Fokker Scourge

The Fokker Scourge was a term coined by the British in the summer, 1915 to describe the then-current ascendancy of the synchronization gear-equipped Fokker Eindecker monoplane fighter aircraft of the Imperial German Fliegertruppen over poorly-armed Allied reconnaissance aircraft.

In August 1914 the First World War began. The war quickly exposed the frailties of older military arms, particularly Cavalry. Mass firepower, industrialised warfare, modern artillery, fixed frontlines and the introduction of new weapons such as the machine gun had made impossible for Cavalry forces to roam into contested territory for reconnaissance purposes. The High Commands of both the Allied and German armies were now denied intelligence on or behind the battle fronts. Only the aircraft, a new innovation, had the capability of gathering intelligence. Soon aircraft began flying over enemy territory to report on the location and dispositions of the enemy. Soon thereafter it became clear that one needed to prevent the other from doing so. Few had considered the aircraft a military weapon, and without any contingency or conversion plans aggressive airmen began taking small arms with them.

In early 1915 British and French pilots began fitting machine guns to their aircraft as the fledgling Aerial warfare arena began to develop. The main problem for both sides was technological. Both the Allies and the Germans believed the most logical way for a air-to-air weapon to be used was to fix the armament forward, pointing the aircraft at a target and then firing. Both sides strove to develop a machine gun that could fire through the propeller-driven engine—fixed forward of the cockpit—without damaging it. The Germans were the first to employ synchronization gear in the early summer, 1915. Fitted to Fokker Eindecker aircraft the technology proved a potent weapon. For over a year German fighters shot down significant numbers of British aircraft. Most of the aerial victories were claimed by a very few men—only 11 pilots claimed 120 British aircraft destroyed for light losses.

By August 1916 both the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the new German Air Service, the Luftstreitkräfte had re-equipped with more modern biplane fighters and reorganised their air forces in light of the escalating air war. The Fokker Scourage came to an end.