The Red Battle Flyer

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Freiherr von Manfred Richthofen. The Red Battle Flyer

The Red Battle Flyer

Table of Contents

PREFACE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

FOOTNOTES:

Отрывок из книги

Freiherr von Manfred Richthofen

Published by Good Press, 2019

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Another point of interest in von Richthofen's fighting methods is that he states, that as a rule, he opens fire at 50 yards. Distances are hard to judge in the air. The pilot is more likely to underestimate them than otherwise, just as one does in judging distances at sea. But von Richthofen is probably as good a judge as any, and in this he seems to be stating a plain fact. In these days 50 yards is fairly long range. Some of our own crack fighters prefer 50 feet, if they can get into their favorite positions. Anyhow he shows the unwisdom of opening fire at 1,000 yards, as some inexperienced and excited machine-gunners are rather apt to do.

Von Richthofen's chaser squadron—or Jagdstaffel, as the Germans call these formations—was the first to be known as a "circus." The famous Boelcke squadron, although a fairly mobile body, the members of which co-operated closely on occasion, never developed formation fighting to the extent that von Richthofen did.

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