Breguet Bre.6

The Breguet Bre.6 was a French two‑seat reconnaissance and light bomber aircraft produced by Breguet Aviation during the early 1920s. Developed from the successful Bréguet 14, the Bre.6 first flew in 1922 and entered limited service with the French Air Force in 1924, where it filled the gap left by wartime machines that were becoming obsolete. Its airframe combined a robust wooden‑cane construction with a streamlined, low‑drag fuselage, while the wings employed a single‑bay, staggered biplane layout that provided both strength and good lift at modest speeds. Powered by a 300 hp Lorraine-Dietrich V‑12 engine, the Bre.6 could reach a top speed of roughly 210 km/h, carry up to 300 kg of bombs, and was equipped with a forward‑firing Vickers machine gun plus an observer‑mounted Lewis gun for defensive fire. The aircraft’s relatively long endurance and reliable handling made it suitable for tactical reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and night‑time bombing missions. Though produced in modest numbers, the Bre.6 demonstrated the transition from wartime designs to more versatile interwar types and influenced later French biplanes such as the Breguet 521 Muscavelle, marking an important step in the evolution of French military aviation.