On 18 February 1915 Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France, asked for an anti-aircraft gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s).

[9] As World War I progressed, it was replaced in the home air defence of England (against German heavy bombers) by the more powerful QF 3 inch 20 cwt gun, but continued in all other theatres.

Modern aircraft could fly at over 100 miles per hour and to 20,000 ft (much lower over the battlefield) by 1918, which made the old reliable artillery shooting techniques obsolete.

By the end of World War I, a 13 pounder AA Section was accompanied by 2 Wilson-Dalby Trackers with a rudimentary electronic computer to provide tachymetric prediction, a UB2 rangefinder, a Height/Fuze Indicator (HFI), and an Identification telescope.

Brigadier Routledge notes that "in the BEF [i.e. on the Western Front] stress was laid on long-range deterrent fire; indeed in Fourth Army this was the BRA's stated policy.

However, he points out a successful integration in the Allied advance on the Piave in Italy in late 1918, where S and V Batteries of the 4th AA group used their 13 pdr 9 cwt guns to provide mobile air and ground fire in close support of infantry.