corps to be disbanded mid-war. The Confederates experimented with balloons as well. Turks carried out the first ever anti-airplane operation in history during the Italo-Turkish war . Although lacking anti-aircraft weapons, they were the first to shoot down an airplane by rifle fire. The first aircraft to crash in a war was the one of Lieutenant Piero Manzini, shot down on August 25, 1912. The earliest known use of weapons specifically made for

5450-667: The air force and ground forces respectively. At the other extreme, the United States Army has an Air Defense Artillery Branch that provides ground-based air defence for both homeland and the army in the field; however, it is operationally under the Joint Force Air Component Commander . Many other nations also deploy an air-defence branch in the army. Some, such as Japan or Israel, choose to integrate their ground based air defence systems into their air force. In Britain and some other armies,

5559-412: 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 at 400 mph [640 km/h] can be engaged for 20 seconds before the gun reaches 70 degrees elevation". The essence of air defence

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5668-560: The anti-aircraft role occurred during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. After the disaster at Sedan , Paris was besieged and French troops outside the city started an attempt at communication via balloon . Gustav Krupp mounted a modified 1-pounder (37 mm) gun – the Ballonabwehrkanone (Balloon defence cannon) or BaK — on top of a horse-drawn carriage for the purpose of shooting down these balloons. By

5777-1038: The army adopted in simplified single-gun mountings for static positions, mostly around ports where naval ammunition was available. The performance of the new guns was limited by their standard fuse No 199, with a 30-second running time, although a new mechanical time fuse giving 43 seconds was nearing readiness. In 1939 a machine fuse setter was introduced to eliminate manual fuse setting. Aerial warfare Historically, military aircraft have included lighter-than-air balloons carrying artillery observers ; lighter-than-air airships for bombing cities; various sorts of reconnaissance , surveillance , and early warning aircraft carrying observers, cameras, and radar equipment; torpedo bombers to attack enemy vessels; and military air-sea rescue aircraft for saving downed airmen . Modern aerial warfare includes missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles . Surface forces are likely to respond to enemy air activity with anti-aircraft warfare . The history of aerial warfare began in ancient times, with

5886-407: The ascending part of the trajectory can be usefully used. One term is "ceiling", the maximum ceiling being the height a projectile would reach if fired vertically, not practically useful in itself as few AA guns are able to fire vertically, and the maximum fuse duration may be too short, but potentially useful as a standard to compare different weapons. The British adopted "effective ceiling", meaning

5995-635: The basis of alphabets used in various languages in Orthodox Church -dominated Eastern Europe, both Slavic and non-Slavic languages (such as Romanian , until the 1860s). For centuries, Cyrillic was also used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs. Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for the Church Slavonic language , especially the Old Church Slavonic variant. Hence expressions such as "И is the tenth Cyrillic letter" typically refer to

6104-457: 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 machine-gun based weapons mounted on poles. These short-range weapons proved more deadly, and the " Red Baron " is believed to have been shot down by an anti-aircraft Vickers machine gun . When

6213-408: The competition for a share of limited defence budgets. Demobilisation meant that most AA guns were taken out of service, leaving only the most modern. However, there were lessons to be learned. In particular the British, who had had AA guns in most theatres in action in daylight and used them against night attacks at home. Furthermore, they had also formed an Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section during

6322-782: The correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic types: for example, italic Cyrillic ⟨ т ⟩ is the lowercase counterpart of ⟨ Т ⟩ not of ⟨ М ⟩ . Note: in some typefaces or styles, ⟨ д ⟩ , i.e. the lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨д⟩ , may look like Latin ⟨ g ⟩ , and ⟨ т ⟩ , i.e. lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨т⟩ , may look like small-capital italic ⟨T⟩ . In Standard Serbian, as well as in Macedonian, some italic and cursive letters are allowed to be different, to more closely resemble

6431-418: The early 18th century. Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek typefaces that retained their own set of design principles for lower-case letters (such as the placement of serifs , the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillic types are much

6540-678: 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 impact and time types. Mountings were generally pedestal type but could be on field platforms. Trials were underway in most countries in Europe but only Krupp, Erhardt, Vickers Maxim, and Schneider had published any information by 1910. Krupp's designs included adaptations of their 65 mm 9-pounder,

6649-487: The enemy aircraft and successfully shot one down. It crashed in the city and both pilots died from their injuries. The cannon Ljutovac used was not designed as an anti-aircraft gun; it was a slightly modified Turkish cannon captured during the First Balkan War in 1912. This was the first occasion in military history that a military aircraft was shot down with ground-to-air artillery fire. The British recognised

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6758-457: The enemy's war-making capability. 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 used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries

