Most German aircraft of the time used water-cooled inline 6-cylinder engines. Motorenfabrik Oberursel made licensed copies of the Gnome and Le Rhône rotary powerplants, and Siemens-Halske built their own designs, including the Siemens-Halske Sh.III eleven-cylinder rotary engine, which was unusual for the period in being geared through a bevel geartrain in the rear end of the crankcase "without" the crankshaft being firmly mounted to the aircraft's airframe, so that the engine's internal working components (fully internal crankshaft "floating" in its crankcase bearings, with its conrods and pistons) were spun in the opposing direction to the crankcase and cylinders, which still rotated as the propeller itself did since it was still firmly fastened to the crankcase's frontside, as with regular "umlaufmotor" German rotaries.