An interview with Professor Philip Sabin
This interview with Philip Sabin (PS) was carried out by the television production company 3BM for the Channel 4 programme Dogfight: The mystery of the Red Baron. Philip Sabin is professor of strategic studies in the department of war studies at King's College, London. He was one of the historical consultants on Dogfight.
3BM: In the early 20th century, what changed the British perception about themselves as islanders?
PS: The British had never really felt secure about invasion – there had been fears about a Channel tunnel project being used for a French invasion and so on. But it wasn't until the advent of powered aircraft that this fear became realised, with the prospect of enemy machines crossing the Channel.
3BM: Was that brought home when Bleriot crossed the Channel?
PS: Bleriot's crossing of the Channel was, of course, a striking event and must have struck fear into a number of British hearts. But the idea of invasion by air was not new. There has been a number of published stories about fully fledged war in the air long before World War I. So it's really the materialisation of a dread that had been growing due to the obvious developments in aeronautics.
3BM: In that period, how were people starting to think and write in terms of science fiction and the possibility of attacks from the air?
PS: There had been great technological advance over the whole of the previous century since the battle of Waterloo, and the face of war had changed on land and at sea. Now the prospect was emerging that the old science of balloons was going to be superseded by powered aircraft. These were very, very new in the early years of the 20th century, but already making tremendous strides. People were thinking about bombardment from the air as the decisive stroke in war long before World War I.
Air reconnaissance
3BM: So at the onset of the war in August 1914, what was the role that was first envisaged for these early flying machines?
PS: Their biggest limitation, from a military point of view, was that they couldn't carry very much. They couldn't carry any appreciable weight of bombs – even machine-guns were too heavy at first. But they could get people up above the battlefield and use the great advantage of height to see the enemy. That made their primary use – which continued throughout the war – one of reconnaissance: spotting the enemy, being used to direct artillery fire. That was where they had the greatest impact in terms of the war as a whole.
3BM: Why did reconnaissance change from being a land-based task to an aerial one?
PS: In the mobile campaigns of the previous century, the eyes of the army had been the cavalry, which would go out and scout. This became impossible in World War I with the development of weapons that made the horse vulnerable and with the vast forces involved. The latter meant that there was an enormous frontline running all the way from the Channel to Switzerland, with no flanks for the cavalry to exploit or penetrate.
The only way to find out what was going on was to look at the enemy lines from balloons over your own trenches or, preferably, to see what the enemy was doing by flying your own reconnaissance aircraft over the opposition.
The beauty of reconnaissance aircraft was that they could move to a particular position, they could fly over enemy lines, they could be concentrated where you were about to attack or where the enemy was attacking. In addition, once wireless has been fitted into planes, which happened very soon after the onset of war, they gave you real-time information.
3BM: What was the importance of 'real time'?
PS: It enabled the aircraft to talk to the artillery battery to co-ordinate their flight, rather than spotting the target, flying back to the battery, landing and telling them where the target was, by which time it could well be too late.
The reconnaissance aircraft were the only ones that carried wireless during the First World War. They were willing to pay the very significant weight penalty involved for these fragile aircraft because of the tremendous military advantage it gave to be able to talk in real time to the party for whom they were spotting.
Arming aircraft
3BM: Why did these reconnaissance flights need protection?
PS: At first, the planes passed each other and the pilots waved as they went about their business. But the more aggressive of these individuals wanted to do something to interfere with their opponents, and they started to take up their own home-made darts, bombs, pistols, rifles and so on. The air force realised the importance of being able to deny the enemy intelligence and to protect their own aircraft from interference. So they pushed forward with the armament of aircraft on a more permanent and effective basis.
3BM: How difficult was it to get an effective machine-gun?
PS: It was realised early on that the machine-gun was the most effective potential armament for aircraft. However, you couldn't use the machine-guns that were in ground service as they were far too heavy, and if you put them on a plane, they threw cartridge cases all over the place, including into the propeller arc. So you had to get specially designed machine-guns, like the Hotchkiss and the Lewis. Even then the big problem was: how do you fire it and not shoot off your own propeller?
