Sopwith Buffalo

The Sopwith Buffalo was an armoured two-seat fighter and reconnaissance biplane of 1918. In July 1918 the British Air Ministry asked Sopwith, which was already building the armoured Salamander, for an armoured aircraft to fly the dangerous contact patrol mission, keeping in touch with attacking troops at low level over enemy trenches where small-arms fire caused heavy casualties. Sopwith answered with the 3F.2 Buffalo, a single-engined tractor biplane with two-bay wooden wings and a 230 hp Bentley BR.2 rotary engine, carrying a forward-firing Vickers gun and a Lewis gun for the observer. Two were built, and no production followed because the end of the war removed the need for such an aircraft.