{"id":133027,"date":"2020-10-18T10:31:34","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T14:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/digest\/?p=133027"},"modified":"2020-10-18T10:31:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T23:58:01","slug":"the-dawn-of-destruction-the-worlds-first-aerial-dogfight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-dawn-of-destruction-the-worlds-first-aerial-dogfight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The
Aerial combat was a decisive factor in the Second World War as well as all subsequent conflicts. However, it all started fairly simply in 1914.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

History offers a certain clarity that is lacking for those who actually live it. For instance, I know that the First World War ended on the 11th<\/sup> hour of the 11th<\/sup> day of the 11th<\/sup> month of 1918 after some twenty million people perished. For the poor sots who were neck-deep in it, however, the war seemed like it would last forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The First World War stunned the planet with its carnage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

World War One was the planet\u2019s rude introduction to unfettered war on an industrial scale, and the blood flowed in torrents. WW1 saw the advent of submarine warfare, the widespread use of poison gas, and the cataclysmic large-scale introduction of the belt-fed machinegun to the modern battlefield. It also saw the birth of air combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Mexican Revolution was a tidy little bloodbath as evidenced by these female fighters of a wide variety of ages. This conflict saw the use of both mercenaries and very early flying machines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first violent aerial exchange between aviators took place in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution. A mere decade since the Wright Brothers\u2019 first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, American mercenary pilots Dean Ivan Lamb and Phil Rader found themselves flying on opposite sides of the war with the opportunity to take potshots at one another with their revolvers. Alas, their hearts were not really in this enterprise, so they burned through their basic load of ammo with no effect. Both flyers returned to their respective airfields unscathed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
One of the first combat actions in the air involved a Morane Parasol similar to this one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On August 25, 1914, a French pilot named Roland Garros flying with an observer named Lieutenant de Bernis in a Morane Parasol fired at a German airplane with small arms and injured one of the two crewmen onboard. Two weeks later a Russian pilot with a death wish named Pyotr Nesterov rammed an Austrian Albatross with his own Morane, destroying both aircraft. While Nesterov wins the prize for the first aerial victory in the history of combat aviation, he obviously didn\u2019t live to enjoy its accolades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First True Air-to-Air Kill<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
\"The<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A local legend in my little Southern town was that of a buddy\u2019s grandfather flying Spad XIII fighters like this one created the world\u2019s first armored aircraft using salvaged stove parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a chaotic time, and those who were there figured it out as they went along. A friend\u2019s grandfather flew a Spad during the war as part of the Lafayette Escadrille. He slipped the cook lid from a pot-bellied stove underneath his seat, thereby creating the world\u2019s first armored aircraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The early days of aerial combat involved a great deal of experimentation. By my count, this is ten Mauser C96 Broomhandle pistols arranged in a defensive gun mount. Wow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

  Much of what we take for granted today as regards aviation was revolutionary stuff indeed back in the early years of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Many of the earliest scout aircraft carried no armament and were used solely for reconnaissance duties.   <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On October 5, 1914, things got real in the air over Europe. Combat aircraft of this day were used predominantly for reconnaissance missions. Enemy aircrews might wave or exchange the errant obscene gesture, but that was generally the extent of their hostile actions. There was the occasional peppering with rifles or handguns, but it was all but impossible to hit one maneuvering airplane from another maneuvering airplane with small arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
These odd French machineguns were employed as the world\u2019s first serious aerial armament.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The commander of the French V.24 Escadrille, however, had an idea that would forever change the nature of warfare. He requested and received a truckload of 8mm Hotchkiss Mle 1909 machineguns through the French Army supply system. When those guns arrived at that aerodrome the whole world shifted just a little bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
It is hard to appreciate just how flimsy these earliest combat aircraft were. They were typically comprised of a truss-like structure of wood or tubular steel covered with doped fabric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This forgotten unit commander was initially ridiculed by his peers for the very idea of mating a machinegun to a flying machine. A mere eleven years into the aviation era airplanes were still rickety deathtraps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
This picture of American ace Eddie Rickenbacker was taken after the widespread use of interrupter gear allowed his Vickers machineguns to fire through the propeller arc. In 1914 the machines were much less sophisticated.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most aircraft of this era sported a pilot and an observer, and Antony Fokker was still nearly a year away from effective interrupter gear that would allow machineguns to fire safely through the propeller arc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Mounting a machinegun on an aeroplane was considered science fiction in 1914.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This guy\u2019s French buddies declared that mounting a machinegun on an airplane was Jules Verne-grade folly. The V.24 Escadrille flew Voison III biplanes, however, and they sported pusher propellers. The stage was set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Fight<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
