Self destroying millinery
Most AA ammunition is "self destroying". The round is set to explode after a fixed time delay if it does not hit anything in order to avoid making large holes in the extremely valuable hats/helmets/heads of friends on the ground nearby. The effect with light or medium flak was to make a pyramid of flak bursts around the guns (read Clostermann's The Big Show for example).
There's obviously a tradeoff between cost/complexity of the AA round and the cost/complexity of the hats/helmets/heads. Most would go with helmets and self destroying ammo...
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