Color of British tracer rounds?

[DukeIronHand 8]

The other mod topic got me thinking.

 

There is a mod here at CombatAce that changes the tracer color to green with the author stating that British tracers were green so I would use this mod when I flew for the British and a red one when I flew for the Germans.

 

On further reflection, and my apologies to the original author, I began to wonder never having seen this in print.

 

Were British tracers green in color? The Germans red?

[33LIMA 972]

'None' may be the answer to that.

 

In 'No Parachute', in a letter to his fiancée in May 1917, Arthur Gould Lee describes tracers for her benefit, and this is what he says:

 

'Tracers, I should explain, are special bullets, mixed one to three with ordinary, which contain phosphorous, and leave a white trail as they whizz through the air, so showing where your bullets are going, more or less - they're not all that accurate.'

 

On a quick read, I can't see him describing tracer in terms of colour. Several times he describes seeing tracer fire, and several times, smelling it.

 

The crucial thing in his description seems to be that the visible effect tracer produced was the white smoke trail. He makes no reference to any glow, of any colour, that I can see. It was the white smoke trail that he says permitted observation and correction of your fire, not seeing the burning phosphorous.

 

This is also how Rudolph Stark portrays tracer fire in his paintings of his air combats in 1918, that are featured in his book 'Wings of War'.

 

Tracer fire may have looked quite different in daytime anyway. As I recall it, NATO 7.62mm tracers where a bright pinkish-red in dark, but were a washed-out version of that in daylight, more pink than red. They didn't leave smoke trails though, not that I ever recalled seeing anyway.

 

So I'm inclined to think that in WW1 air combat, the smoke trail was generally the visible effect of tracer, and that the burning compound may not necessarily have had any particular colour, that was apparent to the firer.

[DukeIronHand 8]

Your logic is is sound sir...and I have "No Parachute"...great book.

 

I am trying to remember back to my infantry days.

IIRC tracers were quite visible in the daylight though not as much as at night of course.

 

And modern chemistry has probably made the tracers brighter than in WW 1 I suppose...thanks!

[Flyby PC 23]

I have read. but don't ask me where, that tracer was like a pencil line of smoke rather than modern or even WW2 tracer with colours and special behaviour. (some tracer doesn't burn straight away so in theory it doesn't mark the firing position). Early tracer was also not that great as an indicator because the round decayed and deviated from the trajectory of ball rounds.