Each battery of four 88 mm anti-aircraft guns was highly mobile and traveled with a caravan of support equipment. To help the guns target and engage aircraft, day or night, the cannons were grouped with sound locators, a fire control system, and searchlights. This operational equipment was supported by defensive guns with their own small searchlights, generators, and a large collection of trucks, trailers, motorcycles, and men.
Able to deploy anywhere on the battlefield, the anti-aircraft battery used generators to produce its own power. The generator was driven by an 8-cylinder internal-combustion engine rated at 51 horsepower. The 24-kilowatt generator gave a direct current of 200 amperes at 110 volts when running at 1,500 revolutions per minute. A generator was commonly linked to a searchlight with a 220-yard cable.
The component of the anti-aircraft battery which consumed the most power was its searchlight system. Each four-gun battery commonly worked with a support unit equipped with 9 large 150 cm searchlights. Producing 990 million candlepower, the lights had a glass parabolic reflector 150 centimeters diameter. The high-current-density arc lamps had a range in favorable weather of 8,800 yards at a height of 13,000 to 16,500 feet. The current consumption was 200 amperes at 77 volts.
At night, the searchlights worked in concert with a sound locator and an optical director to locate and track moving targets in the sky. Each “searchlight section,” consisting of a generator, sound locator, and light, traveled with three trucks and 13 men.