SPAD was not the only one...

[Hauksbee 103]

Another oddity that turned up yesterday...a Voison with a 37mm cannon.

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

apparently in the autumn of 1915 it was common for the French to employ 37 mm cannon armed Voisins (GB1, 2, and 4) as escorts for bombers. presumably they wouldn't carry bombs themselves. the first recorded battle took place on May 20th, 1915 (indecisive)

 

although I have no solid evidence that the entire flight was armed with the cannon, it seems that V101 and V110 were armed with 37 mm cannons. the guns were most successful in shooting down balloons and causing mayhem against troops on the ground.

 

on March 18th, 1916 a French Breguet 5Ca2 apparently scored a direct hit against a German LVG which caused it to break up in the air

(Marinkovich and Pertraud)

 

the short barrel version had a carefully specified field of fire (45 above and 60 degrees below the horizontal line of flight). it was to have a 45 degree radius on either side of the line of flight. 60 rounds were carried

 

the long barrel version could fire 30 degrees upward and 60 degrees downward, and also had 45 degrees to either side of the line of flight. in this case 50 rounds were carried. the numbers were never especially large--and it seems that at any give time the numbers varied from 6 (August 1915) ro 15 (February 1916).

 

(long)

weight 325 pounds

muzzle velocity 2850 fps

recoil 1.5 tons

length of recoil 24 inches

shell weight 1.5 pounds

 

(short)

weight 103 pounds

muzzle velocity 1200 fps

recoil 1.5 tons

length of recoil 5 inches

shell weight 1 pound

 

they were used in at least small and regular numbers until mid-1917

 

 

so, if people want to render the SPAD XII or the cannon-armed Voisins there's some figures for y'all

[Bullethead 12]

they were used in at least small and regular numbers until mid-1917

 

Thanks for that. Until now, I didn't know they stuck old naval guns on the planes. I thought all airborne 37mm were the short types then in use by the infantry as bunker-busters, rather like a low-tech version of today's 40mm grenade-launchers.

Edited April 26, 2009 by Bullethead

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

aha, checked another source.

 

the Incindiary ammunition used was for the short-barrel version (1902) which was reported to have weighed 700 grams (instead of the 500 for the APHE) and had a muzzle velocity of 600 meters per second as opposed to 830 for the armour-pierceing high explosive. (Williams and Gustin 2003)

 

I suspect those were the types which had been attributed the handful of balloon victories. might be fun to strafe a munitions train with that stuff too! :D

 

oops, I was wrong about the Hotchkiss--the cannon used for the SPAD XII was actually the Puteaux gun, which has a significantly different arrangement from the Hotchkiss--and since only EIGHT SPAD XII are definitely known to have seen action--it might not be worth the trouble.

 

198.5 pounds

muzzle velocity 1,250 fps

rate of fire 60 rounds/min

magazine fed (5 round magazine capacity)

long recoil operation.

 

(by contrast the Hotchkiss could only be fired one shell at a time

 

 

most of this information (except where noted otherwise) is from ...

Harry Woodman's excellent "Early Aircraft Armament: the Aeroplane and the gun up to 1918"

ISBN 0-87474-994-8 (1989)

 

Flying Guns World War One

Anthony G Williams and Dr. Emmanuel Gustin is where I found the data for the incindiary ammunition for the 1902 Hotchkiss

 

both books are good, but the Woodman is VERY out of print, hard to find, and usually VERY expensive. it IS worth the investment for the serious scholar/historical enthusiast. the Woodman is more commendable because of the wealth of pictures, design schematics, and it's chapter on gun-sights, mountings, and gun synchronization.

[Bullethead 12]

oops, I was wrong about the Hotchkiss--the cannon used for the SPAD XII was actually the Puteaux gun ...

 

198.5 pounds

muzzle velocity 1,250 fps

rate of fire 60 rounds/min

magazine fed (5 round magazine capacity)

long recoil operation.

 

Yeah, the Puteaux is what I was thinking of when you said "short-barrel". That's what the grunts were humping around to smash pillboxes with. And no way did it weigh 200 pounds. Looking at photos of it, I'd give it 30 pounds max, more probably 20. It certainly been much heavier, if at all, than one of todays MMGs. It was a bipod-mounted weapon carried by 1 man, who had an A-gunner humping a sack of rounds.

