SE5a Standard Armament

stephen · 27 August 2001, 08:16 PM

Yes, Grey, pilots did reload the Lewis in FLIGHT, but rarely while in a FIGHT. I did a bit of research on this several years ago which included SE pilots Gordon Collinson, George Vaughn, Fred Tully and others. The concensus was that the wing-mounted Lewis was of marginal value at best. It was generally used until it ran out of ammo, after which the pilot would rely on the Vickers alone. In some cases it was used as a reserve gun as Dan has pointed out.

Albert Ball once chased a two seater for over seven miles, changing three Lewis drums as he fought a running battle for the lines. Rhys-Davids changed drums during the famous Voss fight. But aside from some exceptional pilots, the Lewis was almost never reloaded during a fight. Many pilots didn't bother to change it at all... those who did were forced to break away from the scrap or wait til it was over before they could manage it. Remember, the drum was this pan-shaped thing that caught air like a frisbee. You had to push the Lewis forward against the slipstream to release pressure from the Foster mount, then work the slide to bring the Lewis back toward you (the slipstream tried to jam it in your face at 100 mph). Then you took the drum off, wrestled another in place, and tried to force the gun back up the slide against the wind again. Not an easy task. It COULD be done and WAS done, but not as often as you might think and (almost) never during a fight.

Mark_Miller · 28 August 2001, 04:35 AM

Hi
Here's an image which shows the Vickers installation pretty well. Ignore some of the rest, like that seat which shouldn't be there. I did this several years ago and it needs to be revised.
More images at :
http://www.wwi-models.org/Images/Mil...dex.html<br />
and some great structural photos at:
http://memorial.flight.free.fr/indexuk.html

Mark Miller

28 August 2001, 08:30 AM

Mark, you already know I'm a great admirerer of your work.

The Albatross Model you made is even more spectacular.

BTW, how accurate are your Vickers and Spandau guns?

Mark_Miller · 28 August 2001, 08:50 AM

"BTW, how accurate are your Vickers and Spandau guns?"

Spandaus should be pretty good.
had some good photos and the Williams brothers kit as reference.

The Vickers I'm not so sure of, I need to go back and look it over. It's been a long time since I first modeled it.
Same story on the Lewis -
Actualy the whole se5a file needs to be re-worked.

BTW - this is the coolest forum I've ever seen - and the ability to test your post first is great - I've posted in other places and you really look foolish when you screw up the code to include an image.
And you can put in flash files !! interesting possibilities

Mark

28 August 2001, 09:05 AM

Mark, Graeme Neale send me some magnificent plans of the SE5a a while back.

Would you like them?

Mark_Miller · 28 August 2001, 09:31 AM

Yes please !!
I have about 3 different sets of plans which I used to generate the SE5a - but I still have some areas which are undefined. And another source is always welcome

If you are e-mailing them could you do me a favor and send them to my work address, my alta vista account is size limited
mark.w.miller@goodrich.com

Thanks
Mark

28 August 2001, 10:01 AM

http://poserforum.net/Grey/se5plan.zip

This way you should be able to download it at your liesure...

I'm sure Dan-San might also want to take a look.

It's 3.6mb... they're very high resolution.

Billy_Bishop · 29 August 2001, 12:42 PM

FYI, regarding field modifications, when Albert Ball first got his SE-5, he removed the Vickers for a while as he didn't trust it as much as the Lewis gun, with which he was very familiar. *Having used it exclusively on Nieuport Fighters prior to getting an SE-5. *

His Vickers was later remounted by order of higher ranking officers later on.