Please correct me if I am wrong but I have reviewed the instructions on WW new DVII and unless I have
missed something WW has failed to provide the empty cartridge trays that were attached externally to the lMG 08/15’s used on all DR1’s and DVII’s. While they do provide empty belt chutes correctly coming out of the left side of the feed block, I do not see the trays. These two type Fokker aircraft did not use tubes to guide the cartridges out the bottom of the aircraft (I have noticed a review on a Pfalz DIII that erroneously refers to the empty belt chutes as empty cartridge tubes) as did many other German aircraft but instead allowed the cartridges to spurt out of the hole in the front of the receiver into open trays (rather than a tube) that guided the empty cases out over the cowling and over the side in front of the pilot. As a Fokker DR 1 or DVII pilot fired a cascade of empty cases would fall into the slipstream to pass by the cockpit. Herman Goering found this annoying enough to put attach large deflectors on both his DR 1 and DVII aircraft. The primary reason these trays are ignored are is that they are sometimes difficult to see on wartime aircraft due to the poor lighting of that area of the aircraft and also they were discarded rather quickly when the guns were removed from captured aircraft. They attached to the same sleeve as did the drum belt holder support on the MG 08/15’s of the ground guns and therefore were easily lost. The best image of these trays, although they can be seen in wartime pictures in good light, can be found on the image/film of the three Australian officers examining the guns from MvR’s 425/17. Even in that picture you can see the guns were starting to be vandalized for souvenirs as a booster gland on the front of one of the guns has already been purloined but at least the empty belt chutes and empty cartridges trays are still visible. No manufacturer to date has provided an accurate rendition of the lMG 08/15’s in there entirely. I had hoped WW would have been the first, but t the omission can be rectified by detailing. As these trays were visible from outside the aircraft they should be a must on this scale. I did bring this up to WW before they issued this kit but apparently they did not consider it important enough to add. Could make for an interesting detailing project and help preserve true history and correct some of the damage Hollywood has created.
Well…thanks for the info…but without pictures or links to pictures your rant is essentially meaningless. I’d LOVE to know more about your issue with the WNW Fokker D.Vll…I have an Eduard 1/48 scale AND the WNW 1/32 Fokker D.Vll (Alb).
Can you supply more info that we, as interested modelers, can use as a reference?
Scratch build to your specs. Hollywood only has power if you give it to them. Stop watching their crap. Throw away your T.V. In a year you’ll feel much better. I did.
Look under Hoodoo and you will find a long fairly recent thread on this subject with pictures covering the subject. Which is why I did not included pictures here.
Good for you Hoodoo. Threw mine away 7 years ago. The first year was rough. After that my thoughts became clearer, I had better ideas and most of all, I stopped wanting to buy stuff that I didn’t need. Life is good without T.V.
Do you have a picture that you can post of this tray on a machine gun or in an aircraft? If you cannot post a picture can you give a site location where the photo(s) can be viewed? I am very interested in trying to understand what you are talking about.
Take a look at this thread I started which I finally got a bunch of pics on. Most of my original data came from information gleaned from the real experts like Dave Watts, who is the foremost authority on “Spandaus”, that is LMG 08’s and LMG 08/15’s and their use in aircraft. My role is more of a trumpet making the information provided by other people LOUDER so more can learn. if you work that thread backwards you will run across references to pictures that I think will make things clear.
Put Spandau tray in google search and you should see some very nice pics of the right hand tray
attached to a Spandau. The left tray, was somewhat differently shaped as it had to attach to the right side of the gun in the same fitting that the right gun did, which is also the same fitting that the ground guns used to attach their trommel drum bracket.
There is no book I can refer you to with this info, but if hang in there you will find pics. This information is too newly “discovered” to be found in books yet. One of the primary people who helped with this again is Dave Watts but there are others too…the internet has allowed these guys to share and publish information…the only problem is that they aren’t the guys doing the “popular” publications right now and
therefore the information is not mainstream, but it is rock solid in terms of truth. One of these days the judges at model shows etc are going to be looking for these trays on the larger scale WWI aircraft and folks are going to start expecting them on models shown on reviews.
Jim Landoni did a great job of setting that page up. Hugh Robinson’s triblane is the first real attempt to get it right. the shape of the trays is difficult but Hugh made a good shot at it. Also he admits like all of us, he though that MvR used three hole ground belts but agrees the belts should be two hole parabellum belts and we are all sort of working on a way of finding a source or making the 30mm two hole parabellum belts. Hugh and I also disagree in a friendly way that MvR charging pulls were curved rather than straight. I have examined the MvR’s LMG 08/15 photos closely and the pulls do not look damaged, they appear to have a formed scimitar shape. The empty belt chutes that Hugh manufactured are the later style Fokker chutes that were also used for the DVII. Earlier triplanes like the first MvR, Voss’s, and Gontermann’s used an earlier, flatter, more crude emply belt chute, but you can see the evolution of the LMG 08/15 from 1917 to 1918. 425/17’s arrangement was something of an interim fix, with more sophisticated pulls and improved chutes but not quite yet up to the DVII standards of the simplifed and effective long charging handles. Still, the best reference is the three officers holding the MvR guns which only at that time had a booster screwed off and taken as a souviner. You can clearly see all the features of the guns and on the Aerodrome forum there are some better close-ups. We do know that MvR’s first triplane as well as Gontermann’s has a pretty “standard” setup, with the basic lindstrom device and standard clearing handles but improvements came relatively quickly.
Thank you for the additional information. I want to also thank you for the leads on the ejection shoot modifications of Herman Goring’s aircraft. If I can find the other modification information for the engine and cockpit I would like to build either his white or white and red nose Fokker D.VII. I also want to build a couple planes of WWI pilots who also flew in Spain and/or WWII in either the British, French, Italian or German air forces. Your postings lead me to believe I’ve got a a lot to learn.
