WW1 air-to-air missile combat

[mattdanison]

Fighter Pilots of World War 1, page 65, by Robert Jackson says this:

  

  "Albert Ball was now flying with No. 60 Squadron, and in September 1916 this unit carried out many attacks on enemy kite balloons.  On one occasion, Ball and another pilot named Lieutenant Walters set out to attack some balloons with Le Prieur rockets, only to find that the balloons hd been hauled down.  Flying on, the two British airmen sighted a pair of German machines, a Roland and an LVG, Ball fired his rockets at the Roland and missed, but shot the German down with his Lewis gun.  Walters, however, saw his rocket salvo stike the LVG and explode, tearing the enemy aircraft to pieces.  It was probably the first time inhistory that an aircraft was destroyed by air-to-air rockets."

 

How come I've never heard of this before?

 

Cheers,

Matt

Cape Canaveral 

  

[Jaegermeister]

Haha, because you just now read the book and those guys are 110 years old!

 

That sounds like a great mission to recreate. Thanks! Can you send me a scan of any other information on that particular mission that might be in that book?

[mattdanison]

That's all the info I have and it only came from that one book.  I have about 15 hardbacks on WW1 aviation/combat and have never heard of any air-to-air missile kills occurring until late in the WW2 era (Germans using air-to-air missiles to shoot down Allied bombers).  Anybody heard anything more about air-to-air rockets in WW1?  As far as I can tell, it never happened. 

[DD_Arthur]

On 12/14/2023 at 2:30 PM, mattdanison said:

That's all the info I have and it only came from that one book.  I have about 15 hardbacks on WW1 aviation/combat and have never heard of any air-to-air missile kills occurring until late in the WW2 era (Germans using air-to-air missiles to shoot down Allied bombers).  Anybody heard anything more about air-to-air rockets in WW1?  As far as I can tell, it never happened. 

 

Because you’ve never heard of it before it never happened?

 

Thats an interesting view…

[AndyJWest]

Firstly, there seems to be confusion over terminology here. In regard to weapons used against aircraft, a 'missile' is guided (IR, radar etc), while a 'rocket' isn't. And regardless of whether anyone shot down an aircraft with Le Prieur rockets in WW1, they were certainly in use at the beginning of WW2 - the Soviets had RS-82 equipped aircraft during Khalkhin Gol.

 

Somewhere on the forum, there's a photo of a Pe-2 equipped with rearward-firing rockets, which may have been the most sensible use for them, given their poor accuracy. You probably won't hit your opponent, but you'll at least put him off his aim..

[Duggy]

If it had happened, it would be well known, personally I doubt it.

Some cool photos here of Le Prieur rocket armed aircraft. ---   http://axis-and-allies-paintworks.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?id=15712