Sopwith Aviation Company - Sopwith Camel: The Most Successful Fighter of World War One

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The Sopwith Camel is a British World War 1 light fighter that was introduced over the skies of the Western Front in 1917 where it quickly became one of if not the most successful aircraft to ever fly during the war with it being the highest scoring fighter in the hands of the Royal Flying Corp credited with downing 1,294 enemy aircraft.

History

The Sopwith Camel was designed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a single-seat light fighter to be the successor to the Sopwith Pup which was rapidly being outclassed by newer Albatros D.III’s used by the Imperial German Air Service. The first prototype of the Sopwith Camel first took flight in December 1961 and was entered into service on the Western Front sometime during 1917 where it saw immediate success. Throughout 1971 a total of 1,325 Sopwith Camels were produced where by the end of their production approximately 5,490 Sopwith Camels had been produced. Toward the end of the war some Sopwith Camels were used in light-ground attack roles were they received heavy losses, so to combat this, the experimental Camel TF.1 was developed in 1918. The TF.1 (Trench Fighter) was fitted with 2 Lewis guns fitted about the wings in a downward firing angle for the purpose of more easily attacking the enemy trench lines.

Throughout the war many skilled pilots became Aces, the most well known and successful ones being:
[Canadian] Donald Maclaren - 54 victories
[Canadian] William Barker - 46 victories
[British] William Lancelot Jordan - 39
[British] John Inglis Gilmour - 36 victories
[Canadian] Frank Granger Quigley - 33 victories.
An honourable mention goes to Arthur Roy Brown, a Canadian Ace with 10 aerial victories, who was officially credited with the kill of Manfred Von Richtofen, The Red Baron on the morning of the 21st of April, 1918 over the Australian trenches near Vaux-sur Somme in France.

During the end of the war and after the war the Sopwith Camel would see widespread use by the armed forces of many countries all over the world with:
The Australian Flying Corps
Belgium Aviation Militaire Belge and Groupe de Chasse
The Royal Canadian Air Force
France
Georgian Air Force
The Greek Hellenic Navy
The Latvian Air Force
The Royal Netherlands Air Force
The Polish Air Force
The Imperial Russian Air Service/Soviet Air Force
The American Expeditionary Force and US Army Air Service
And obviously the UK Royal Flying Corps/Royal Air Force
The last of the RFC/RAF Sopwith Camels were retired from service in January 1920 and the final Sopwith Camel in use was retired in 1928.

Performance

Max Speed - 182kph (113mph)
Stall Speed - 77kph (48mph)
Range - 485km (300 miles)
Ceiling - 5791.2m (19,000ft)
Climb Rate - 5.5m/s (1,085ft/min)

Specifications

  • Weight
    Empty - 421.84kg (930lbs)
    Max Takeoff Weight - 659kg (1453lbs)

  • Fuel Capacity
    26-30 gallons

  • Engine
    1 x Clerget 9B 9-Cylinder Air-Cooled Rotary Piston Engine with 130hp / 97kW

  • Size
    Wingspan - 8.53m (28ft)
    Length - 5.72m (18ft)
    Height - 2.59m (8ft 6in)
    Total Wing Area - 21.46sq.m (231sq.ft)

  • Armament
    2 x .303 Vickers Machine Guns
    [Trench Fighter Variant] 2 x Downward Angled .303 Lewis Guns

Pictures

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Sopwith Camel’s lined up with Dolphin in flight.

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Captain GF Malley, Australian Flying Corps, standing next to his Sopwith Camel, 1918.

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Royal Flying Corps Sopwith Camel in flight.

[Would you like to see this in-game?]
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Should it BR should it be at?
  • 0.0
  • 0.3
  • 0.7
  • New Reserve Aircraft (Mover everything up by 1 BR)
  • Have a separate TT for WW1 vehicles
  • I Said No
0 voters
Sources

Naval History and Heritage Command Nation Naval Aviation Museum
Sopwith Camel - Wikipedia
The RAF Museum - Sopwith F1 Camel
BAE Heritage - Sopwith Camel
High Sierra Pilots - The F.1 Sopwith Camel: The Unruly Stallion of WW1
Aces Flying High - The Survivors: World War One’s Iconic Sopwith Camel
The Aerodrome - Sopwith F.1 Camel

4 Likes
2

Lol, the most successfull… Everyone knows any SPAD at the time was more successful than this British deathtrap…

…

… Nah, just messing with you. It’s a nice and iconic plane, of course. Though there were plenty excellent aircrafts that could be considered successful at the time, for sure.

In Any case, +1 for me, as always, would need a complete WW1 mode IMO for it to work.

1 Like
3

Yeah many fighters from that time were successful however the Sopwith Camel holds the record of shooting down 1,294 enemy planes.

4

Yes, you wrote it in your description. Just saying that calling it “the most successful” based on that, especially when there are no such accurate stats for many of the other mass-produced aircrafts of the war, is still very subjective.

Only thing that matters in any case is that we see it alongside the other aircrafts of the time, in the game.

5

Is 0.0 even low enough for something like this, how would it compare to the current reserves?

6

WW1 aircraft are a forgotten era for aircraft in war thunder, they maybe slow but with a new tech tree style and new game mode. This shouldn’t be an issue I mean we have WW1 ships now so why not planes.

2 Likes
7

They would be pretty bad but overall it could be ok.

8

Aviator Snoopy » drawings » SketchPort
This one as well.

1 Like
9

It’s not low enough if you want to properly introduce WWI aircraft into war thunder.

They would need to be made a separate TT with a mostly separate MM system to avoid compression/them facing planes 20 years newer.

1 Like
10

That’s like calling the Bf 109 the most successful for claiming the most air kills, or the F6F the most successful for the highest K/D, despite both aircraft being objectively worse than their peers.

11

success doesn’t mean best, the Sherman and T-34 were more successful than any German tanks despite being worse than many, mainly because there were more of them

success is a story, not a statistic

12

But is it really fair to say something like the F6F is more sucessful than the F4U because the F6F went on less dengerous missions?

13

Never said it was, like I said success is in the story, the actual details of its use, you can’t really quantify success

14

But the difference is is how few successful aircraft there was during WW1 than WW2. Given that there’s not many options for most successful as a majority of aircraft performed poorly so the ones that didn’t stand out.

Also by pretty much everywhere I looked they determine most successful fighter for the war by the amount of air victories it had, and since that’s really the best figure to compare with from the time the Sopwith Camel was indeed the most successful fighter of WW1 which is also what is claimed by all the articles I could find.

15

Should be in BR -1.0.

16

I was just thinking if WW1 era were to happen then where would the Ottomans go ?
I mean Austria-Hungary can go to Italy via Hungarian sub.

So in order for the Ottomans I guess that means Germany should get Turkey as a sub.

17

The Ottoman Empire never actually made any aircraft of their own. They mainly relied on Germany to kit out their air force. So I guess some could go to Germany as some cheap premiums since the only differences would be in their skins.

1 Like
18

I see, well I’ve made a thread to brain storm ideas on how we could make WW1 work within war thunder.

2 Likes
19

+1