German Strategic Bombing During World War I

German Strategic Bombing During World War I

As the First World War unfolded, aircraft, which had previously been dismissed as having little military value, began to prove their critics wrong. As a result of these initial experiences, the armed forces on both sides began to put considerable thought into concepts for highly specialized types of combat aircraft. Not all of these concepts survived the test of combat. One such concept was that of a "battle-plane:" a large, heavily-armed, multi-engined aircraft designed to be a fighter aircraft. The battle-planes proved to be unable to fight more manoeuverable single seat fighters such as the German Fokker Eindecker, the British Airco DH.2 and the French Nieuport 11 but they did prove highly successful when they were fitted with bomb racks and pressed into service as medium bombers. In Germany, these battle-planes were assigned the designation "K" (Kampfflugzeug) but once they had been re-assigned to the bomber role they were assigned the designation "G" (Großflugzeug) to identify them as bombers.