ARMOUR FOR GERMAN AIRMEN

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 27, 26 October 1918, Page 9

ARMOUR FOR GERMAN AIRMEN

4 —: Perhaps the most interesting feature of a German A.E.G. biplane, which is described in a report prepared by tho Technical 'Department, Aircraft Construction, Ministry of ■ Munitions, is the provision of armouring : to protect, tho crew. Thoro are threo panels of armour at each side, and threo at tho bottom of the fuselage, with an armour bulkhead at tho rear of the gunner's cockpit to protect him from behind. Tho amour .is 5.1 mm. (nearly one-fifth of: an inch) in thickness, and. has a total area.of nearly 100 square feet, with a weight ot i approximately 8601b. Tests of its resistance to .penetration have been made with bullets of various types, and tho conclusion reached is that it is undoubtedly too light to afford protection against British armour-piercing bullets iiral from the ground at a lower height than SflOft., while n machine armoured with it would have io flv not less than 1000 ft. to be safe, from all but a very low percentage of hits. The armour in the machine examined did not appear to have boon so well employed as it might have been in a structural capacity, being simply an attachment to the framework, to which it added no material strength. Its appearance, indeed, suggested that it had been atided by way of experiment, and that it was more or less of a makeshift character. Tho aoroplano itself, which lias the date February 3, 1918, stamped on its main frames, was tho first; of its typo to be secured.