Red Flare for: Combat !

[Olham]

Just received my English book of Carl Degelow's memories, as translated by Peter Kilduff.

 

Right at the beginning, Degelow describes a confrontation with a flight of Sopwith Camel,

coming to destroy some German artillery obs balloons.

 

Degelow: "I immediately pull out my flare pistol and fire off a bright red signal that my comrades

will recognise as the sign to follow me in an attack on the enemy formation."

 

And a bit later, he describes the reaction of the British squadron leader:

"The British flight commander, suddenly spotting us and recognising our numerical superiority,

fires off a red flare to warn his comrades."

 

I would like to know, how many colours were used. I assume, they might have had red, green

and white flares. Question is: what were the other two colours used for? Or were there other

colours, or less?

 

Does anyone know more detail about this?

Edited September 22, 2010 by Olham

[Hasse Wind]

Red, green and white are all the flare colours I've ever read about. When artillery spotter aircraft weren't equipped with wireless sets, they sometimes used flares to communicate with the gunners. Different combinations of flares helped to direct the fire. I remember reading about the German system for artillery flares, but unfortunately I can't remember the combinations they used. In any case, it was quite an ineffective communication method compared to wireless. They couldn't really be very accurate with the corrections, just give the gunners a general idea of where the shells were falling. It was much more accurate with wireless.

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,

From what I have read, at least 3 colours. HINT, it would be a superb addition to have these in OFF. Given that the Pup already has flares,perhaps the OFF Dev Team would/could consider this, amongst the 1000 other things

Cheers,

British_eh