Single Seater German Fighters That Carries Bombs

Edward Leon Hsiao · 18 August 2005, 07:33 PM

Gentlemen,

I know that the single seater fighters of the Allies especially the British carried bombs sometimes to attack ground targets. I wonder if the Germans had single seater fighters armed with bombs. Perhaps they do but I don't know any known actions that involved German single seaters that carries bombs. Most of the time the Germans used two seaters for bombing and ground attack missions. Perhaps this subject was touched before but I forgot.

Sincerely,

Edward

ww1 ace · 18 August 2005, 07:50 PM

On imdb.com, I was reading the "Blue Max" goofs and it said that no German single seaters carried bombs.

F=MA · 19 August 2005, 06:04 AM

Apparently the Poles retrofitted their DVIIs post war to carry small bombs.

F=MA

Cigogne · 19 August 2005, 03:36 PM

There are at least three photos that show Fokker D.VII aircraft of a Marinefeldjasta with bomb racks under the fuselage under the cockpit. Some of these I think were published in Albatros Fokker D.VII anthologies. I don't know if any mention was made of the bombracks in the captions, but they are there.

Gregvan · 19 August 2005, 04:26 PM

Hi,

In addition to that photo of a Marine Feld Jasta Fokker D.VII with small bomb racks under the fuselage (and yes, I DID mention the bomb shackles in the captions in "Fokker D VII Anthology 3"), there is at least one more good example.

When Ltn. Adolf Auer's Albatros-built Fokker D.VII of Jasta 40 was shot down by members of No. 41 Sqn on 28 October 1918, it was equipped with wooden shelf racks for small "Wurfgranaten 15" bombs, identical to those seen on many Halberstadt and Hannover CL types machines of the Schlachtstaffeln (you can see these in Rick and Dan-San's forthcoming book!). There were many photos taken of Auer's D.VII at No. 41 Sqn. I can do no better than to quote Alex Imrie in his book "German Bombers of WWI": "This aircraft was fitted with wooden shelf racks on either side of the fuselage enabling eight Wurfgranaten 15 to be carried. These were suspended upside down by a length of wire through their noses, as was normal on CL category machines used by the Schlachtstaffeln. Withdrawal of the wires released the grenades which had ordinary percussion fuses."

So these were small "nuisance" bombs of the grenade variety, but still deadly anti-personnel weapons. I imagine this probably was not a common practice, and was done (perhaps) on the initiative of the Staffelführer. The practice certainly was not as widespread as the use of Cooper bomb racks on Sopwith Camels, etc. And they certainly would not have had the 50 megaton effect or accuracy of those bombs seen in "The Blue Max"!!

The use of such small Wurfgranaten bombs, and regular hand grenades, was far more common by the small, nimble two-seaters of the Schlachtstaffeln-which were not much bigger than the normal single-seaters and just about as fast and maneuverable.

Greg

Edward Leon Hsiao · 20 August 2005, 01:00 PM

Gentlemen!

A Marine Feld Jasta equiped with Fokker D.VII fighters with bomb racks! This is totally new to me. I wonder if

Theodor Osterkamp or Gotthard Sachenberg,the two Pour le Merite naval aces ever flown them before?

Sincerely,

Edward

F=MA · 21 August 2005, 10:59 AM

I'm sure Theo would claim he had, if he could be asked...probably claim he killed a general or shot down Guynemer by dropping one on them

F=MA

CNOCK · 21 August 2005, 11:15 AM

Hello,

If You are talking about 'Wurfgranaten' .
This are in fact mortar bombs designed to be fired from a spigot, called 'Granatenwerfer', and cannot be compared with Cooper bombs.
There is a well known picture of a Halberstadt CL being loaded with the Wurfgranaten.

Greetings,

Cnock.

Edward Leon Hsiao · 21 August 2005, 11:59 AM

Gentlemen!

Theo Osterkamp's Marine Feld Jasta airfield was bombed once by British single seated fighters-bombers. It was a destructive raid. Could it be that Osterkamp and his Marine fighter pilots decided to copy the British use of single seated fighter-bombers by having their planes installed with bomb racks and carry bombs so they can raid a British airfield in revenge for the bombing of theirs? Just a big thought!

Sincerely,

Edward

Cigogne · 21 August 2005, 05:44 PM

From the few thousand Fokker D.VII photos that I've looked at and studied, this was not a widespread occurrence. I've only seen 1 or 2 examples out of all of those. The Schlachtstaffeln were more suited to this kind of attack, although the Jastas (Marine included) could get involved in ground strafing. Also, they weren't bomb racks for multiple bombs, but, rather shackles for one bomb only, from the look of it.