 

Flying Guns World War One

Anthony G Williams and Dr. Emmanuel Gustin is where I found the data for the incindiary ammunition for the 1902 Hotchkiss

 

I'll have to check the author's site. He put all his WW2 stuff up, but I hadn't looked since before he did a WW1 volume.

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

Yeah, the Puteaux is what I was thinking of when you said "short-barrel". That's what the grunts were humping around to smash pillboxes with. And no way did it weigh 200 pounds. Looking at photos of it, I'd give it 30 pounds max, more probably 20. It certainly been much heavier, if at all, than one of todays MMGs. It was a bipod-mounted weapon carried by 1 man, who had an A-gunner humping a sack of rounds.

 

 

 

I'll have to check the author's site. He put all his WW2 stuff up, but I hadn't looked since before he did a WW1 volume.

 

 

it probably WAS heavier--since it looks as though it may have been modifed since it was going to be mounted INSIDE of an inline engine. on the notes here it literally says "weight of the gun (plus feed): 198.5 pounds" this also appears to have been the improved semi-automatic version as it uses a 5 round magazine. the original hand-held weapon was neither automatic or semi-automatic. so the mechanism may have been changed (at Guynemer's request--although Nungesser appears to have expressed interest in the idea as well) to be more practical in aerial combat.

 

sorry for not including that important distinction earlier. I imagine that the Puteaux gun in it's original form was much lighter than the semi-automatic magazine-fed weapon that Guynmer used in combat.

 

but, yeah, I haven't had much luck finding more info on this gun in my other sources (aka the class Ian V Hogg encyclopedias on machine guns and small-arms)

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Waldemar Kurtz wrote:

although I have no solid evidence that the entire flight was armed with the cannon, it seems that V101 and V110 were armed with 37 mm cannons. the guns were most successful in shooting down balloons and causing mayhem against troops on the ground.

 

Actually Sir, there were several French squadrons entirely equipped with the Voisin Canon, the VC-110 being one of them. BTW, the "VC" stood for Voisin Canon, and when the 110 was equipped with Voisin Bombers they were the VB-110...the French were very sensible when it came to their escadron designations.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Bullethead 12]

Well, here's a fairly well-known photo of the Puteaux in use by grunts:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US23rdIn...8-ARC531005.gif

 

There was a lighter bipod version with a considerably shorter barrel, but the slide was just as long. There's an even better-known photo of that, also from the Meuse-Argonne, that looks rather similar to this one, suggesting both were staged on the same patch of woods. Unfortunately, I can't find that shot at the moment.

 

The one in the pic above, I could see weighing about 80-100 pounds all up, about like a .50cal Ma Deuce of similar size and vintage. And that's counting the big tripod shown here, which an airplane wouldn't have used. The smaller bipod version wouldn't have been nearly so heavy.

[Hasse Wind 46]

Another interesting and educational thread. Those aircraft look slow, clumsy and ugly as hell, but they seem to pack a terrible punch in that 37mm gun! Wouldn't want to be on the receiving end in any Hun crate... if they can hit anything, that is.

[Olham 164]

I wonder how they would get out of the spin, that might occur, when they fire off those guns.

And what about the poisonous gunsmoke.

Those crates look much like: "Hah! I have the biggest!"

So I'm glad, they are not German designs this time.

[Wels 2]

Hello,

Jentsch speaks of some X-wires (called "Gitterschwaenze" in german, or "grid-tails") which attacked a neighboured "aerodrome" with big "pneumatic" cannons in the Vardar valley in Macedonia, must be 1916 (?) - maybe this 37mm gun is what he saw ? If yes they must have used this also against ground targets .. i will try to find the text.

Greetings,

Catfish

[Hauksbee 103]

There's a propellar mounted on the leading edge of the left wing. What did that drive?

[Hauksbee 103]

Our Sopwith Triplane has one...although the engine must be still for spotting it.

Speedometer, eh? OK. Also thought it might drive an electrical generator.

 

Why do you say the Tripe engine must be still [you can't mean 'not running'?]to see the speedo prop?

Edited April 27, 2009 by Hauksbee

[Cameljockey 3]

Could it be for a wireless telegraph?

 

CJ

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Guys, that's obviously a flux capacitor! You can't go back to the future without one!