As a matter of fact the original GL32 was armed with 2 cowling Vickers 7.7mm and 2 optional wings 7.7mm - a very strong armament for the late 20s (not even the thirties!)
The aircraft were decommissioned by the French Armee de l'air and stored a few years before the SCW begun. When the civil war erupted, the Spanish and Basque governemnts passed a command for such planes as they knew they had good record and could be available immediately - as a matter of fact only part of the planes were "re-activated stocked aircraft" , the Gourdou Factory re-activating its production line to complete the order with newly buil planes. In accordance to the Spanish demands the planes were furnished without armament (this was not so much a matter for the Gourdou as they were initially equipped for Vickers, but most if not all French planes from the mid-thirties onwards were equipped with 7,5mm caliber weapons, while the Spaniards used 7,7mm calibers - the assessment of the expected problems of maintainance and ammunition approvision brought the Spanish to a very logical conclusion, as Vickers 7,7 and adequate ammo were locallly produced in Spain and a standard equipment). Although Spanish sources give the armament of these planes as 2 wing mounted guns, we cannot exclude that some planes if not all were also equipped with the original cowling guns. A next update of the mod will include this option.
Bombs - which kind of bomb exactly was mounted in Spain under teh Gourdous is a matter of discussion as there is a lot of conflicting data. I decided to go after the photographic evidence and the original data of the plane (about its capacity of military load carrying) - and the conclusions are easy:
Maximum total bomb load: 200 Kg
Either a single 200Kg bomb under the fuselage, or 2x100kg under the wings struts (a GPU rack was installed there) - or 1x100Kg under the fuselage + 2x100 Kg under the wings
It is quite possible that insted of 100Kg bombs under teh wings they were equipped with 50Kg bombs, but photogarphic assessment of dimensions makes the former assumption rather valid.
BTW - most probably these bombs were not French bombs but locally produced Spanish Bombs (or even later Russian bombs - either imported or locally produced) but the as French wanted to sell their old bombs stocks, their use is quite a possibility if not a probability.
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Topic: Gourdou Lesseure GL-32, Gl-633, GL-450 & French Bombs (Read 37359 times)
