The new cute little baby combined with the already active 4 year old has taken much energy and time away.  But I discovered a secret, if I manage to focus on family, work, heatlh/excercise, gaming, visitng forums, Reading up on current events, reading books (history and Sci-fi), painting, and lastly, but most importantly of all, sacrificing all sleep I can get some stuff done.  

So after a long pause I forced my self to get my next aircraft ready for the WWI air campaign.

The Spad XIII is my favorite one of all.  I love it's speed.  

The camo was challedging and while I take L4's message about miliatry colors as gospel, I think I perfer single tone miliatry equipment to intricate camo patterns.  They are hard!  

 
Still the plane is done and I managed to get my first kill for my French Pilot in it. Hurray!

shot number 2

third shot

I made it dirty

Last one

I also painted up my British Neuport 17. My British pilot is y backup when the Frenchie bites it.  

The British had the horrible habit of only equiping it with a single Lewis gun, so I wanted a 17 that was proberly modeled.

Tally Ho!

Great stuff again Luis - I love the Spad in particular!  

Watch out for the Hun in the Sun old boy!  

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Ahhh, those were the days....
Nicely done CC
keep 'em coming

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Nice job on both!

Do the rules distinguish between a single Vickers and a single Lewis, because they definitely should? If you check up on the various machine guns used by both sides, you will find that the Vickers has a slower rate of fire that was further hampered by the interrupter mechanisms used by the allies, resulting in a rate of fire around 300 rpm. By contrast the Lewis had a rate of fire around 550 rpm, but it had a 97 round magazine that needed changing frequently.

A number of pilots preferred the Lewis because of its higher rate of fire and also because on the later Foster wing mount it could be swung down, allowing it to be fired upwards at an angle.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Oh wow You must admit camo looks good though, CC    

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Back from oblivion (again)?

Thanks all very much

Ginger,

I'm afraid the rules do not make a difference between the single Lewis and the single Vickers. Machine gun.    

But is does finally make sense of why the British would choose to kept the Lewis for so long. I never new that.  

Thanks

Wow Beautiful Birds !  Very nicely done, that WWI camo scheme always appealed to me ! "Chocks Away Old Boy !"  

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

Ginger,

How did the german machine guns compare to the Vickers a lewis rate of fire.

Do ou have any insight on that?

Thanks

The British Vickers and German Maxim LMG08/15 ('Spandau' from the name of the main manufacturer) had the same basic design derived from the original model created by Hiram Maxim and first demonstrated in 1884. Both had an unrestricted rate of fire around 600 rpm, and were fed by a canvas belt containing approximately 600 rounds. The main difference between them was the design of the interrupter gear used to prevent the propeller from being hit by the machine-gun bullets.

The British designs used a hydraulic system that applied a safety catch preventing the gun from firing when the propeller was in the way, which tended to reduce the rate of fire quite significantly. However, the German design used the engine to fire the machine gun at the right moment via a series of levers, which actually increased the rate of fire slightly as it assisted in recoiling the breech block.  

As a final note, when the first interrupter gears were fitted to the Sopwith 1 1/2 strutter, they left the original pistol grip on the Vickers machine-gun, which allowed the pilots to override the interrupter gear to increase the rate of fire - with obvious risks. The pistol grip was removed in subsequent aircraft.

Edit
'Interrupter' gear actually fall into two designs, Interrupter and Synchronizer, the former interrupting  or stopping the gun from firing, and the latter synchronizing firing with the engine. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and much depends upon the actual speed of the engine relative to the cyclical rate of the gun in question. Both sides made improvements in the rate of fire of the machine guns, while the speed of the engines are not a 'constant' depending upon what the aircraft is doing. Furthermore there were many different types of engine varying quite significantly even on the same type of aircraft. Finally, the variable quality of ammunition combined with the inherent design of the gun caused frequent jams. Veteran pilots would often insist on loading the belts themselves to reduce the incidence of jams while some also carried a wooden mallet to hit the cocking handles if any occurred.

Suffice it to say that the above views on the relative rates of fire are very generalised statements indeed.

_________________
"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Good intell, Ginger !  I remember back in my youth, we used to play Avalon Hill's WWI Air Combat game "Richtofens War". The game was great and the Historical Campaign Analysis was excellent. And I remember the drawing of the "Interrupter Gear" ... amazing !

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Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."