Ten Mauser C96 pistols arranged to defend this Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance aircraft
The war to end all wars seemed to also include weapons to end all weapons from the very start...rapid fire machine guns overwhelmed concentrated rifle fire. Massed and massive artillery pieces replaced a few dozen cannons or mortars lined up behind the forward line. Submarines, still in their infancy, were considered such a threat to the surface fleet of the British that they declared the submariners actions so "frightful" that if the crew were captured, they would be tried and hanged as pirates. No one of the British High Command considered how their blockade of foreign ports that soon starved many of the Germans to death somehow wasn't considered a similar piratical action.
But before it reached that point in the air, the aviation services of all the combatants needed to try out a variety of weapons to see what was most effective in stopping the enemy from flying over the battlefront. The relatively underpowered and light weight machines used at the beginning of the war barely had enough power to carry the pilot, and if a two seater, an observer also aloft. Heavy arms were impossible to take up as the aircraft couldn't gain enough altitude. Even when a few could, the senior officers many times ordered the pilots or crew to remove the weapons as the planes were not designed to handle them. What to do if you wanted some protection?
The hope was to hit the propeller.
In the first few months of the war most of the pilots, if they didn't wave at their enemy counterparts, simply hurtled insults and rude gestures at them. This progressed to hurtling easily-carried items like bricks, chains, nets, darts and other projectiles, hoping to strike the propeller, wing, or pilot of an enemy machine. Even small bombs and grenades were tried. Fighting in four dimensions left no room for error, which means virtually none of the thrown objects hit their mark.
How the grappling hook was intended to be used by Russian pilot Alexander Kozakov
One innovative pilot, Alexander Kozakov of the Imperial Russian Air Service, decided the best course of action was to yank apart enemy machines. So he attached a grappling hook to a long piece of steel cable which was carried on his Morane G and he intended to throw or winch it out when he got near another aircraft with the hope of snagging a flying surface or a strut and ripping it off. He never had the opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness as he could never get close enough to hook an enemy aircraft. Things progressed in a different direction though; to using handheld weapons, like revolvers, automatic pistols, rifles, and even flare guns.
You had to get close enough to see the white's of their eyes.
An R.E.P. with a bomb for offense and a rifle for defense
Necessity being the mother of invention and desperation its bastard of a father, the Mauser pistol combination used in the photo of the Austro-Hungarian observation aircraft at the top would have only been effective at very close range. Each pistol held a clip of ten bullets and the device attached to them fired them in unison, giving the gunner the ability to rapidly fire 100 rounds in volleys of 10. Two bars passed through the five upper and five lower trigger guards and were attached to the single aiming grip that you can just see in his hand. It had a trigger at the end which was pulled to fire all 10 at the same time. Given the close arrangement of the pistols, if the gunfire did hit the enemy aircraft, it would have been like using a shotgun. With the light frame and canvas structures of early war aircraft that might have been enough to bring it down. But one has to wonder how long it would take, and how difficult it would be, to reload and re-mount all ten pistols while maneuvering and trying to avoid nearby enemy aircraft.
As the engines grew more powerful and the airframes were designed to cope with greater stresses, some single-seat pilots began to imagine a 'one-shot, one-kill' scenario using greater firepower. Capt. Georges Guynemer consulted Louis Bechereau of the SPAD works about
building a SPAD VII armed with a cannon. The SPAD XII was the result which was
based on the VII; the fuselage lengthened and strengthened, the wingspan
increased and a twelve shot 37 millimeter SAMC cannon mounted between the
cylinder banks of the 220 hp Hispano-Suiza engine firing through the propeller
hub. The SPAD XII initially proved successful but was found to be a real handful
for inexperienced men. Only a few highly trained pilots, such as Guynemer, Rene
Fonck, Georges Madon, Albert Deullin and François Battesti achieved success. The recoil from each shot of the cannon almost stopped the airplane in mid flight, causing several anxious moments as the pilot fought to regained control of the machine. Plus, strong fumes and smoke filled the cockpit all while the pilot was trying to reload, set up the next shot, and avoid any closing enemy aircraft.
300 of the cannon-armed SPAD XIIs were ordered, but only about 20 were manufactured.
Top - the cannon-armed SPAD XII of Capt. George Guynemer. Lower left - the cannon muzzle in the center of the propeller hub. Right - Guynemer shows his SPAD to General D'Esperey.
Cannons were carried on a variety of other aircraft, like
the Voisin series, the Italian Caproni bombers and even Davis 1 pounder gun on
British Felixstowe and American Curtiss seaplanes.
Maybe the oddest weapon used to pursue an enemy flying machine was a kitchen knife purportedly carried aloft by French ace Lt. Jean Navarre. After reports came in to his airbase that a Zeppelin was lurking in the area, Navarre grabbed a long carving knife from the kitchen of the squadron's cook, and took off in a Morane Saulnier L parasol with the hope of finding the marauding bomber. How he hoped to bring it down,with a knife blade he never explained. So perhaps a fishing hook that was meant to snare a whale or a shark might not have been that crazy of an idea to snag an airplane. Well...yes it was.
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