War Diaries Talk

Aerial dart

  • Stork by Stork

    What's an aerial dart, in day 29?

    Posted

  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    Flechette or Aerial Dart, similar in appearance to a metal pencil with sharpened end, suffering from some active rust.
    Link with images. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30087787

    Also more facts about the aerial darts with more images i.e.

    The whole mechanism of deploying the flechettes was rather a simple technique; a small canister was attached to the bottom of the fuselage of the plane which was controlled via thin string. Upon pulling the string, the canister would open dropping the flechettes on the troops or civilians underneath.

    Link https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/18/flechettes-peculiar-weapon-first-world-war/

    Posted

  • Stork by Stork

    Thanks- you reminded me that we talked about aerial darts 2 years ago: https://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000009/discussions/DWD00018n3

    The above discussion tells that aerial darts could also be fired from mortars, which I'm sure is the case in the diary I'm doing, since aerial darts have been mentioned 5 times but there is no mention of planes.

    Posted

  • marie.eklidvirginmedia.com by marie.eklidvirginmedia.com

    Stork, I was reading an article about WW1 and came across this remark by someone in an article: "The “aerial darts” referred to in the diary were probably a type of trench mortar." Cannot find the link again however.

    It was well discussed 2 years ago as you said.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I have a feeling there may also have been darts which could be fired from a rifle, very similar to a rifle grenade.

    Posted