3BM: How did they solve this?
PS: The first efforts to solve the problem of the propeller being in the way of the machine-gun were to fire in a different direction. You could fire at an angle, off to the side, but obviously it was very difficult to aim in a direction other than the one in which you were moving. You could also mount the propeller on the wing at the top of the biplane so that the gun fired under the propeller arc. Or you could have a so-called 'pusher' aircraft, where the engine and propeller were behind the pilot rather than in front, so you could shoot out of the front.
3BM: And the pusher is what the Allies used?
PS: Yes, the Allies' initial approach to getting dedicated fighter aircraft focused very much on the pusher and aircraft like the Vickers 'Gunbus' [FB.5], and then the [Airco] DH.2 and [Vickers] FE.2b.
3BM: Is it true that these fighters were to protect reconnaissance aircraft?
PS: The reconnaissance aircraft were key. You wanted to deny information to the enemy, deny them the free ride of flying over and spotting your dispositions, and you wanted to protect your own aircraft from the opponent. Out of that emerged the fighter aircraft – the scout aircraft, as it was known at the time. This was not the primary role of aircraft in the war. That was reconnaissance and artillery spotting, and that remained the case. The fighters, or scouts, were there to protect and to deny the enemy intelligence.
The interrupter gear
3BM: What was the impact of the interrupter gear on the war?
PS: The Germans' Fokker E.I (Eindecker) – the war's only single-wing aircraft – included a revolutionary new invention: the interrupter gear. This allowed you to fire your machine-gun through the propeller arc. It had an electrifying impact on the air war.
It was really more dramatic than it should have been. Other than having this technical innovation, the Fokker Eindecker was not a very good aircraft. It was adequate for the job, especially against poorly equipped reconnaissance aircraft – it could shoot them down effectively. But you had what was known in the Allied camp as the 'Fokker scourge', which lasted for some months.
But it wasn't too long before the Allies developed fighters of their own, not at first using the interrupter gear but having equal operator performance to the Fokker Eindecker. That soon put an end to the scourge.
3BM: The pushers had a good forward machine-gun but not the speed ...?
PS: The pusher design was good at giving a free forward field of fire. But it had performance disadvantages compared to the single-seat 'tractor', as it was known, with a propeller in the conventional configuration at the front. So the pusher was a rather limited-duration experiment. As soon as the interrupter gear became standard on both sides, it was soon phased out.
Countering German air superiority
3BM: How did the Allies respond to the German's initial air superiority?
PS: One thing that was necessary – if the enemy had the advantage in aircraft – was sheer guts. The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) pilots and air crew at the time had to have very high morale to keep flying in the face of these qualitative advantages. You could also use formation tactics, and you could try to innovate and develop new approaches of your own. All of these were tried, and out of them came the swing back to the Allies' favour.
3BM: Tell me how formation flying offset the Eindecker's advantages.
PS: Initially air combat tended to be one against one – usually a reconnaissance plane being attacked by an enemy fighter. In those circumstances, performance advantage mattered hugely. One means of countering it was to have a number of aircraft on your own side. That way, while the attacker was getting lined up on one of his victims, another plane would be coming round behind him, either to shoot him down or to drive him off. So numbers began to be important in an essentially defensive way, to enable outclassed aircraft to hold out against super- quality aircraft on the other side.
3BM: And as the numbers increased, the air war escalated?
PS: The early years of the air war in 1915 and 1916 were, to some extent, the years of the lone hunters. Aces would go up and hide in clouds, looking for a single victim. Then they would pounce, try and take them by surprise and shoot them down. Mid-1916 was the beginning of the era of the formations – aircraft flying in groups of six and seven, perhaps even more, for mutual protection, mutual support, and also t to bring more combat power to bear when they encountered the enemy.
Dawn of the dogfight
3BM: So that was also the dawn of the bigger dogfight?