6867-562: The features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reform and political decrees. A notable example of such linguistic reform can be attributed to Vuk Stefanović Karadžić , who updated the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet by removing certain graphemes no longer represented in the vernacular and introducing graphemes specific to Serbian (i.e. Љ Њ Ђ Ћ Џ Ј), distancing it from the Church Slavonic alphabet in use prior to

6976-484: The federation. This act was controversial for speakers of many Slavic languages; for others, such as Chechen and Ingush speakers, the law had political ramifications. For example, the separatist Chechen government mandated a Latin script which is still used by many Chechens. Standard Serbian uses both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts . Cyrillic is nominally the official script of Serbia's administration according to

7085-654: The field, wherever they are, provide their own defences against airborne threats. Until the 1950s, guns firing ballistic munitions ranging from 7.62 mm (.30 in) to 152.4 mm (6 in) were the standard weapons; guided missiles then became dominant, except at the very shortest ranges (as with close-in weapon systems , which typically use rotary autocannons or, in very modern systems, surface-to-air adaptations of short-range air-to-air missiles , often combined in one system with rotary cannons). It may also be called counter-air , anti-air , AA , flak , layered air defence or air defence forces . The term air defence

7194-583: The ground-based air defence of the British Army's Anti-Aircraft Command , although field-deployed air defence relied on less sophisticated arrangements. NATO later called these arrangements an "air defence ground environment", defined as "the network of ground radar sites and command and control centres within a specific theatre of operations which are used for the tactical control of air defence operations". Rules of engagement are critical to prevent air defences engaging friendly or neutral aircraft. Their use

7303-587: The guns. This system of repeater electrical dials built on the arrangements introduced by British coast artillery in the 1880s, and coast artillery was the background of many AA officers. Similar systems were adopted in other countries and for example the later Sperry M3A3 in the US, was also used by Britain as the Predictor AA No 2. Height finders were also increasing in size; in Britain, the seven-foot optical base World War I Barr & Stroud UB 2 stereoscopic rangefinder

7412-471: The handwritten letters. The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized in small caps form. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Serbian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in the faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems. In the Bulgarian alphabet , many lowercase letterforms may more closely resemble the cursive forms on

7521-501: 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 observation posts to report hostile aircraft flying over Britain. Initially radar was used for airspace surveillance to detect approaching hostile aircraft. However, the German Würzburg radar put into use in 1940

7630-408: The letters' Greek ancestors . Computer fonts for early Cyrillic alphabets are not routinely provided. Many of the letterforms differ from those of modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal between manuscripts , and changed over time. In accordance with Unicode policy, the standard does not include letterform variations or ligatures found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to

7739-601: The main effort has tended to be homeland defence . Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. Most modern anti-aircraft (AA) weapons systems are optimized for short-, medium-, or long-range air defence, although some systems may incorporate multiple weapons (such as both autocannons and surface-to-air missiles ). ‘Layered air defence’ usually refers to multiple ‘tiers’ of air defence systems which, when combined, an airborne threat must penetrate in order to reach its target; This defence

7848-447: The main effort has tended to be 'homeland defence'. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare . Missile defence is an extension of air defence as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. In modern usage, a missile is a self-propelled precision-guided munition system, as opposed to an unguided self-propelled munition, referred to as

7957-512: The mobile naval base defence organisation, they were handled as an integral part of the army-commanded ground based air defences. 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 individual launchers several kilometres apart. When MANPADS

8066-532: The most important early literary and cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs : Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned the Glagolitic scripts in favor of an adaptation of the Greek uncial to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet. A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at

8175-478: The native typeface terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense. Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns: Similarly to Latin typefaces, italic and cursive forms of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for handwritten or stylish types) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases,

8284-494: 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 complete circle of towers" was to be built around "naval installations" and "at other especially vulnerable points". By December 1914

8393-545: The number and size of their aircraft, so given enough capacity a huge force can appear "out of nowhere" in minutes, an action referred to as vertical envelopment . Conversely, airborne forces typically lack the supplies and equipment for prolonged combat operations, and are therefore more suited for airhead operations than for long-term occupation; furthermore, parachute operations are particularly sensitive to adverse weather conditions. Advances in helicopter technology since World War II have brought increased flexibility to

8502-459: The one hand and Latin glyphs on the other hand, e.g. by having an ascender or descender or by using rounded arcs instead of sharp corners. Sometimes, uppercase letters may have a different shape as well, e.g. more triangular, Д and Л, like Greek delta Δ and lambda Λ. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Bulgarian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in

