"a noob to wings of glory plane question" Topic

im just getting into the game and the period. most of my small collection is made up of planes from the end of the war (DRIs, spad XIIIs, sopwith camels, and Albatros DVAs), but I just got a couple of spad VIIs for Christmas. from my limited knowledge, the main counterpart to the spad VII is the albatross DIII, which wings of glory doesn't make! out of the current line, what plane would be the most accurate match-up?

also, were spad VIIs kept in service till the end of the war? would it be unreasonable to have them face those later planes?

thanks!

I usually only distinguish between "early war" and "late war". Early war aircraft are planes like the Fokker Eindecker and the BE2C, pusher planes and so on. Late war are the planes like the Camel, Neiuport 28, Spad XIII and so on with forward firing machine guns firing through the propellor. The interuptor mechanism was one of the great innovations of the air war.

More details vis-à-vis the Spad VII and Albatros DIII, et al:

When the Spad VII came out late in 1916, it met the Albatros DI/II. The Spad was superior over all, except for having only one synchronized machine gun to the Albatros' two. Early in 1917 the Albatros DIII began to appear. It was in approximately equal numbers by the time of Bloody April '17, with the earlier Albatros DII, but quickly became the most numerous German single-seat fighter on the Western Front. Mid-summer of '17 the Albatros DV came out: it was not much better in performance to the DIII. The DV/a looked virtually the same as the DV and performed no better, but was slightly stronger in a power dive due to airframe strengthening measures. The DIII saw service into the first half of 1918 in decreasing numbers. The DV/a saw service in significant numbers right through to the end of the war, but by the summer of 1918, the Fokker DVII had taken over as the most numerous single-seat fighter in the German air service. The Spad VII, meanwhile, remained the premier single-seat fighter in the French air service, and was quite numerous in the British, through the end of the war. The Spad XIII began to appear in July of '17 but production was at first hampered by design issues, mostly with finding reliable engines for the new two-gunned fighter. It was delivered to both French and British squadrons. By late spring / early summer of 1918 the Spad XIII had been produced in large enough numbers to overtake the Spad VII as the most numerous in French service.

There were very few Spads VII in American service. At first, Nieuport 28 aircraft had been sent to the American squadrons, but these had all been replaced with Spads XIII by mid summer '18.

You can use the Albatros DV as the earlier Albatros DIII if you don't want to be a purist about it. The only visible difference was the fuselage, which is slab-sided on the DIII and oval on the DV, and the rear line of the tail skid, which is vertical on the DIII and slanted backward on the DV/a. All late production models of the DIII had the same rounded vertical stab ("rudder") as the DV, and the offset upper wing radiator; only early DIIIs had the centrally located radiator.

The most interesting lag in equality for the Allies is their single machine gun. Not until June of '17 did any aircraft with two forward machine guns start to appear, and that was the SE5 with one synchronized Vickers and one wing-mounted Lewis. The very first Allied fighter to have two forward firing synchronized machine guns was the Sopwith Camel, which began to replace Pups, Tripes and Nieuports (and Spads VII) in July of '17. The Camel became the most produced British aircraft of the war with over 5K of them being built. The Spad VII was the most numerous during the war proper, but by the spring of '19 the Spad XIII had overtaken all Allied single-seat aircraft as the most produced with over 8K of them built (but, as I said already, actual numbers in service at the front in late '18 saw the Spad XIII dominating over the Spad VII in numbers). In case you are wondering, no, the Spad VII was never "retooled" to take two machine guns….

All of the old Wings of War minis are gradually being re released with new liveries as Wings of Glory minis, so in time you will be able to purchase DIII's.

And yes the SPAD VII did remain in service until the end of the war.
For one thing the SPAD XIII was rather prone to reduction gear failures in its Hispano-Suiza engine so many French escadrilles still had some VII`s available as backup right up until the armistice.
Also some US units were equipped with VII`s until fairly late on as it took a while for enough spare XIII`s to be available to fully equip all the US squadrons.
So you can quite easily justify having VII`s flying alongside XII`s and taking on any of the late war German types.

sweet! thanks all!

A couple of nice charts.

these are great! where can I get a bigger version?

Oh I had them in my WWI aircraft folder. They came from the web originally but I don't remember the sites/posts

The "Bristol fighter" was not a 1916 service aircraft. The first tests of prototypes were in October 1916. The first combat flight was the disaster in April 1917, with Bristol F.2as, flying like two-seaters in formation. All Bristol F.2bs were flown like single-seat fighters, never in formation. The F.2b did not enter service until early summer 1917….

@ Sigwald
The second is likely from The Aerodrome:
theaerodrome.com

I agree with Rabbit. The Spad VII was used to the end of the war.

Spad VII tidbits
Many escadrilles still had examples on strength up to the end of the war. Spa 167 for example was formed in Sep 1918 and had 12 Spad XIII's ans 6 Spad VII's.

There were 1,200 produced between 1 Apr 1917 through 31 March 1918. A total of around 3,500 were produced during the war.

The first aircraft was at the front arrived to N49 on 7 Nov 1916.

Italy had nine squadrons of Spad VII in 1917. They served in some form through the end of the war.