CHAPTER VI
DEVELOPMENT OF THE AEROPLANE FOR WAR PURPOSES
GERMAN AERIAL PREPAREDNESS—PRIZES GIVEN FOR AERONAUTICS BY VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS—FIRST USE OF PLANES IN WAR—FIRST AIRCRAFT ARMAMENT
GERMAN AERIAL PREPAREDNESS—PRIZES GIVEN FOR AERONAUTICS BY VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS—FIRST USE OF PLANES IN WAR—FIRST AIRCRAFT ARMAMENT
Thereis no gainsaying the fact that Germany, in her eagerness to develop every engine of war further than any other nation, so that when “Der Tag” came she would be mechanically superior and thus able to quickly crush any adversary, instantly saw the advantage that control of the air would give her.
For that reason, as soon as the Wrights began to demonstrate in France, in 1908, the feasibility of the aeroplane as a scout, the Germans realized the importance of the aeroplane as an adjunct of the dirigible, whose development they had already been committed to since 1900, when Count Ferdinand Zeppelin built his first rigid lighter-than-air craft. Since aeronautic motors had to be used on both types of aircraft, and since the speed and flying radius depended on the efficiency of the engine, the Germans set about to develop them.
The French War Department had in 1910 laid down rules and regulations for a competition to develop aeronautics. They specified that the aeroplane andengine should be made in France, and that the distance of flight must at least be 186 miles, carrying 660 pounds of useful load, or three passengers, and to attain an altitude of 1,640 feet. The sum of 100,000 francs was to be paid for the machine which accomplished this feat, and 20 other machines of the same type were to be bought for 40,000 francs each. In the lists of that year 34 aeroplanes of as many designs were built, but only 8 passed the tests. Weyman’s Nieuport with a Gnome engine attained an average speed of 116 miles an hour.
As a result of this contest England, Germany, and Austria established aeroplane meets for 1912. England offered 10,000 pounds in prizes. Prince Henry of Prussia urged the German Government to appropriate $7,000,000 for military aeronautics. On January 27, 1912, the Kaiser offered 50,000 marks in prizes to develop aeromotors. The Aerial League of Germany started a public subscription which brought in 7,234,506 marks. The purpose of the league was to train a large number of pilots for a reserve and to encourage general development of aeronautics in Germany.
This proved to be a great success, for by the end of 1913, 370 additional German pilots had been trained, making a total of over 600. Meanwhile, German constructors increased from 20 to 50 in the same period of time.
The development of aeronautics under the auspices of the Aerial League induced the Reichstag to appropriate$35,000,000 to be expended during the next five years for military aeronautics. This was by far the most liberal appropriation made for war aeronautics by any government in Europe.
Under this encouragement, by the middle of July, 1914, the German aviators broke all the world’s records, making a total of over 100 new records of all kinds. The non-stop endurance record of 24 hours, 12 minutes was made by Reinhold Boehm, and Heinrich Oelrich attained a new ceiling at 26,246 feet. Herr Landsman covered 1,335 miles in one day, making the world’s record for distance covered by one man in one day. Roland Garros held the world’s record of 19,200 feet before Otto Linnekogel made 21,654.
The stream-lining of aircraft and the development of the Mercedes and Benz gasoline motors under the incentive to win the Kaiser’s prize was the big factor in this aeronautic progress. Not only did the Germans make new aviation records, but they also won the Grand Prix race in Paris, 1913, with engines the details of which were most jealously guarded, defeating the best English and French machines. Indeed, the Mercedes motor used on Zeppelin, aeroplane, and automobile was the same in fundamentals.
To Americans who are familiar with the difficulties we experienced in the early days of our entrance into the World War in getting quantity production with the Liberty motor, it is evident from the fact that the Germans had three large factories filled with tools, dies, gigs, etc., for quantity production of the Benz,Mercedes, and Maybach engines, that Germany believed that she had control of the air in June, 1914. She had already broken all the world’s records in road-racing, as well as in the air, and she had more than a score of Zeppelins and over 500 standardized planes.
Naturally, the preparations of the Germans did not fail to attract attention in France. Races and aeronautic contests at military manœuvres, besides aero expositions, were held by the French, and the success of the Paris-Madrid and Paris-Rome race in 1911 influenced the French Chamber of Deputies to appropriate 11,000,000 francs for military aviation. The Kaiser’s prize and Prince Henry of Prussia’s recommendation of $7,500,000 appropriation for German aviation caused the ParisMatinto start a national subscription by donating 50,000 francs for an aeronautic fund similar to that subscribed by Germany.
In 1911 Mr. Robert J. Collier loaned his aeroplane to the United States Government to be used for scout duty on the Mexican frontier.
In February, 1912, during the Italian-Turkish War, the Italians used one aeroplane for locating the position of the Arabs, and several bombs were dropped without any attempt to do any more than guess at the place where they would land. As a matter of fact, they fell far from their objectives, and served no military purpose further than to frighten the horses. In locating the distribution of troops, however, this aeroplane was most valuable.
For that reason many military men even thoughtthat the aeroplane, because of the velocity at which it moved, could not be of much value other than for scouting, and as no guns had been successfully mounted on aircraft before the World War, the aeroplane was not regarded as an offensive weapon. Indeed, that was one of the developments of the war.
The first attempts to mount a machine-gun on an aeroplane were made in France on a Morane monoplane. In order to shoot over the propeller a steel scaffolding was erected, and the pilot was supposed to stand up to sight his gun. This was impracticable, and the structure retarded the vision of the pilot and the speed of the aeroplane.
