Saturday 21 October 2017

Morane Saulnier L - Russian users

The Morane-Saulnier L was also license built in Russia. In 1914 the Joint-Stock Company Dux Y.U. A. Meller (commonly known as Dux) based in Moscow, got the license and later, in 1915 the Aeronautical Joint-Stock Company VA Lebedev (commonly known as Lebedev) got the license to produce it. Later, after the Russian Civil War, Bolsheviks nationalized both companies and Dux was called Moscow Aircraft Factory Number 1 and Lebedev simply was dissolved. A total of approximate 400 Type L were manufactured by Dux and around 30 of them were manufactured by Lebedev.
Of those around 430 Russian built Type L, it's known that most of them served with the Imperial Russian Air Service during the eastern front of the World War I where they served mainly as scouts and improvised bombers specially in the period of 1915-1916. Later when the revolutions sparked in 1917, they served with many sides of the conflict as it saw service with the Siberian White Army in the vastly enormous Siberian-Ural region from 1918-1919, when that army was disbanded as the front collapsed.
The Workers and Peasants' Air Fleet (the name of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic's early air force) also used some of them with the curiosity that at least one of them was damaged in the tail and they got it replaced with another one. It was also up-armoured with two American built M1895 Colt-Browning machine guns, one at the front, synchronized with the propellers and a defensive one at the back in the place of the observer. Their fate is unknown, but they were most probably destroyed during the Russian Civil War or salvaged for spare parts.










Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morane-Saulnier_L
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_Army
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Air_Forces
4. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

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