What is this French aircraft?

[jednastka]

I stumbled across this photo on another web site. What are the aircraft in the forground with the huge turrets above the canopy?

http://www.aerostories.org/~aeroforu...p?nummsg=35236

Any other photos?

Vic

[Alex Smart]

Hello Vic,

Could it be a Breguet 730 ?

As there is a second one in the picture also ?

I beleive that about eleven were built up to and into the Vichy time and were eventualy destroyed after an Allied air attack on April 6th 1944.Up to three survived. Following German retreat only one was saved.

Armament was a 25mm cannon in a turret above and behind the flight deck along with five other machine guns.

All the best
Alex

[jednastka]

Thanks, Alex, but I don't think so. The Breguet 730 tail assembly was on a tall pedestal from the rear of the fuselage, much larger than the aircraft in the photo. The Breguet 730 was also a very large aircraft, 80 foot long fuselage. I believe the aircraft in the background has been correctly identified as a Junkers Ju-52. At 62 feet, I would say it is much longer that the fuselages in the foreground. Judging from the fuselage door and the man in the foreground, I would guess length at some 50 feet. Finally, I have never seen a photo of one with that small a canopy. Finally, the bottom of the fuselage appears to be flat, not curved in as one would expect of a float.

I looked up my references for the Breguet 730, and did not find a reference to the arament that you mentioned actually being installed. I have it as proposed, with only the 25mm cannon in the turret; no mention of where the other guns were to be installed.

Vic

[CJE]

This photograph has been posted on all French aviation discussion boards but the question remains without an answer.
Looks like an hybrid with the nose and forward fuselage of a Potez 62/65 and the tail of a Farman 223 coupled with a tank turret.
And there are two of them!

[waroff]

If you compare with Bacalan AB 80, the rear fuselage are same.
http://www.caea.info/fr/coll/maqab80.php

[Stig Jarlevik]

Waroff

As Chris points out there are two of them which immediately rules out anything connected with the SAB 80.

Certainly no Bre 730 either since this was a flying boat and much more modern in appearance than these two wrecks,which does not show any resemblance to flying boats at all.

As far as I goes this looks like composites of some sort, but I cannot really figure out why they were made. With such prominent turret on the neareast one, it really has to be that which is the purpose. This turret is at least partially gone on the second frame. Maybe the shot was taken late when their usefulness was gone and they are now ready to be scrapped for good. But a tank turret? Why put such a contraption on aeroplanes? There must have been an abundance of more suitable vehicles to use than aeroplane wrecks.

If the turret we see was the main issue, could really Germany have allowed let's say Vichy France to experiment with some kind of mock up like this and perhaps captured these hulks when finally invaded the territory? Did Germany itself experiment with turrets like this? I cannot recall anything like it though.

Since quite a lot of work must have gone into the "modification" I hardly think this is a work just for fun....

Cheers
Stig

[jeanba]

I think there was a reference to this aircraft in a french TV program called "L'Histoire de l'Aviation".
Unfortunately, the test pilot did not explicitely named the aircraft but said that it had a tank turret and was nicknamed "100 partout" ("one hundred everywhere") because max speed was 100 kph, so was minimum speed, and the oil temperature (in degrees celsius) and the ceiling (in meters)