The Fo-Fum men were not greatly disturbed by this, for several reasons,
because they were used to conceding the advantage in beginning a fight,
because knowing the Huns had the wings of them it was no use trying
to avoid it, and because they were contentedly sure that there were
so many beastly Huns there they couldn't all keep "in the sun" and
that each man would easily find a target sufficiently out of it. They
continued their "giddy-go-round," and a dozen of the Huns at top speed,
with engines full out and machine-guns rattling and ripping out a storm
of tracer bullets in streaking pencil-lines of flame and blue smoke,
came hurtling down like live thunderbolts. The sight alone might well
have been a terrifying one to the Fo-Fum men, and the sharp, whip-like
smacks and cracks about them of the explosive bullets which began to
find their mark on fabric or frame would also have been upsetting to
any but the steadiest nerves.
But the Fo-Fums showed not the slightest sign of panicky nerves.
They held their fire until the diving Huns were within reasonable
shoot-to-hit range, and met them with a sharp burst of fire from
observers' or pilots' guns as the position of each machine in the
circle gave a field of fire ahead or anywhere in a full half-circle
round to port, stern, or starboard.
It may help matters to explain here--and again it tells nothing to
the Hun that he doesn't already know well and to his sorrow--that
the fighting Fo-Fum mounts three machine-guns--one, which the pilot
handles, shooting ahead; another which the observer, sitting in front
of the pilot and to the side of the pilot's gun, shoots anywhere
outward in a half-circle round the bow and in any forward direction
down or up; and a third placed on the top plane, which the observer
also shoots by jumping up from his bow gun, standing almost man-high
clear of the "gun'l" of the machine's body, and aiming up or level
outward to either side and astern.
In meeting the attacking dive the observers stood up to their top
guns, and if their position in the Flight's circle allowed them to
bring their gun to bear on an enemy, they opened fire. If the machine
was full bow on to the rush the pilot fired; or if she was in such a
position that he could not see a target sufficiently ahead, or the
observer see sufficiently to the side, he dodged the machine in or out
of the circle enough to bring one of the guns to bear, and then wheeled
her back into position.
These tactics may sound complicated, but really are--so the Fo-Fums
say--beautifully simple when you know them and are used to them. What
they amount to is merely the fact that all six machines were able to
open fire within a second or two of one another, and that in some cases
the pilot was able to get in a second burst from his bow gun by dipping
his nose down after a hostile as she plunged past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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