ajcooper . # .

RE8 not so bad as it\'s cracked up to be?: 3 Squadron had surprisingly low losses. Although the \'Harry Tate\' was pretty pedestrian in level speed, it was still just another two seater i.e. it had a gunner with a scarf ring & a wide field of fire, could perform steep turns to uncover blind spots, & could push its nose down & dive for home with the gunner covering the retreat. WW1 flyers\' memoirs make clear the difficulty of shooting down 2-seaters who saw you coming. There are enough instances from 3 Squadron alone of RE8s fighting off attack to prove the point. I reckon the RE8 was good enough. A fighting type it was not, as 1 Squadron\'s experience shows, but it was good at what it did: artillery spotting over the lines, usually with allied fighter patrols within cooee. Much, much, much better than the BE2, from which I think its bad reputation is derived.