The long and the short of it. Today on Gus’ Gear I present two lances, one is German manufacture, exported to Argentina, the other is French manufacture and was exported to German occupied areas.
This is a German manufactured lance, this one was shipped to Argentina. It differs from the German issued version slightly. It is interesting how technologies that were thousands of years old were used in the Great War next to the most modern technologies. This photo shows the length of the lance compared to size of the Maxim 1908 heavy machine gun
The point of the German issued lance was a tapered point that was machined to have four flats (top example). The Argentine lance has a flat broad spear point (bottom example). The German examples are difficult to find while the Argentine examples are a little easier to locate.
This is a well known photo of a German Ulan armed with a lance while wearing a gas mask. If the reader looks carefully at the tip of the lance here and compares it to the photos of the Argentine lance, the difference between the points can be seen. The four bumps visible at the bottom of the lance just behind the tip is for attaching a lance pennant.
This is a French flechette, an aerial dart that was dropped from aircraft using gravity and altitude to provide the power to penetrate. These were packaged in boxes that allowed the airman to pour them out slowly as they flew over concentrations of the enemy. It is an arrow machined from steel, about 8 mm in diameter and 12 cm long. With a sharp point and about two thirds of the length milled to form thin fins to cause it to fall straight for maximum penetration.
his clipping is from a German publication “Illustrierte Geschichte des Weltkriegs 1914/15.” It is captioned “Steel arrows from a french aeroplane.”
This is an illustration from a French publication “Le Mirror” from December of 1914. It is captioned “The terrible rain of steel : Aircraft throws flechettes at a patrol of German Dragoons.” The type of flechette shown in the previous photo is well illustrated in this drawing. These were used early in the war but soon dropped (sorry, no pun intended) as they were not very effective. They were expensive to manufacture and while they were deadly, they could not be accurately placed on target due to the need to drop them from high altitude.
