Flak gun

Flak Guns
The idea of point defense goes back to before most species even had the ability to orbit their planets, much less the formation of a galaxy spanning civilization. The idea was always to destroy or deflect incoming fire before it could damage you. While energy weapons required shields to do this, the idea was still soundly applied against proton torpedos, concussion missiles, starfighters, and mass driven rounds. With advanced automation, computers, and faster then light sensors, detecting and destroying projectiles enroute would be easy. Unfortunately, as technology advances, so does the ability to beat that technology. And the heavy ECM environment of combat renders all that moot. Incoming shots could manuver and hide themselves to evade targeted CIWS fire. The result ws a return to an even older concept, that of the flak gun. Shells would be fired in the general area of the target, which would then explode, willing the area with shrapnel. Though effective planetside, it was in space combat that it really shined - with no atmosphere to slow the shrapnel and the far higher velocities used the shrapnel became incredibly deadly.

Flak guns are a tertiary defense employed by most warships, including the Death Star, Imperator class star destroyer, and  Providence class star destroyer. It also appears to have been caried by some AT-AT models.

Behind the Scenes
The presence of flakbursts has been present and debated since 1977, when the ANH novel described "explosive solids" being used agaisnt the fighters. For a time it was believe that turbolasers themselves had the ability to flak burst based off descriptions of flak being used against the Millenium Falcon and rebel snowspeeders in ESB, but the advent of DvDs allowed tech minded fans to point out that a number of flak bursts were actually shield interactions. The debate was finally settled with the release of the final film, which showed once and for all that there was a seperate weapons system of mass drivers used to provide the antifighter flak described in the novel.