So, armed with my own tiny wobbly mount, I have worked out how the damn thing was mounted in a DH.2. Naturally, the solution was staring me in the face
Using the image from Woodman's book, and the drawing from the Windsock Datafile, I have this:
The patent drawing obviously shows a DH.2 and it scales out perfectly. The problem is, according to photos and drawings, the gun should sit further back in the cockpit than with the RFC mount. But it doesn't:
It actually sits a lot further forwards. Using my model of the mount, I think I have solved the conundrum. If the gun is mounted properly, it sits well forward:
But if a pilot reversed the top arm, it sits well back:
And that looks like the correct position shown in photographs
Why would a pilot do this? Well, in this position, a pilot could either strap the swivel arm to the gun stock support, eliminating quite a bit of wobble, or strap the whole gun down onto the arm and stock support, locking it up completely
This sounds exactly like what a pilot might do, they would only need a leather belt
Richard