Aviator arrow
Aviator arrows are pointed, about 12 to 15 cm long metal rods that were dropped from airplanes and zeppelins as weapons against enemy ground forces in the first years of the First World War .
The rear part was notched in a cross-shaped "tail fin" profile, which was used to stabilize the flight position , similar to the feathers of an ordinary arrow . The French designers of the first aviator arrows (flechettes) are said to have orientated themselves on the model of Japanese shuriken .
The kinetic energy achieved during the fall was so high that an aviator's arrow could penetrate a steel helmet . The injuries caused by a hit were mostly fatal. A single plane tended to drop a large number of arrows at once. However, the hit rate was low. Aviator arrows were used by all major European air forces during World War I, but were soon replaced by machine guns and bombs due to their inefficiency .
In September 1915, the writer Robert Musil was narrowly missed by an arrow dropped by an Italian airplane in a trench near Trento . He described this experience together with the whistling, rustling sound of the falling projectile in the central scene of his famous story The Blackbird . Paul Klee , who had done part of his military service in a flight yard , painted an oil painting in 1922 with the title Das Haus zum Fliegerpfeil .
literature
- CG Gray: The War in the Air. Article in: The War Illustrated, January 23, 1915, p. 22
See also
Web links
- Introduction & short history of shuriken ( Memento from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive )