Greetings Jarrod: The 'flaming onion' was the descrition Allied airmen gave to the string of the balls of light (20 in nnumber) fired by what the Germans called 'Licht pucker' or light spitter. This gun was designed as a five barrel revolving gun along the style of our Gatling gun, previously mentioned in my thread of yesterday. This gun produced in 1895 could fire standard 37mm shells or pyrotechnical shells. These guns were usually deployed as air defense for balloons vs attackers, and could reach an altitude of about 5K feet.
Elliot Springs thought that if one of those onions hit, you'd be hamburger meat. Luke was hit by a standard 37mm round and it killed him. There is a picture of this gun in one of the issues of OTF, and a schematic in a military book catalog, Shiller's I believe, on German artillery 1870 to 1910. Billy H.01/17/99.