SPANDAU BALLET

[kahnjar1]

[Jim McDougall]

I would like to thank everyone out there who is reading this, and those who have contributed, and its great knowing there is such interest in WWI aviation. This of course entails the brave men who flew these fragile machines in combat and here we have looked into the arms they relied on in those combats.

My interest in aviation has been lifelong, and in the years I was in Nashville, I was 'grounded' for over a month with medical issues. At this time in the 1990s I had been studying WWI aviation and building the tiny air force of model planes from kits. Not content with decals, I wanted to research the individual pilots as they had their individual insignia etc. so I struggled with painting these tiny images on these. The more I got into the history, the more obsessive it became.

This was how I ended up meeting Mr. Hume Parks, who lived there in Nashville, and I found he had 'some' Spandau guns from WWI. I went to visit him, and as he took me to a room, it had a huge steel door that reminded me of a vault. As he opened the door....I gasped as there were WALLS of machine guns....there were I think 28 Spandau's; and array of other types as well as walls of pistols, rifles etc.

In those days in 1996, I learned some things on these guns but naturally barely scratched the surface. A machinist, he had his own shop to fabricate necessary parts to restore many guns, and he was a gunsmith as well.

I wanted to pay tribute to this great man who did so much to preserve history. He was into cannons and field guns as well, and wrote a book on Civil War cannon.

Here is Mr. Malcolm "Hume" Parks !1913-2012) in my visit 1996, and the photos I found that led to my 'SPANDAU BALLET' theme. I had not seen these for many years, so a fun memory.

[Jim McDougall]

Here are some items from that period researching these as well as photos along with notes from Mr. Parks showing me the Spandaus.

[Jim McDougall]

As the focus was very much on the 'Red Baron' von Richthofen, these two books were key in research

"Who Killed the Red Baron" P.Carisella & J.Ryan, 1969
"The Red Knight of Germany", Floyd Gibbons , 1927

The two Spandau's shown were pointed out to me to be identical in form to those on the Red Barons plane 425/17. It was noted to be vermillion red (painted over the light blue color prior).
There were conflicting reports of the final flight and battle, some had said there was ground fire shooting at the same time the Baron was attacked by Roy Brown in his fighter. This was incorrect, and it does not seem that Brown's shots were hits.
Carisella notes "...examination of Richthofens guns found one to have a separated cartridge in the breech, which constitutes a No.3 stoppage which would be almost impossible to clear in the air, and the other gun had a broken firing pin which would only allow the guns to fire single shots so that at the time of his death he would have been out of action. "
further noted that he had come down low, exposing the whole side of his body, conducive to attempt to clear the gun stoppage.
It is noted that the jamming of one gun and the firing pin issue would have permitted only one or two rounds then stop.
The ultimate conclusion was that the Red Baron was killed by ground fire from an Australian gun position as he was low and probably either trying to resolve the issues with his guns or perhaps trying to land to do so.

The attached photo of one of the guns was found to have broken firing pin (695-1795 number). While this part remains of the gun, it is unclear what happened to the pair of guns. They were last seen night of April 22,1918 resting against the remains of the triplane. There was a wild obsession with souvenirs, machine gun belts were cut up and distributed to various Australian units there.....the propeller was sawed into at least 40 sections.

[Jim McDougall]

Here is a selection of some of the other aviation machine guns from various other plane types in combat vs. the German fighters & Spandaus. I am uncertain how many of these were there along with other Maxims and regular ground machine guns, but many!

[Jim McDougall]

There was one large scale WWI fighter plane hanging from the ceiling, not sure what type it was but the engine front resembles those on DH-4, but those were two seat. Sure dwarfs my 1/72 scale 'air force' !

[Jim McDougall]

As admittedly a novice with firearms in general, I have looked further into some aspects regarding these WWI machine guns and elements of their use and issues. It would seem that an obvious issue would be the likely jamming of the gun, as this sort of issue in the air would have been hard to resolve while the pilot was trying to control his plane and experiencing the dynamics of combat at hand.

In previous post I noted that the Red Baron's guns were jammed at the time he was killed as flying low to ground after altercation with Canadian pilots flying Sopwith Camels. Looking further, the plot thickens:

Apparently in the outset of the rather more intense dogfight he had been involved in with the large contingent of his 'flying circus' (derisive term used for his squadron), one of the Canadians, Lt. Wilfred May, had been trying to handle the numbers of German planes attacking. He notes (p.86, Carisella) that the best thing he could do was 'spray as many as he could' as he was in a tight turn, then as he admitted, through 'lack of experience' held held ONE of his guns open too long and it jammed, the the other and he could not clear them.

The Red Baron, in the process of chasing this pilot for yet another 'kill' (to add to his 80 victories), while on his tail, ironically he ran into same issues with his Spandau's. After what seems to have been perhaps a similar error after long bursts, one of his Spandau's stopped firing with a broken firing pin (this would have been 695-1725 in previously posted image)...THEN it appeared that the other gun developed a #3 stoppage *

By this time he was low, and as he pounded on his Spandau' s in frustration he was still chasing May, while ground fire was unleashed on him by several Australian units.
It seems ironic that BOTH the hunter and the hunted had jammed guns" in this futile game.

It was the 'golden BB' from the ground fire that killed the Red Baron, not the brief attack by Roy Brown in his Sopwith Camel just prior to this as Brown tried to get the Baron off May. Brown had thought the burst he loosed on him had finished him, and did not continue his attack.

* the term #3 stoppage is from details in the training manuals of the time fir machine gun use, having to do with the position of the cocking lever at the time of stoppage.
#1 is handle forward, #2 slightly to rear and #3 handle behind trigger.

There seems to be variation in these as with Vickers gun, #3 is a feed fault
"The Vickers Machine Gun: Pride of the Emma Gees" D. Goldsmith, 2020.

The other listings are noted as from "SS 448 Method of Instruction in the Lewis Gun" General staff, May 1917.

In other notes it seems that a Lewis after firing slowly for about 4 rounds stopped with a #1 and a Vickers with a #3.

I wondered if perhaps the dual guns that became common on German planes by 1916 were for the cases where a gun jammed, the other still fired.

There were also the issues with belts and spent cartridges,
Apparently the belts typically used were Parabellum MG14 for lighter weight.
Also belts seem to have characteristic differences..... what if incorrect belt used?

After cartridge fired the belt was fed into a side chute off the breech block which would guide the belt into a storage compartment to prevent the belts from interfering with aircraft control mechanisms.
Belts held 500 rounds typically.
Expended cartridges were expended through a round hole on the receiver just under the barrel in Spandaus, and guided out of the aircraft. It seems many pilots had hopper like chutes added to direct the cases out and downward.

I do hope that these details readers here might find interesting, and as I have explained, I have no particular expertise in any of this, so I would welcome any corrections or additions.