PS: Yes, by 1916 you were often getting very big dogfights – aircraft flying in squadron formations. But the squadrons were linked to one another, some flying while others waited in ambush above them in cloud or high cover, to make sure they were not attacked from above. You would get escalating dogfights, starting perhaps with only a few planes, but then more and more piling in on both sides until you had 50 to 100 aircraft swirling around each other in a chaotic mêlée in the skies.
3BM: What were the principles behind the kind of mêlée that [Fokker test pilot Oswald] Boelcke formalised in training younger pilots [in his rules for air combat: Dicta Boelcke]?
PS: Boelcke was the father of aerial tactics independent of the aircraft themselves. He emphasised things like going for surprise; making sure you knew where the enemy was but he didn't know where you were; never being taken in by ruses such as an aircraft put out as bait so that, when you attacked it, you yourself were attacked by the enemy waiting in the clouds.
In dogfights, it was very difficult to employ tactics because, unlike the reconnaissance planes, the fighter aircraft didn't have wireless and were not able to co-ordinate among themselves. Really it was every aircraft for itself.
The aces often did not like dogfights because it was very difficult to get a kill with those fleeting opportunities. More to the point, their own skill was not going to protect them from the unseen enemy coming up behind them just as they were trying to get on somebody else's tail. So kills were achieved for the most part by the aces outside the context of dogfights, rather than in these nightmarish swirling mêlées.
3BM: Who were the aces that emerged?
PS: [Max] Immelmann and Boelcke cut their teeth on the Fokker Eindecker. They used that equipment, and they were both very good pilots and tacticians. Boelcke was a great formation tactician and left behind the formation rules and tactics for which he is now famous. Immelmann was more of a lone flyer. He gave his name to a particular manoeuvre – the 'Immelmann turn' – which was basically a stall turn whereby an aircraft could engage, climb, stall, reverse its direction and zoom back to counter-attack or evade pursuit.
Air tactics
3BM: At the beginning of the war, was flying complete improvisation and trial and error?
PS: Nobody had any real models for how air war was going to develop. There were theorists who suggested that you might have aerial cruisers and battleships, because they saw an analogy with what had gone on on the high seas. Of course, this didn't happen.
Air war took its own particular directions, partially governed by technological possibilities but mainly by technological limitations. The aircraft were so flimsy and fragile, they could carry so little weight that there were only certain ways that you could effectively fight with them. Those were discovered by trial and error.
However, World War I was a tremendous forcing ground – the first total war in modern European history. This enabled advances to be made in months that would have taken years or even decades during peace.
3BM: Would you comment on the tactics of some of the aces?
PS: The aces differed in their approaches to air war. Some were cold and calculating; they would never engage unless they were sure that all the odds were in their favour. People like [Albert] Ball [British ace who shot down 40 German aircraft] were the opposite: they were aggressive individuals who would go in almost regardless of risk, so it seemed, in order to get a kill. Their flying ability tended to be such that, at least for a while, they succeeded in this.
Ball, for example, was willing to sucker in, to decoy an enemy without his own friends waiting in the clouds above to pounce on the attacker, which was the usual pattern. No, he would do it by himself. He would wait, looking out of the corner of his eye as the enemy aircraft came curving in behind, thinking they'd caught him, an unsuspecting victim. Then, at the last moment, he would yank on his stick and quickly turn his aircraft and, before the enemy knew what was going on, he was on their tail rather than them on his.
Out-numbered Germans
3BM: What was the Germans' biggest problem during the air war on the Western Front?
PS: It was that they were significantly out-numbered by the British and the French. They needed to devise tactics that would offset that advantage. One was to fight mainly over their own lines. That way, they had the advantage of their own artillery and anti-aircraft, and if any of their own pilots were shot down and survived, they were able to go back in service rather than be captured.
But they also needed to maximise their own combat power. And people like Boelcke had the idea of forming dedicated fighter groups – the Jastas [short for Jagdstaffel] – with the best pilots and the best machines, which would go off and hunt Allied aircraft. They could be concentrated in particular sectors of the front, so that even if the Germans were out-numbered overall, at the key points and at the key times, they might have numerical parity if not, sometimes, superiority.
