Voss Ran out of Bullets

[tcrean7828]

After Reading/researching and at long last a Hypothesis has emerged:
Werner Voss during is last battle - simply ran out of bullets. Conjecture notes:
(1) His aircraft carried approx. 1,100 rounds of ammo. From what I have read, he utilized around 20/21 rounds for a shoot down and with 7 rounds a second from his machineguns is approx 21 rounds for a 1.5 second burst from each gun.
(2) He was engaged with approx. 9 British aircraft throughout the 10 minute dogfight at one time or another. (I.e. in groups of 2, then 7, then 5, then 5 and finally 1)
(3) If he put a mere 21 rounds per aircraft that totals approx. 189 rounds from his original 1,100 ammo round belt, leaving him 911 rounds left for just one pass at all of the aircraft around him. And if he put the same number of rounds into every aircraft for 10 minutes times 60 seconds equals 600 seconds @ 7 rounds per second (if fired continuously) would tally 4200 rounds. His ammo belt held 1,100 rounds total rounds (figuring 550 rounds per Machinegun) and severely damaged 6 of the 9 a/c in the dogfight, but managed to put bullets into all 9 aircraft in the ensuing 10 minute battle.
(4) The damage inflicted:
Capt Hamersley - aircraft a write off.
Capt Chidlaw-Roberts - damaged
Ltn Cronyn - collecting a total of 42 rounds himself and his A/C a write off.
Ltn. Muspratt - damaged
Ltn Bowman - damaged
Ltn Maybery - damaged
Ltn Hoidge - put some bullets into his A/C.
Capt McCudden - put some bullets into his A/C.
Ltn Rhys Davids - put some bullets into his A/C.
(5) If on the other hand we look at the British side, from all 9 machines they had a total of; Vickers:2250 rounds and Lewis: 3 drums@97 rounds per drum times 9 aircraft gives the British 2519 rounds Grand total of 4869 total ammo.
Compare that to 1,100 rounds from Voss.

Comments:

[Yeoman]

Nobody can know for certain what happened in that dogfight other than 56 Sqn certainly did not run out of bullets.

Voss ran into the wrong boys that day .

[StephenLawson]

"250 rounds per gun for a possible total..." I did do a little more research on this and it seems Taz is mostly correct in his next post. See my recant and research in post #8 here. never too old to learn something.

[Lyle]

Wasn't Voss giving a British plane a good peppering before No. 56 Sqdn. joined the fight? That would mean he would have had even less ammo for this engagement...
Lyle

[Taz]

Tom- If Voss had run out of bullets, he would have climbed out of the fight. At the altitude of this fight, the F.I had far superior climb to the early S.E.5a. An experienced ace like Voss only fired when he was going to hit something so bursts were very short.

Stephen- 500 rounds per gun was pretty much standard on twin LMG 08/15 armed fighters, including the Dr.I.

Taz
Terry Phillips

[Roadhog]

Howdy ya'll, This is the type of of exchange I love here in the Forum. I think that Voss had to be runnng low on bullets towards the end of his fight but right at the end, he ceased maneuvering and flew more-or-less straight. That tells me that either he was wounded or running out of petrol. Comments? VR, Roadhog "Memento mori."

Originally Posted by Roadhog

That tells me that either he was wounded or running out of petrol.

Or both.

German Jasta-Pilots do NOT fire in this situation. They try a "Zur Landung gezwungen" and have a beer with the opponent. No claim then, but it was a question of character, like the overclaiming on British side.

ZAK

[StephenLawson]

Originally Posted by Taz

"...Stephen- 500 rounds per gun was pretty much standard on twin LMG 08/15 armed fighters, including the Dr.I. Taz
Terry Phillips"

Going further into it ...
Number of rounds.

From Spandau authority Dave Watts, "...The maximum is quoted by A. Imrie's Fokker Triplane book on page 117, Imrie states for the Dr.I under "WEIGHT SCHEDULE" "2 ammunition belts (500 cartridges each), 12.8kg each. (Both together) 25.6kg...."

"...Fokker Dr.I Triplane, page 221, Paul Leaman states, "The triplane's ammunition tanks could hold a total of some 650 rounds per gun, but to save weight, this amount was usually reduced to 500 rounds per weapon."..."

"...From Neal O'Connor's Volume VI Aviation Awards of Imperial Germany in WWI, page 200 we have a great shot of loading the ammo for a Fokker Eindecker carrying an LMG 08. You can clearly see the narrow two-rivet belt. I've tried to count most of the rounds in the belt and calculate it to be between 550 - 600, or possibly more. Of interest, if you look closely between the gents feet on the ground you can see what may be another ammo belt still spooled up and standing up on the ends of the rounds. Or possibly a flying helmet?..."

Dave goes on to say it probably depends on the type of fabric ammo belt used. Some seemed to hold more or less. I am guessing here also that it may depend on whether its a single seater or two seater application.

Essentially the Dr.I does seem to have a max load of about 500 rounds per belt (if a two rivet belt was used.) I stand corrected. But I wonder if this was maxed out at all times in 1917? In 1918 there were examples of captured aircraft with fewer round counts. In a rotary such as the F.I or Dr.I would less weight give the pilot max fuel use?

Romani comments later in the thread;
"...Dave Watts, thanks for the confirmation that German airplanes used their own specialized belts and ammo. though we are now confused again with the exact ammount of ammo carried, between 500 and 650 (per gun) according to your sources..."

Going into the "number of rounds used" I did a quick read of the aerodrome search engine on the subject of rounds fired by single aircraft and everything from 40 - 450 rounds used in a dogfight was quoted. There are 419 instances.

I am also checking out Tony Williams website: Military gun and ammunition website http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk and discussion forumhttp://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/

[StephenLawson]

It seems that different aircraft could store different amounts. Previously we spoke about Voss' F.I at 500 per gun. Looks like the Bristol Fighter F.2b Vickers had a storage for about 1200 rounds for just one gun.

William Frederick James "Jim" Harvey RFC / RAF 22 Sqn : "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. During one night he made five consecutive raids over the enemy's lines, during which period he dropped over half a ton weight of bombs on his four objectives. In addition he fired during these raids 1,150 rounds of ammunition from a height varying from 100 to 500 feet on hostile infantry and transport. He has proved himself to be a consistently good observer, and has performed much successful night-bombing." MC citation, Supplement to the London Gazette, 22 June 1918..."

Hello all; Reinout caught my little joke. These totals were from all five missions

[StephenLawson]

Originally Posted by Roadhog

Howdy ya'll, This is the type of of exchange I love here in the Forum. I think that Voss had to be runnng low on bullets towards the end of his fight but right at the end, he ceased maneuvering and flew more-or-less straight. That tells me that either he was wounded or running out of petrol. Comments? VR, Roadhog "Memento mori."

Hello Roadhog;
One source says that he may have overstressed his flying controls. Ailerons, rudder and elevators.