The Albatros D.II (project name L17) was a German World War I fighter that was developed by Albatros Fugzeugwerke. Alongside with the Albatros D.I, which was built in smaller numbers, it was Germany’s flag-ship plane from 1916 to the beginning of 1917. The differences to the D.I are the cooling sytem of the wings and the N-shaped struts.
The static stable and manoeuvrable aircraft was alongside with the Fokker D.II, one of the main reasons for the allied loss of air superiority over the Western front of Germany. Like its predecessors, the D.II was equipped with two forward-firing LMG 08/15. They were introduced in October 1916; in January 1917 214 D.II were in service.
In January 1917 production of the Albatros D.III started, which replaced the D.II at the beginning of the year 1917. In May of this year only half of the D.II´s were in service and in November 1917 only 20 Albatros D.I and D.II were operational.