I literally cannot imagine going to war in such a contraption as this. This thing looks like a flying baby pram.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The machine in question was crewed by a French pilot named SGT Joseph Frantz along with his mechanic Corporal Louis Quenault. In addition to his observer and maintenance duties, Corporal Quenault was about to become the world\u2019s first aerial machine gunner. The Hotchkiss gun was set on an improvised swiveling mount in the nose and fed a modest supply of ammunition. These airplanes would be considered souped-up homebuilts today and could ill afford much excess weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The first combat aircraft to fall victim to aerial combat was an Aviatik B.1 machine similar to this one. The Germans, for all their undeniable moral failings, have always had a gift for painting airplanes. This classic WW1 lozenge camouflage was just too cool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While on a patrol at 3,500 feet near the French town of Reims, Frantz encountered a German Aviatik B.1 biplane of Flieger Abteilung No. 18 busily bombing Allied troops near the village of Jonchery-sur-Vesle. The two-man crew of the Aviatik spotted the Voison as it made its approach, and the German observer Oberleutnant Fritz von Zangen was seen fumbling with a Mauser M98 rifle of his own. In response, Frantz drew his machine as close as he dared to the Aviatik and Corporal Quenault peered down the sights of his Hotchkiss machinegun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Weapon<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The Hotchkiss Mle 1909 Benet-Mercie was a freakish looking thing. However, it acquitted itself fairly well during the war.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Mle 1909 Hotchkiss fired the French 8mm Lebel cartridge and was a remarkably prescient design. The gun was alternately titled the Hotchkiss Mk I or the Hotchkiss Portative. It was also referred to as the Benet-Mercie after the American manager at Hotchkiss, Lawrence Benet, and his French assistant, Henri Mercie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Most of the French Mle 1909 machineguns were actually produced in England.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Production began at Saint-Denis near Paris. However, when the Germans threatened this area in 1914 the factory was moved to Lyon. In 1915 the British government invited the French to establish a new plant in Coventry, England. By war\u2019s end, this facility had produced some 40,000 Mle 1909 machineguns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Mle 1909 saw limited use in traditional ground roles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Mle 1909 was gas-operated and air-cooled. The gun was seldom issued as an Infantry weapon but saw extensive service in aircraft, tanks, and fortress mounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Oh, for the days wherein we might freely vilify our enemies. Modern social justice warriors would suffer the gyrating fantods in the face of such politically incorrect stuff today.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The M1909 also served with US troops during the Pancho Villa expedition in 1916 where it performed well. Some 670 copies were produced by Springfield Armory and Colt\u2019s Manufacturing Company for use by American forces. The limited adoption of the Mle 1909 by US forces coincided with the retirement of manually-operated Gatling guns in military service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Hotchkiss Mle 1909 was less than half the weight of the heavy water-cooled recoil-operated MG08 Maxim ground gun used by the Germans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Mle 1909 featured a gas cylinder underneath the barrel and cycled at a sedate 500 rounds per minute. While the recoil-operated water-cooled MG08 Maxim gun weighed some 67 pounds with a full water jacket, the Mle 1909 tipped the scales at 26.5 pounds empty. These early weapons suffered broken firing pins and extractors with some regularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Mle 1909 light machinegun was limited by the capacity of its feed strips. The WW2-era Japanese Type 92 \u201cWoodpecker\u201d shown here used a similar mechanism.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Mle 1909 was a strip-fed gun that was serviced via 30-round feed strips manually inserted from the left into the weapon\u2019s receiver. This design was relatively effective if properly maintained. However, the limited capacity of the strips combined with their exposed bulk conspired to restrict the gun\u2019s practical rate of fire. They could also be deadlined by feeding the ammunition strip in upside down when rushed or terrified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Hotchkiss Mle 1909 was a suboptimal tool for aerial combat, but it was the only relatively lightweight machinegun handy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sometime later the French introduced a metallic belt that significantly enhanced the weapon\u2019s firepower. However, at the time of this first dogfight, this Mle 1909 packed a whopping 30 rounds onboard. This made the Corporal Quenault a very busy man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In for the Kill<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
It is tough to imagine the sorts of men who would go to war in such conditions as these. The airplanes were canvas, and they had no parachutes. With balls that big how did they ever get off the ground?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Corporal Quenault worked the cumbersome Hotchkiss gun in the nose of his Voison like his life depended upon it. He snapped off a total of 96 rounds in a series of short bursts, stitching the enemy aircraft in a variety of places before his Mle 1909 jammed. Quenault then snatched up a Lebel Mle 1886 M93 bolt-action rifle and continued the fight. Eventually, he connected with the machine\u2019s fuel tank, and the German plane was doomed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The Aviatik biplane went down hard in a swamp. There were no survivors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pilot Sergeant Wilhelm Schlichting was struck by a bullet and killed. Trailing copious smoke the Aviatik biplane then augered into a nearby swamp. Oberleutnant von Zangen died in the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
