SPAD S.XII

History

French ace Georges Guynemer came up with the idea of ??a cannon-armed fighter after experiencing aircraft such as the SPAD S.VII. This prompted the company Societe Pour l'Aviation et ses Derives (SPAD) to develop such a system.

The successor design, known as the S. XII (or S. 12), was armed with a 37mm cannon and its standard machine gun armament.

From the outside, the SPAD S. XII looks like a further development of the SPAD S. VII model. The fuselage was longer than the S.VII due to the additional weight placed on the fuselage by the new artillery armament.

The SPAD again uses the Hispano-Suiza engine, consisting of 8Bc or 8Bec types, 220 hp each. Unique to the 8Bec is that the 37mm gun can be nested between cylinder banks. The weight gain also required minor changes to the fenders.

The first flight of the SPAD S. XII took place on July 5, 1917, followed by limited production examples. For the inexperienced, the system proved to be a minority, but lethal in the hands of experienced military pilots. Because the cannon system extends into the cockpit, the aircraft is not controlled using traditional joysticks.

Additionally, reloading the cannon during flight adds another in-flight responsibility. The standard single-shot 7.7mm Vickers machine gun is still part of the S.XII offensive kit, a carryover from the S.VII design.

While initially successful, the gun-mounted SPAD S. XII required a skilled pilot to operate the aircraft and weapons. As more and more resources were poured into the proven S.VII and S.XIII designs, the S.XII was limited to 300 production examples, so the system was never equipped with an entire unit.

Anyway, the idea of ??a cannon plane was interesting and perfected to the extreme during WWII and beyond.

Like the SPAD S.VII before it and the SPAD S.XIII after it, the SPAD S.XII was designed by Louis Bechereau.

Specification

Basic

Production

Roles

Dimensions

Weight

Performance

Performance

Armor

Changes