Much has been made about aerial dogfights during World War One, but ironically enough it was determined that the Red Baron was shot down by a bullet from the ground. With that in mind, how many aerial targets such as balloons or aircraft were actually taken down by ground-based antiaircraft weapons during the conflict?
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Interesting question, and one we can’t know the answer to. Certainly British aviators respected Archie and detested jobs like photo reconnaissance that required flying straight and level on a predictable course for a period. The RedBaron was probably brought down by a machine gun that was not solely an anti aircraft gun but a trench weapon. Any aircraft flying low could fall victim to ground fire from rifles or machine guns, losses in trench strafing missions were high
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