This was the Red Baron\u2019s Fokker Dr1 triplane just before he was shot down and killed in 1918.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
This is the same machine after the Australian Diggers picked it clean for souvenirs. Soldiers of all eras are ever on the prowl for swag.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Frantz landed his machine nearby and made his way to the crash site. By the time he arrived French troops were already stripping the German plane for souvenirs. Then as now soldiers were always hungry for mementos of their time in combat. Baron von Richthofen\u2019s red Dr1 triplane was stripped bare in short order after it was brought down in April of 1918.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Aerial combat has always been a spectator sport of sorts. Ground troops turned out in droves to watch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The spectacle of the world\u2019s first aerial dogfight brought the French soldiers out of their trenches en masse simply to watch. Fresh as he was off of a fight to the death with his two German counterparts, SGT Frantz was not as gleeful about these proceedings as were his ground-pounding counterparts. When Frantz was offered the German pilot\u2019s personal effects as a war trophy he turned them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rest of the Story<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"The
SGT Frantz served as a test pilot after the war, contributing to the development of a dozen different prototype aircraft.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SGT Frantz was awarded the French Legion of Honour, while Corporal Quenault received the Medaille Militaire for the parts they played in revolutionizing warfare. SGT Frantz survived the war and ultimately died in Paris in 1979 at the age of 89. I found an interview with him on YouTube. However, you\u2019ll get a lot more out of the video if you speak French, which I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The combatant nations burned through thousands of airplanes during the course of the First World War.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the armistice, the major warring nations had produced some 219,799 aircraft. Of those 116,250 were shot down, crashed, or damaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Modern air combat is one of the most technically sophisticated of all human pursuits. However, it all began fairly simply with a couple of ballsy aviators and an improvised machinegun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today air superiority is a tactical necessity for any successful modern combat operation. The fact that the US Air Force and US Naval Aviation are literally unchallenged builds a foundation from which our ground forces may consistently dominate the Information Age battlefield. However, it all started with two Frenchmen in a flimsy biplane over a blood-soaked battlefield in 1914.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
These were the two aircraft involved in the world\u2019s first true air-to-air combat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The Hotchkiss Mle 1909 Benet-Mercie saw service with US ground troops in a variety of unusual applications.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The exploits of those early aviators seem romantic today. The reality of WW1 air combat, however, was bloody, pitiless, and horrifying.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Buy and Sell on GunsAmerica!<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is tough to imagine the sorts of men who would go to war in such conditions as these. The airplanes were canvas, and they had no parachutes. With balls that big how did they ever get off the ground?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":133051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_specdata_upc":"","_specdata_placement":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[257,772],"tags":[2611,132,102,752,636],"featured":[],"hunt365":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-133027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-historical-guns","8":"category-will-dabbs","9":"tag-aerial","10":"tag-buzz","11":"tag-feature-articles","12":"tag-historical-guns","13":"tag-history"},"yoast_head":"\nThe Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight - Will Dabbs\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-dawn-of-destruction-the-worlds-first-aerial-dogfight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is tough to imagine the sorts of men who would go to war in such conditions as these. 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However, shooting guns and claiming it was work seemed like a pretty sweet hustle. As a result, Will serendipitously transformed an avocation into a vocation. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, Will flew UH1H, OH58A\/C, CH47D and AH1S helicopters operationally as an Army Aviator. He is SCUBA-qualified and has parachuted out of perfectly good airplanes at 3 o'clock in the morning. Will has summited Mount McKinley, Alaska, six times\u2026always at the controls of an Army helicopter, which is the only way sensible folk climb mountains. Will has delivered sixty babies and occasionally wrung human blood out of his socks. He is married to his high school sweetheart and has three awesome adult children. Turn-ons include vintage German machineguns, flying his sexy-cool RV6A airplane, Count Chocula cereal and the movie \u201cAliens.\u201d www.word-monkey.com Experience: -Professional Writer-thousands of publishing credits for dozens of titles -Mechanical Engineer\/Practicing Physician -Instrument-rated Commercial Pilot -Sunday School Teacher\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.word-monkey.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/will.dabbs.9\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drwildmanmd\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/author\/willdabbs\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight","description":"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight - Will Dabbs","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/the-dawn-of-destruction-the-worlds-first-aerial-dogfight\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Dawn of Destruction: The World\u2019s First Aerial Dogfight","og_description":"It is tough to imagine the sorts of men who would go to war in such conditions as these. 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