The early models of the B.E. 2 had already served in the RFC for two years prior to the outbreak of the Great War, and were among the aircraft that arrived with the British Expeditionary Force in France during 1914. Like all service aircraft of this period, they had been designed at a time when the qualities required by a warplane were largely a matter for conjecture and speculation, in the absence of any actual experience of the use of aircraft in warfare: at this stage all the combatants were still feeling their way and aerial combat, especially the need for reconnaissance aircraft to be able to defend themselves, was not widely anticipated. As a result, the B.E.2 was originally designed without any provision for armament.