The First Anti-Aircraft Gun: The Ballon Kanone
The first untethered balloon flight took place on the 21st November 1783, with the first military use occurring during the French Revolutionary Wars. During the Franco-Prussian War the French again used observation balloons and when Prussian troops besieged Paris they became a vital lifeline out of the encircled city.
The Prussians cut all communications between Paris and the provincial French forces and the first balloon, Neptune, left paris on the 23rd September with regular flights beginning 3 days later. These flights carried supplies, 164 passengers and mail with 20 centimes charged per letter.
66 balloon flights carried approximately 2.5 million letters during the siege. The French established two balloon factories in Parisian railway stations to build and maintain the city’s small flight of balloons.
Leon Gambetta leaves a besieged Paris by balloon (source)
In response to the French balloon flights Alfred Krupp developed a breech-loading 37mm canon mounted on a pedestal fixed to the bed of a carriage. Some sources describe the gun as a Ballonabwehrkanone or balloon defence gun. The canon had a stock and a folding sight fixed to the receiver. The canon could be rapidly deployed to open fire on the balloons as they crossed Prussian lines. Five French balloons were captured by the Prussians when they were forced to land, a further three were declared missing.
On the 7th October 1870 the French Interior Minister, Leon Gambetta, left Paris in the balloon Armand-Barbès to rally troops near Tours. The last balloon took off from Paris on the 28th January 1871, the day of the armistice. An example of the Ballon Kanone is held by the Militarhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr in Dresden with another at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.
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