In the early days of the war pilots seldom flew over 3,000 feet high, and since there were no machine-guns mounted in a practical way, the pilots could only content themselves with firing revolvers at one another. The only thing they had to fear was rifle-shot and the trajectory of artillery. The few antiaircraft guns had no greater range than 3,000 feet, and, as a matter of fact, most of the reconnaissance work done at Verdun in the first six months of 1916 was at 3,000 feet altitude.
The first historic record of a machine-gun mounted on an aeroplane was in the despatch telling of the death of the French aviator Garaix on August 15, 1914, by the aerobus Paul Schmitt. Garaix had 200 rounds of ammunition. In December of that year the 160 horse-power Breguet piloted by Moineau mounted a machine-gun. The French pusher Voisins, with noobstruction of vision to the gunner in the nacelle, afforded an excellent opportunity for the use of machine-guns. Moreover, most of the aeroplanes brought down in the early days of the war were the victims of engine trouble or shots from rifles on the ground. A staff report of October 5, 1914, of the Germans relates that the French aviator Frantz, flying a Voisin with his mechanic Quenault, shot down a German Aviatic plane with two aviators from 1,500 metres altitude, killing the two Germans. For this feat Sergeant Frantz received the Military Medal, the first decoration given a French flier in the war.
On October 7 Captain Blaise and Sergeant Gaubert, in a Maurice Farman, with a rifle shot down Lieutenant Finger, a Boche who had defended himself with a revolver. Captain Blaise expended eight shots before he got the German flier.
The first recorded equipment of a machine-gun on a German machine was on October 25, 1914, when a Taube near Amiens opened fire on a Henry Farman machine piloted by Corporal Strebick and his mechanic, who were directing artillery-fire. The Germans first used a Mauser gun for their aeroplanes.
Meanwhile, the need for having a machine-gun fixed stationary on the aircraft and armed by manœuvring the aeroplane became more evident. Roland Garros, who was the first to fly across the Mediterranean Sea from France to Tunis, Africa, mounted a gun to shoot through the propeller on February 1, 1915. In order to protect the blades from the bullets, he hadthe propeller-tip covered with steel. Thus, when the bullets hit, they were deflected. Only 7 per cent hit the blades, however.
This was a crude way of mounting the gun, and it was Garros’s mechanician who worked out the method of gearing up the machine-gun so that it shot its 600 bullets between the revolutions of the propeller. This enabled the so-called single-seater scout tractors, with propeller in front, to fly armed with a machine-gun mounted over the hood of the engine, directly in front of the aviator. It was also the beginning of the use of the aeroplane as a fighter in aerial duels and in contact patrol of later days when it descended to attack troops in the trenches and trains on the tracks.
January 1, 1915, was the date of mounting the first Lewis machine-gun on a Nieuport aeroplane to shoot over the propeller. The Germans copied this with their Parabellum light gun, but it was not till July, 1915, that the German Fokker first appeared with a synchronized machine-gun mounted on it. Since a propeller revolves 1,400 times a minute, a blade passes the nose of the gun 2,800 times a minute, and the machine-guns were geared to shoot about 400 shots a minute, so that one shot passes through to every seven strokes of the propeller-blade. Sometimes, however, as many as two guns were synchronized to shoot through the same propeller. A push-button on the steering-bar fires the gun while the pilot keeps his eye on the enemy through the telescope in front of him.
The Lewis gun is an air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed gun, weighing 26 pounds with the jacket and 18 pounds without. The facility with which the gun can be manœuvred into any position or angle makes it a very efficient aeroplane gun. The ability of this gun to function automatically, and the speed with which it operates, is due to the use of a detachable drum-shaped, rotating magazine which holds 47 or 97 cartridges each. When the magazine is placed in position it needs no more attention until all the cartridges are empty, when the magazine is snatched off and another is stuck on. This gun is the invention of Colonel Isaac Lewis, a retired American army officer.
The Vickers is an English gun, belt-fed, water-cooled, recoil-operated. It can shoot from 300 to 500 shots a minute. Since all the shells are in a belt it can be fired continuously until the 500 shots have been used up. Its water-cooled devices were dispensed with on the aeroplanes.
The German Maxim is similar to the Vickers. The Lewis shoots .33 and Vickers and Maxim .30 ammunition. In the beginning of the war the Colt gas-operated gun was also used on aeroplanes, as were also the Hotchkiss and Benet-Mercier. The first gun shooting 400 shots a minute was similar to the Vickers.
Owing to the ease with which the cotton-belts containing the cartridges on Vickers guns jam, it was used only for fixed positions in front, whereas the Lewis was employed in the observer’s nacelle and other positions which required sudden change in the aim. Asmany as half a dozen machine-guns were mounted on some of the large bombers in the last days of the war.
Many attempts to mount cannon on aircraft have been made, but owing to the recoil, the room necessary for mounting and manipulating, and the speed with which the gunner and the target move through the air, not much success was attained.
Captain Georges Guynemer, the first great French flier to down more than fifty Hun planes, is credited with mounting a one-pounder on his Nieuport, single-seater. It could not shoot through the propeller, so it was arranged to shoot through the hub. The gun was built into the crank-case, the barrel protruding two inches beyond the hub. It is said that Guynemer brought down his forty-ninth, fiftieth, fifty-first, and fifty-second victims with this type of gun; but because of the fifty pounds extra weight above that of the machine-gun it was an impediment.
Attempts to use on aeroplanes the Davis non-recoil gun, invented by Commander Davis of the United States navy, have not been entirely successful. The two-pounder is 10 feet long, weighs 75 pounds, and shoots 1.575 shell with a velocity of 1,200 feet a second. The 3-inch Davis fires a 12-pound shell and weighs 130 pounds.
Several other guns have been used, and with the increase in the size of planes there ought to be much increase in the size of aeroplane guns.