The French firm of Breguet Michelin made a variety of bombers, the Breguet V was a pusher type with tricycle landing gear that was woefully inadequate for operational duties by October, 1916. It was slow to reach altitude (49 minutes to reach 10,000 feet if it was lucky), it was unstable fore and aft, slow, and slower on turns and almost impossible to fly on instruments. Its only saving grace was the good field of fire by the forward gunner, being a pusher plane. It was not used much after the Oberndorff raid where they suffered heavy losses.

The 2-seat Breguet XIV bomber was extremely advanced for Nov. 1916. French rules for bombers dictated pusher aircraft to avoid confusion with German aircraft so that anti-aircraft gunners could shoot with impunity at any tractor bomber. However, Breguet had a better idea, and the French government recognised it as such. It took only 6 months to design and build. It was made of the new Duralumin alloy, it had automatic flaps on the lower wings and good performance. It developed a mighty reputation as a bomber. Roughly 5,500 were built and many served with the French Armee de l'Air until 1926.

Technical Details
The Bre.5 was a development of the BrM.4, a pusher biplane. Later also used as night bomber. It first flew in 1915. It had a crew of 2 with the gunner in the front seat. It had no rear-ward protection and so was very vulnerable to rear attacks. It was powered by a 164 kW Renault 12b rotary. It had a maximum speed of 133km/h with a ceiling of 3700m and an endurance of 6h 15min. It was armed with a forward firing 7.7 mm machine gun. The fighter version occasionally carried a 37 mm cannon.

The Breguet XIV bomber was a two-seat tractor biplane powered by a 300 hp Renault Fe or 12 Fcx 12 cylinder V block, water cooled engine. It had a maximum speed of 112 mph and could climb at a rate of 420 ft/min to a ceiling of 18,290 ft. It's range with bombs was 435 miles. It was armed with a forward firing 0.303 Vickers machine gun and a 0.303 Lewis on a ring mount for the gunner. It carried 32 17.6 lb (8 kg) bombs or 22 lb (10 kg) bombs on racks under the lower wing.

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Images From: Breguet V: DND Photo, Breguet 14 with permission of Herve Champain. Check out his excellent airphoto archive site