Black Maria

[MikeW]

F=MA,

I'm fully aware of what Colly wrote in Air Command and the info he passed on to Evan Haddingham. A lot of what he says is grossly unreliable - if you take his word for it, you will leave the "C" markings and the black fin off (despite his known use of those markings on a Pup in Naval 3, the triplanes in Naval 10, and a Camel in the Seaplane Defence Squadron. You will also paint the underside of your triplane a light blue (a colour they didn't have access to), and tone down the white on the top wing cockades. Then you will have to make the French 0.5" machine guns - whatever they are supposed to be!!!

WM "Mel" Alexander and Nick Carter of Naval 10 both flew N533 after Collishaw relinquished it and both said the extra weight slugged the performance to an unacceptable degree. I have a transcript of an interview where they discuss it. The fact that the thing was relegated to delivering messages between squadrons should tell you something.

Whilst Collishaw undoubtely put in two claims in N533 it must have drastically affected his "No. of claims per flight" statistic - as I said, he had nothing but trouble with it for a couple of weeks.

Other users of the twin gun machines suffered similar difficulties, Naval 1 had one for ages and put in just one claim with it. The Manstone War Flight had one and shot the propeller off the first time it was used in anger.

You have to remember that Collishaw wasn't a very sophisticated fighter, he was a good leader, a good shot and very lucky. He would take enormous personal risks (note he was shot down three times) and frequently returned to the aerodrome with his aircraft riddled with bullets. More cerebral pilots such as Alexander and Carter preferred performance and agility to firepower - Collishaw just wanted a gun platform, the more guns the better - he would have been aggressive in whatever he flew.


I hope you will post photographs of N533 when it finalised and provide us with full dimensions, weight, power plant, radio gear etc. Good luck with her!

Mike

Good info. The years have taught me that even first-hand accounts can often be filtered by expectations, pride, or simple forgetfulness. The infamous Theo Osterkamp bogus cocktail party renditions are a really good example of this.

I'm glad there is more data out there. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is really the order of the day, especially as more time passes and we can't ask anyone there anymore. I make no claim to be experten, I'm glad ther are some here.

F=MA

[Taz]

At least nobody is taking the .50 caliber MG claim seriously. They are big weapons and weigh a ton. Very effective, though, with a much greater maximum effective range, but would have really sapped Tripehound performance. Plus the ammo weighs a ton, also.
Taz

[RAGIII]

[QUOTE=Graeme]F=MA

Collishaw gained victories in three Triplanes:

N5490 "Black Maria" - 14 victories between 28 April and 7 June 1917; this machine then went to No 9 Squadron RNAS where Flight Sub-Lieutenant A T Whealy gasined two victories; then to No 1 Squadron RNAS where Flight Sub-Lieutenant R E MacMillan gained a victory on 19 September before being shot down and taken prisoner.

N5492 "Black Maria" - 19 victories between 15 June and 21 July 1917; Flt Sub-Lieutenant G Roach shot down and killed in this machine on 27 July 1917.

N533 "Black Maria" - 2 victories on 27 July 1917. Fitted with twin Vickers guns. Machine with No 12 Squadron RNAS by mid-September.


Was 5492 still marked as Black Maria when shot down by Von Schoenbeck of Jasta 11? Cs' on the Fuselage and Tailplane Etc.?

RAGIII

[R Pope]

I phoned Collishaw in the 50's and asked him what colour his Tripe was. He said they all wanted them black all over, but black paint was hard to get in those volumes so they never got them all done. That, and damaged panels being replaced or recovered, kept the area of black paint down. Plus, the official edict was that all fabric surfaces be covered with the approved dope, since that colour was proven to resist the harmful effects of UV on cotton. Maybe another case of 40 year old memories being faulty, but he sounded sincere.

F=MA,

Howdy. If you can get your hands on a copy of, "SOPWITH TRIPLANE ACES OF WORLD WAR 1; by Norman Franks" you can see a color illustration of N 533 and N 5492. Also, there is a photograph of both Triplanes on page 70.

Cool breeze,
Moggie

[Angiolillo]

Hello!

I would be so glad if anybody could give me some info about color schemes for any other Sopwith Triplane besides the "Black Maria". Thank you!

Judging if a second machinegun is an improvement or not was a very open subject. On the Hanriot HD.1, for example, Belgian pilots gave up fearing a too great loss of performances. Silvio Scaroni, on the other hand, put a second MG and was so succesful with it that other Italian aces did the same. Some little details are there:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/92157

Thanks to everybody!

Andrea

[MikeW]

Howdy. If you can get your hands on a copy of, "SOPWITH TRIPLANE ACES OF WORLD WAR 1; by Norman Franks" you can see a color illustration of N 533 and N 5492. Also, there is a photograph of both Triplanes on page 70.

Oh dear - the photograph of N5492 happens to be a replica built in Canada during the 1960s!!! I thought everyone knew that

Angiolillo, if you want to see some decent and accurate colour profiles of Naval 10 triplanes by Mark Miller, I can recommend "A History of No.10 Squadron RNAS in WW1" from some useless git by the name of Mike Westrop. Available from Schiffer Publishing at the cost of a small house but worth every penny in my very biassed opinion! Did I just write that?


Mike

[Bluedevil]

Concerning 2 MG's on the Belgian Hanriot HD1 :

The "Aviation Militaire Belge"experimented with this but Andre De Meulemeester voted against it because he felt that the loss of height didn't weigh up to the gain of firepower.
In his book "Jours envolées" Willy Coppens clearly states that he thought this was a big mistake.
He also mentions the results the Italian pilots got by mounting 2 guns on their
HD1's...
Later on Willy Coppens compensated the lack of firepower by putting an MG with a bigger bore( 11mm ?) on one of his aircraft...
I would have to read the book again to get more specific details...


Just thougth I mentioned it ...

[Angiolillo]

MikeW:
>Angiolillo, if you want to see some decent and accurate colour profiles of Naval 10 triplanes by Mark Miller, I can recommend "A History of No.10 Squadron RNAS in WW1" from some useless git by the name of Mike Westrop. Available from Schiffer Publishing

That's a great new! I asked about this book a few times on this forum, several time ago, but I always got the answer that it was still under work and not released yet. I'll look for it and get it anyway! But will I find another 2 MG machine in it?

Bluedevil:
>The "Aviation Militaire Belge"experimented with this but Andre De Meulemeester voted against it because he felt that the loss of height didn't weigh up to the gain of firepower.

Well, in Italy this was a personal idea of Silvio Scaroni, second scoring Italian ace of WWI after Baracca. A very wise man, one of those pilots that checked every bullet before taking off together with his weapon technician "il Bigio" to lower the chances to jam his guns. Scaroni got a bew HD.1 (serial number 7517) the 16th or the 17th of june, 1918. Together with il Bigio studied how to put the second MG and did it. From the 21th of june to the 12th of july, in just 3 weeks, Scaroni got 9 victories with the double weapon machine. The last two the same day, in which he was shot down and wounded. After his siccess (happy that Coppens mentions them) several other Italian aces tought that a second MG would be a fine addition, so in summer 1918 several followed Scaroni's example.

About Willy Coppens, I knew that when he first wanted to try the two MGs he was heavily wounded before managing to do it. Later the ace André De Meulemeester convinced him that it was not worth. Later again Coppens tried anyway the twin MGs on his Hanriot, from the 23rd to the 25th of october 1917, but he immediately replaced them with the 11mm Vickers MG that you quote, that was fit to use some incendiary bullets that he got from a French colleague (good for his "balloon busting" missions). Anything more you dioscover is welcome!