3BM: Was that the concept behind the manoeuvrability of the 'flying circus'?
PS: Yes, exactly. The Germans would move their key squadrons up and down the line. They would get operational surprise as to where they were employed, and thereby would be able to have local superiority even if, overall, they were hugely out-numbered by the Allies.
Von Richthofen and others
3BM: What characteristic did Boelcke look for when choosing a pilot?
PS: Boelcke was looking for aggressive, capable pilots with a killer instinct, which really characterises all successful fighter pilots. They needed to have an awareness of what was going on around them in a dogfight. They needed, of course, to be good pilots. They needed to have good marksmanship, because one of the biggest things that distinguished the aces from the rest is that the aces hit their targets, while the rest sprayed bullets all over the sky and anywhere but at the aircraft. I think he saw all those things – and particularly the marksmanship and the ruthlessness – in von Richthofen.
3BM: What were Manfred von Richthofen's characteristics?
PS: Von Richthofen is the epitome of the fighter pilot, the ace of World War I. The aces were all different in their approaches. Von Richthofen was at the cold, calculating extreme. He didn't mind having a kill that was completely defenceless. Indeed, he preferred it. He would tend to avoid contact where he perceived any risk, but he would go in when he thought he was able to achieve his kill. He would go in very, very close and fill the enemy with lead.
3BM: It was his job – he wasn't picking off an easy target in a cowardly way?
PS: Von Richthofen, like many of the aces, was obsessed with his score. He racked up 80 kills before he himself was downed. In the end, he was perhaps defeated by his quest for that last victory, but he didn't willingly put his life on the line. He was hit very few times, because he was not only able to judge a situation in advance, but he also had the piloting skill to be able to escape a situation that might develop to his disadvantage.
Aircraft paint schemes
3BM: Why did he paint his Albatros D.III red?
PS: We must remember that camouflage uniforms had only just come into service in European warfare. The heraldry, the pageantry of the 19th century died hard, and was able to survive for a while in the skies. Some of the crazy paint schemes of German aircraft displayed the spirit, if you like, of the pilots concerned.
The most famous of these was, of course, the all-red Fokker DR.I (Dreidecker) triplane and Albatros of the Red Baron. These were designed to be distinctive. Designed, I think, so that people could see who they were fighting and would therefore be scared. The psychological advantage of having your opponent know that the Red Baron was on your tail must have been considerable. All of that was thought – at least by the Germans and Richthofen himself – to outweigh the fact that he might be spotted rather sooner at a distance because of his planes' paint schemes.
3BM: Didn't the Allied planes want to be spotted to enable re-formation of their own squadrons?
PS: The Allies usually didn't allow the same freedom in the customisation of aircraft paint schemes that the Germans did. But they nevertheless required streamers and banners to be flown behind their leading aircraft so that, in a dogfight, the lead plane could be recognised and the other aircraft could follow it. Because, without wireless, it was only those sorts of visual signals that could be used to give any kind of direction to the wing men.
Fokker DR.I and Albatros
3BM: What attracted von Richthofen to the Fokker DR.I?
PS: The Fokker DR.I, like the [Sopwith] Camel, emphasised manoeuvrability over speed. It couldn't run away from the enemy. It couldn't engage them if they didn't want to fight, which was a key characteristic of aircraft of the time. But it was able to out-turn almost anything that moved.
Many Allied pilots made statements saying how they'd started flying at a Fokker DR.I, coming at it from the tail, and suddenly it was pointing at them. It was almost impossible to out-manoeuvre the Fokker DR.I. It also had a very good climbing ability, so it did sometimes have the ability to climb away from trouble. But it was mainly that the Fokker DR.I epitomised the nimble dogfighter.
3BM: And that appealed to von Richthofen ...?
