Junkers F 13 variant
Junkers F 13 Junkers-Larsen JL-12
The single ground-attack derivative of the F 13, produced by converting an American JL-6. Armoured, Liberty L-12 powered and armed with a downward-firing battery of automatic weapons, it never got past the sales pitch.
- 1
- Units built
History
From airliner to attack aircraft
Larsen converted a JL-6 into a tactical ground-attack machine and offered it to the US Army. It was a drastic reworking of an aeroplane conceived as a passenger transport: armour was added, the engine was replaced with a Liberty L-12 of some 400 hp, and a battery of automatic weapons was installed firing downwards through the fuselage so that ground targets could be engaged without diving on them.
The armament
The idea of strafing with guns fixed at a downward angle followed directly from First World War experience, where attacks on troops meant highly exposed low passes. Sources disagree on exactly how many weapons were fitted, but they agree it was a battery of submachine guns or machine guns housed in the fuselage.
No sequel
The US Army showed little interest and the JL-12 went no further. It remained a single converted airframe, and it is the F 13's only documented excursion into purpose-built combat aircraft.
A revealing contrast
Hugo Junkers had deliberately designed the F 13 as a civil aeroplane with no military considerations. That an attempt was made in the United States to turn it into an attack machine says less about the design than about the post-war aviation market, awash with surplus warplanes and short of civil buyers.