8611-533: The order of the Church Slavonic alphabet; not every Cyrillic alphabet uses every letter available in the script. The Cyrillic script came to dominate Glagolitic in the 12th century. The literature produced in Old Church Slavonic soon spread north from Bulgaria and became the lingua franca of the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Cyrillic in modern-day Bosnia, is an extinct and disputed variant of

8720-537: The orthographic reform of Saint Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the Tarnovo Literary School of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as Gregory Tsamblak and Constantine of Kostenets , the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the second South-Slavic influence. In 1708–10, the Cyrillic script used in Russia

8829-580: The reform. Today, many languages in the Balkans , Eastern Europe, and northern Eurasia are written in Cyrillic alphabets. Cyrillic script spread throughout the East Slavic and some South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic . Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed below. Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri ( Ы )

8938-576: The same as modern Latin types of the same typeface family. The development of some Cyrillic computer fonts from Latin ones has also contributed to a visual Latinization of Cyrillic type. Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with exceptions: Cyrillic ⟨а⟩ , ⟨е⟩ , ⟨і⟩ , ⟨ј⟩ , ⟨р⟩ , and ⟨у⟩ adopted Latin lowercase shapes, lowercase ⟨ф⟩

9047-564: The school, including Naum of Preslav until 893; Constantine of Preslav ; Joan Ekzarh (also transcr. John the Exarch); and Chernorizets Hrabar , among others. The school was also a center of translation, mostly of Byzantine authors. The Cyrillic script is derived from the Greek uncial script letters, augmented by ligatures and consonants from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek. Glagolitic and Cyrillic were formalized by

9156-496: The scope of airborne operations, and air assaults have largely replaced large-scale parachute operations, and (almost) completely replaced combat glider operations. An airstrike or air strike is an offensive operation carried out by attack aircraft . Air strikes are mostly delivered from aircraft such as fighters , bombers , ground attack aircraft , and attack helicopters . The official definition includes all sorts of targets, including enemy air targets, but in popular use

9265-461: The shells' predicted trajectory. This was called deflection gun-laying, where "off-set" angles for range and elevation were set on the gunsight and updated as their target moved. In this method, when the sights were on the target, the barrel was pointed at the target's future position. Range and height of the target determined fuse length. The difficulties increased as aircraft performance improved. The British dealt with range measurement first, when it

9374-643: 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 protect airfields everywhere, and this included light air defences. In the later decades of the Cold War this included

9483-477: The speed and direction of both the target and the projectile. Throughout the 20th century, air defence was one of the fastest-evolving areas of military technology, responding to the evolution of aircraft and exploiting technology such as radar, guided missiles and computing (initially electromechanical analogue computing from the 1930s on, as with equipment described below). Improvements were made to sensors, technical fire control, weapons, and command and control. At

9592-420: The start of the 20th century these were either very primitive or non-existent. Initially sensors were optical and acoustic devices developed during World War I and continued into the 1930s, but were quickly superseded by radar, which in turn was supplemented by optoelectronics in the 1980s. Command and control remained primitive until the late 1930s, when Britain created an integrated system for ADGB that linked

9701-559: The survivability and capability of manned fighter jets. Cyrillic Co-official script in: The Cyrillic script ( / s ɪ ˈ r ɪ l ɪ k / sih- RIL -ik ), Slavonic script or simply Slavic script is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia . It is the designated national script in various Slavic , Turkic , Mongolic , Uralic , Caucasian and Iranic -speaking countries in Southeastern Europe , Eastern Europe ,

9810-461: 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 24,000 ft (7.3 km). Mechanical time fuses were required because the speed of powder burning varied with height, so fuse length was not a simple function of time of flight. Automated fire ensured a constant rate of fire that made it easier to predict where each shell should be individually aimed. In 1925

9919-457: The term is usually narrowed to a tactical (small-scale) attack on a ground or naval objective. Weapons used in an airstrike can range from machine gun bullets and missiles to various types of bombs . It is also commonly referred to as an air raid . In close air support , air strikes are usually controlled by trained observers for coordination with friendly ground troops in a manner derived from artillery tactics. Strategic bombing

10028-528: The trans-oceanic projection of air power . Ballistic missiles became of key importance during the Cold War , were armed with nuclear warheads , and were stockpiled by the United States and the Soviet Union to deter each other from using them . Drone warfare using relatively cheap unmanned equipment proliferated in the 21st century, particularly after the start of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. Aerial reconnaissance

10137-609: The use of man-carrying kites in Ancient China . In the third century it progressed to balloon warfare . Airships (notably zeppelins ) served in military use in the early years of the 20th century. Heavier-than-air airplanes first went to war in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, initially for aerial reconnaissance , and then for aerial combat to shoot down enemy reconnaissance planes. Aircraft continued to carry out these roles during World War I (1914-1918), where

