The Albatros W.IV was a floatplane fighter version of the Albatros D.I. Considering the fuselage itself only, it was different from the D.I in various aspects. It was almost one meter longer, it featured a new raised upper wing with a longer wingspan than the D.I, the engine had a different cowling configuration in order to prevent sea water to enter the engine, it had different (and shorter) tail surfaces than the D.I and it was equipped with a significally wider propeller in order to be able to take off from sea faster.
Conceived as a floatplane that could defend the German naval bases in the North Sea and the Baltic, the prototype (numbered 747) carried only one machine gun but the next produced airplanes were equipped with two. It saw action mainly in the Baltic sea but also in the North Sea and the Mediterranean where a flight of 5 airplanes were sent in order to protect the Ottoman naval bases from Entente aerial raids the airplanes used in this theater had the cowling covering the engine removed in order to make the engine cooling faster. As the fumes coming from the exhaust tube could get the windshield dirty, a new exhaust tube was added.
Apparently, by July 1918 were delivered to the Austro-Hungarian naval aviation but, since we only could find text mentions, the drawing and the registration should be considered speculative. It's not known if those Austrian W.IV saw any combat action or where they were based on.
It was overall faster than any other floatplane fighter of these years, however when fighting against the heavier-armed flying boats of the RNAS (like the Felixstowe F.2A) it wasn't that successful given the big amount of defensive machine guns carried by the flying boat. Eventually it was replaced by two-seaters like the Hansa-Brandenburg W.12 which proved to be better for service in the sea.
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