Hi all,
Here's the completed shots of the Halberstadt Cl.II ‘Anni’ of Schlachtstaffel ‘Schlasta’ 27b (Battle Squadron), based at Villers-au-Tertre Aerodrome from late 1917. The pilot was Uffz. Fridoin Redenbach and the observer/gunner Oblt. R. Sigmund Kreitmair (Commanding Officer of the unit).

As usual a fully detailed build log in Adobe PDF format is available to download from the 'Logs' page on my web site (lined from signature block below).

Now to continue with the Hannover Cl.II build,

Mike

Once again, … incredibly good. I’ve always liked that airplane.

Not only an excellent build, but the paintscheme and aircraft type make it super interesting.

Yet that bomb rack has me stumped. At first I thought it was mounted upside down, but obviously you don't make beginner mistakes like that, and there's period photos of the same.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/82596826@N03/7614781434

^On that pic, it also shows bundled grenades being loaded.

But how were those bombs held into that bord? I can't see it. Ah, gotta read the text below the pictures...


Also very interesting that the unit commander would fly as observer/bombardier. Overall, a very weird aspect of WW1 air war. Hand-throwing grenades out of wooden planes...

Edit: As I go down the rabbit hole of Wikipedia - the mortar bombs type 15 as used on this aircraft were developed, of all things, by a Hungarian Priest.

H,
Yes it is ironic that a man of the cloth developed a weapon of war.
The grenade was detonated when the nose striker hit the ground and was pushed back into the weapon.
To prevent this happening accidentally, a safety pin was inserted through the striker head to hold it out of the weapon.
I can only assume that this pin held the weapons (fins down) in the rack on the fuselage.
The observer/gunner would then remove each pin to allow the armed weapons to fall down and away from the aircraft.

Mike

Amazing work. I really enjoy seeing these.

Wow, that is s nice!