César Battaille and his bombs - I have been looking for a long time for such info but almost to no avail, besides this couple of additional pics and a few details:
Battaille was a very productive inventor who developped his own triplane in 1911. With the beginning of ww1, he enlisted in the Belgian army and began to submit the following bombs patents:
29 September 29th, 1914 : « Flèche ou obus incendiaire » en vue d’être utilisée contre les dirigeables - Incendiary Dart or Shell to be used against Airships
June 10th, 1915 : « bombe à fusée inversée et à grand pouvoir d’inflammation » - Incendiary Intensive Bomb with inverted fuze ( whatever this last thing may be)
January 7th, 1916: « fléchette oxhydrique » - Incendiary Dart) These darts will be successfully tested from the 1st floor of the Eiffel tower in July.
He also developed a new bomb sight and at least two systems of bomb racks.
His new bombs were tested operationally on May 31st, 1915, himself serving as observer/bomber, the pilot being Lt Henri Crombez
In the night of August 22nd 1915, he will test, again with Lt Crombez, a 30kg bomb and two 15kg bombs.
On November 20th, 1915, he will test over the sea a fragmentation bomb (bombe « shrapnel ») with Capt Jacquet as pilot.
A further testing of bombs will take place on July 7th, 1915 with Capt Dony as pilot.
The third photo legend seems to indicate that, together with Bataille, two other people were involved in the development of these bombs: Georges Nélis a his deputy, Watteux (no details on these).
He was also an artist, his sculptures being still appearing in auctions from time to time
All new info will be quite welcome.
