The Siemens-Schuckert D.IV; Best Fighter of the First World War?

when it comes to aircraft of great potential those of the first world war are often overlooked and while the dogfights between aircraft like the Sopwith Camel the focard dr-1 triplane and the spat 13 are often the source of historical recollection and Legend This tends to obscure the fact that towards the wars ending in late 1918 new aircraft are far more formidable capability were in the air and fighting the last desperate actions a great example of this is the focker D7 this formidable fighter was considered such a threat that of all of the various weapon systems that the Allies required be turned over to them at the German surrender the foka D7 is the only one that was explicitly named and the entire number in existence demanded to be handed over but though the D7 is perhaps not as well remembered as it should be there was another fighter that the Germans had begun to field in the last few months of the war that was according to the pilots who fought in it even more formidable the Siemens shoe cut D4 and ironically the foundations of this remarkable fighter were laid by copying a captured French aircraft Seaman shukurt's aeronautic efforts during the war primarily revolved around building some of the massive r-class bombers but they also made an effort at building Fighters as well in mid-1915 they built a couple of monoplane designs but these were soon written as obsolete by the rapid advances in fighter designs that the war was engendering so in 1916 they were provided with a captured example of the French nuipor 17 with a request to study it this aircraft was one of the most formidable flying at the time and Siemens shukart figured they might as well not worry on trying to improve on this simply building a copy of the aircraft but fitted with their own engine the Siemens house sh-1 rotary the new Siemens shukart D1 started the line of biplane Fighters for the company ironically though by the time this entered service in mid-1917 the aircraft was already Obsolete and the 95 delivered served as trainers but the aircraft laid the bases for further development and after building several variants of the D2 for testing in late 1917 Siemens shukart flew the D3 this entered service with the German Army's air arm in April 1918 and initially proved extremely successful but problems rapidly came to light with the new aircraft's engine this the Siemens house sh3 was an 11 cylinder counter rotary design that was one of the most advanced rotary engines to be designed while rotary engines had been largely standard for fighter designs throughout the war by 1917 they were approaching the limits of what they could deliver on in short to improve performance as the demands for better aircraft accelerated engines needed to deliver more revolutions per minute to compete in water cooled inline engines this was possible but for rotaries as revolutions went up the efficiency dropped markedly as more energy was spent spinning the engine then providing usable power to the propeller Siemens got around this by creating a counter rotary design in the sh3 this used a bevel gearing system to rotate the crankshaft in the opposite direction to the rest of the engine which cut into the basics allowed it to deliver more power to the prop the problem was that by this point in the war the Germans had massive issues getting hold of supplies of castor oil which which was critical for running rotary engines they implemented a mineral oil substitute but this really didn't agree with the sh3 at all and they began to fail regularly after just 10 hours of running the d3s were therefore swiftly recalled normally replaced with the fokka D7 despite the problems the pilots who flew the aircraft were reportedly very keen to get the Siemens shook up back if the engine issues could be resolved but in fact Siemens had further plans for the type while working to resolve the engine issues they also sought to improve the airframe leading to the D4 this fitted an improved engine combined with a huge four-bladed propeller and with the left hand Wing being slightly longer to counteract the torque from it and armed with twin eight millimeter synchronized machine guns the new designs seemed to have been a real winner the engine may only have produced 160 horsepower but the greater power efficiency of the design combined with the big prop and then the D4 could out climb just about anything else for example the foka D7 with the 185 horsepower BMW 3A engine the aircraft that filled Allied flies with Dread could get to 1 000 meters in 4 minutes and 15 seconds and to 6000 meters in 18 minutes and 45 seconds the software snipe which was to become the Royal Air Force's primary fighter after the first world war well I couldn't find exact comparisons but this formidable aircraft could get to 2 000 meters in 5 minutes 10 seconds 3050 meters in 9 minutes 25 seconds and 4 600 meters in 18 minutes and 50 seconds the Siemens shukert D4 could get to a thousand meters in one minute 54 seconds and 6000 meters in 15 minutes 30 seconds the damn thing was an absolute rocket it matched this with a top speed of 120 miles per hour which was broadly in line with the other aircraft but can maintain a far higher altitude with a listed maximum ceiling of 8 000 meters though operating at this height would require special measures it was still more than a thousand meters higher than the focker D7 could manage so the D4 combined good agility with excellent climb and a superior operational ceiling while being comparable in speed to its primary contemporaries all in all it had immense potential and this was soon recognized Pilots that got to fly the new aircraft waxed lyrical about it and requested more indeed the D4 managed to repair the poor reputation that the aircraft had received from its prior models and even the famed Flying Circus that had been commanded by the equally famous Red Baron began to request an allocation of the Fearsome new fighter but that was not to be as the D4 arrived just too late to make its impact fully felt deliveries began to units in August 1918 and those several hundred were ordered in quick succession as the capabilities of the aircraft became apparent in fact perhaps only 60 managed to get two combat units before the collapse of the German Army and the signing of the Armistice on the 11th of November 1918 that marked the cessation of hostilities one of the issues with the slow production other than the near collapse of the German war economy after four years of blockade was that the D4 was actually an indication of the future that aircraft would take in with its plywood-skinned fuselage being more complicated to build than the fabric wrapped construction of most previous fighter aircraft of the war the end of the war also meant largely the end of the aircraft though some were to find new lives with the air forces of Switzerland Belgium and Lithuania though only in tiny numbers and that marked the end of the Siemens shukert D4 potentially the best fighter of the entire first World War

Channel: Ed Nash's Military Matters

Views: 80,097

Keywords: Best fighter WW1, Sopwith Snipe, Fokker D.7, D.VII, R-Class bombers, Siemens-Schuckert, D.4, D.1, D.3

Id: Sk7Ajz5GOuc

Length: 8min 10sec (490 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023