10246-409: The war and accumulated large amounts of data that was subjected to extensive analysis. As a result, they published the two-volume Textbook of Anti-Aircraft Gunnery in 1924–1925. It included five key recommendations for HAA equipment: 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

10355-437: The war ended, it was clear that the increasing capabilities of aircraft would require better means of acquiring targets and aiming at them. Nevertheless, a pattern had been set: anti-aircraft warfare would employ heavy weapons to attack high-altitude targets and lighter weapons for use when aircraft came to lower altitudes. World War I demonstrated that aircraft could be an important part of the battlefield, but in some nations it

10464-440: The years immediately after World War I, the prospect of another major war seemed remote, particularly in Europe, where the most militarily capable nations were, and little financing was available. Four years of war had seen the creation of a new and technically demanding branch of military activity. Air defence had made huge advances, albeit from a very low starting point. However, it was new and often lacked influential 'friends' in

10573-708: Was Abur , used for the Komi language . Other Cyrillic alphabets include the Molodtsov alphabet for the Komi language and various alphabets for Caucasian languages . A number of languages written in a Cyrillic alphabet have also been written in a Latin alphabet , such as Azerbaijani , Uzbek , Serbian , and Romanian (in the Moldavian SSR until 1989 and in the Danubian Principalities throughout

10682-570: Was also adopted. The pre-reform letterforms, called 'Полуустав', were notably retained in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel. The alphabet used for the modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the course of the following millennium, Cyrillic adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit

10791-585: Was capable of providing data suitable for controlling AA guns, and the British Radar, Gun Laying, Mark I , was designed to be used on AA gun positions and was in use by 1939. 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

10900-580: Was determined by time of flight, but the burning rate of the gunpowder was affected by altitude. The British pom-poms had only contact-fused ammunition. Zeppelins , being hydrogen-filled balloons, were targets for incendiary shells and the British introduced these with airburst fuses, both shrapnel type-forward projection of incendiary "pot" and base ejection of an incendiary stream. The British also fitted tracers to their shells for use at night. Smoke shells were also available for some AA guns, these bursts were used as targets during training. German air attacks on

11009-402: Was electrical; the operator entered the target range and had displays at guns; it was used with their 75 mm. The British Wilson-Dalby gun director used a pair of trackers and mechanical tachymetry; the operator entered the fuse length, and deflection angles were read from the instruments. By the start of World War I , the 77 mm had become the standard German weapon, and came mounted on

11118-457: Was heavily reformed by Peter the Great , who had recently returned from his Grand Embassy in Western Europe . The new letterforms, called the Civil script , became closer to those of the Latin alphabet; several archaic letters were abolished and several new letters were introduced designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture

11227-562: Was originally a ligature of Yer and I ( Ъ + І = Ы ). Iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І: Ꙗ (not an ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived from Ѧ ), Ѥ , Ю (ligature of І and ОУ ), Ѩ , Ѭ . Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї , as were typographical variants like О = Ѻ . There were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ . The letters also had numeric values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from

11336-582: Was probably first used by the UK 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 sometimes prefixed by "light" or "heavy" (LAA or HAA) to classify a type of gun or unit. Nicknames for anti-aircraft guns include "AA", "AAA" or "triple-A" (abbreviations of "anti-aircraft artillery"), "flak" (from

11445-476: 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 two-metre optical coincident rangefinder mounted on a tripod. It measured the distance to the target and the elevation angle, which together gave the height of the aircraft. These were complex instruments and various other methods were also used. The HRF

11554-578: Was replaced by the nine-foot optical base UB 7 and the eighteen-foot optical base UB 10 (only used on static AA sites). Goertz in Germany and Levallois in France produced five m (16 ft) instruments. However, in most countries the main effort in HAA guns until the mid-1930s was improving existing ones, although various new designs were on drawing boards. From the early 1930s eight countries developed radar ; these developments were sufficiently advanced by

11663-553: Was soon joined by the height/fuse indicator (HFI), this was marked with elevation angles and height lines overlaid with fuse length curves, using the height reported by the HRF operator, the necessary fuse length could be read off. However, the problem of deflection settings — "aim-off" — required knowing the rate of change in the target's position. Both France and the UK introduced tachymetric devices to track targets and produce vertical and horizontal deflection angles. The French Brocq system

11772-501: Was the guns protecting spotting balloons, in which case the altitude could be accurately measured from the length of the cable holding the balloon. 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-aircraft use. The fuse length

11881-496: 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 particularly influenced the British and was one of if not the main driver for forming an independent air force. As the capabilities of aircraft and their engines improved it was clear that their role in future war would be even more critical as their range and weapon load grew. However, in

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