PS: Perhaps the most famous fighter of the war on the German side was the Fokker triplane, remembered, of course, as the mount of the Red Baron. He also used an Albatros of the same colours. The triplane had tremendous advantages in manoeuvrability, and I think that von Richthofen would have liked it for that. He was able to fly it to its limit and make almost certain that nobody could get on his tail, certainly with that machine.
3BM: What was the advantage of the Albatros?
PS: Overall, I think that speed was the most important characteristic of a fighter in World War I. Speed gave them the ability to run away from the enemy, and it gave them the ability to catch the enemy if he was running away.
There was a classic fight between von Richthofen and Lanoe Hawker, who had already won the Victoria Cross on the British side. Two great aces pitted against each other illustrated the Albatros's advantage. Essentially the two pilots met and spiralled around each other, each turning as tightly as possible. Because of the tightness of their turns, they lost altitude all the time and got down to near ground level. Hawker, who was over enemy territory, broke away and tried to escape from the fight. The trouble was that von Richthofen had that few miles- per-hour speed advantage. He was able to catch up with Hawker and – although Hawker evaded as much as he could, zig-zagging and so on – von Richthofen was such a good shot that he was able to shoot Hawker down. That's the kind of advantage that speed gives you.
Von Richthofen's last flight
3BM: Why did von Richthofen fly low over Allied territory, not guard his tail and make other fatal errors on his last flight?
PS: We will never know what going on in von Richthofen's mind on his last flight. It might be just the case – which was seen with many other aces – that his luck ran out. That he just pushed it too far, and eventually statistics caught up with him.
To the extent that von Richthofen is at fault for not watching behind himself and taking care of his own security as he usually did, I think it was a case of target fixation. People like von Richthofen were so focused on racking up kills and achieving the purpose that they were there for – shooting down planes – that, when they were trying to chase an enemy and make sure he went down in flames, they lost awareness of anything else. Whatever it was that shot him down, von Richthofen wouldn't have been aware of that because he didn't have a wing man on the radio warning him of threats, and he'd got tunnel vision focused exclusively on his target.
The numbers game and the blockade
3BM: In 1917, apart from parity, what was the other factor in the numbers game?
PS: The air war was really decided in late 1917 and early 1918. The Allies had overcome the qualitative disadvantages that they'd suffered in early 1917 with Bloody April [when Britain lost 912 pilots and observers, and von Richthofen alone shot down 21 Allied aircraft]. They had finally got aircraft that were at least equal if not superior to the German air service. The numbers game, therefore, really started to help them. Although the Germans were still shooting down more Allied aircraft than they were losing, the Allies could afford to take losses that the Germans could not. And that really became important towards the end of 1918.
3BM: And the big picture is the naval blockade?
PS: Yes, you might sardonically say that the service that did most to win the air war over the Western Front was, in fact, the Royal Navy. It is not entirely untrue because the air war was essentially a war of attrition, with the Allies and the Germans trying to replace the tremendous losses both sides were suffering throughout the conflict. A key limitation on the German ability to do that was the Allied naval blockade, which was starving Germany of fuel, of special materials necessary for the aviation industry and so on. So it was an economic war in which the blockade was arguably as important as what was going on within the air war itself.
3BM: How far was the air war a side show in World War I, and how far did it point to the future for World War II?
PS: Overall, it mattered more as a precursor for the future rather than for any strategic impact it might have had on World War I as a whole. During that war, you had the evolution of strategic bombing, of air-land co-operation, artillery observation and reconnaissance, of fighting in the air. All of these things would become important – indeed, decisive – in later wars.
But the sheer primitiveness in World War I, and the low level of resources that were committed to the air war – only a few per cent in human terms, for example – as compared to the land war meant that the air war could not matter anything like as much as did the war on land and, of course, the Allied blockade at sea.
Find out more
The Aerodrome
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Huge amount of information on the aircraft and aces of World War I.
Aviation-Central.com
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Information on all sorts of aircraft, including World War I military
planes.
World War I Aces and Airplanes
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Short descriptions of the men and machines that fought over the battlefields
of the First World War.
