New missions. 1918(3) August-November. At the beginning of August the initiative passed back to the Allied armies. In the British sector Haig was planning an assault on the Amiens front -an attack by the British Fourth Army and French First Army, with massed tanks and aircraft to replace the long preliminary bombardments of the previous year. Air activity was increased on all British sectors, to conceal the point of attack and push back German recon. aircraft from the front. Bomber squadrons, heavily escorted, were tasked to attack airfields and rail centres - activity that was to be strongly, if selectively, opposed by large numbers of German fighters flying in groups of 20 to 40 aircraft, above the low-flying two-seaters on ground attack, counter-battery and contact patrols. The British and French offensive was launched on 8th August, concealed by a heavy ground mist. The German Army was taken by surprise, and Allied forces advanced by up to 8 miles on the first day. The British two-seaters concentrated on contact patrolling, counter-battery work and bombing behind the lines, whilst the fighters were used for ground attack and close offensive patrols. By 11th August, however, German resistance and reinforcements had brought the Allied attack to a halt. The British and French armies had advanced 12 miles. At the end of August another British and French assault was launched - this time, towards Bapaume with an assault to capture the Arras-Albert railway line along 33 miles of front, and a French assault between the British sector and Soissons. The aim this time was to overwhelm German forces and drain them of the capacity to counter-attack by attacking along a wide front. Bapaume fell on the 29th August, Peronne on 1st September. This sustained assault forced the Germany Army to retreat back from the Drocourt-Queant line to prepared positions further back, with Lens abandoned on 3rd September. On 12th September US forces launched at attack on the St. Mihiel salient, which was captured after just two days of fierce fighting. This was followed by a lull in the fighting, as preparations were made for the final Allied assault to break through the Hindenburg Line. Air fighting was intense throughout this whole period, and up to the end of October. The assault was finally launched with an attack towards Cambrai on the 27th September, followed by an attack in Flanders between Dixmude and St. Eloi on the 28th, and on the Hindenburg Line between Cambrai and St. Quentin on the 29th. By the beginning of October the Germany Army was in retreat, in almost all areas, although the air above the battlefield was still being strongly contested by the German fighter wings. On the ground, however, resistance was now crumbling fast, and German columns were in retreat along the roads back to Germany....

New missions, May-July 1918. The German offensives on the Aisne, the Matz, and the Marne. During this period the technological pendulum started to swing back towards the Garman air service once again, as increasing numbers of the new types, and particularly the Fokker D.VII, started to give the German pilots an edge at high altitude over the Allied pilots. At the same time, however, the close infantry and combined armes support doctrines being developed and practised by both side brought the main focus of this air fighting right down to ground level, where the decisive moves were now being played out. After the failure to make a decisive breakthrough against the British Army in the north, the German focus of attention switched to the French sector. On the 27th May 1918 the German Army attacked the French and British positions on the Aisne. Within a few hours the Germans had punched a large hole in their line, crossing the Aisne and advancing for 12 miles, supported by ground attack and contact patrols flown by Schlachtstaffeln under an umbrella of near complete air supremacy provided by the Jastas flying above them. By the 29th May the German advance had reached Soissons, and was heading for Paris - only to be brought to a halt by US reinforcements rushed in to the defence at Chateau Thierry. This was followed by an Allied counter-attack at Bellau Wood on the 4th June, one that completely halted the German advance. The Germans once again shifted their focus of attack, and on the 9th June they launched their attack on the Matz. Once again they made swift early progress, 6 miles on the first day, but the French were ready for them this time and launched a counter-attack on the 10th July that halted the German advance. The Allied recon. and photo.recon work was intensified, as a further attack was anticipated, and the bombing of German rail centres began again, to try and disrupt the movement of German troops. When the third and final German attack was launched, it came on the 15th July, on the Marne against the French army around Rheims. But once again the attack was brought to a halt, on the 18th July, by an Allied counter-attack that pushed the German forces back right across the Marne. By the beginning of August Soissons had been recaptured and the initiative was once again in the hands of the Allies...

New missions. 1918(1) January-April : German Spring Offensive in Pacardy and on the Lys. Poor weather in January restricted much British air observation, but as the weather improved it was clear, by February, that the German build-up was taking place against the British Third and Fifth Armies opposite the Cambrai salient. During this period Jagdgeschwader 1 was joined by two new German fighter wings, JG2 and JG3, to give the German air service a numerical superiority for the first time. But they were remaining quiet, for the most part, trying to conceal the extent of the build-up of air units in this sector, only bombing the British rear areas by night and sending out high altitude recon., photorecon. and art.obs. machines by day. The British responded to this build-up with a programme of intensive recon. and bombing of the German airfiels and rail network by day and by night. Fighter squadrons were also being used to attack airfields by day - in part, is an attempt to lure the German fighters into the air (mostly without much success). But the main work of the Corps machines was with their artillery units, ranging the guns on to enemy gun batteries, supply dumps and lines of communication in the front sectors. This was supported by the fighter units, flying squadron-strength 'Close' and 'Distant' patrols to keep the airspace over the front clear of German machines. On 21st March the German Spring Offensive was unleashed, aiming for Amiens. German two-seaters supported the attack with contact patrols, ground attack and art.obs., with the single-seater fighters flying above to protect them from air attack. As and when the weather allowed, British machines were also flying contact patrols and tactical recon. missions, with fighters flying line patrols and ground attack missions. The bombers were attacking rail junctions and bridges, mostly but not always, by night. After eight days of heavy fighting the German assault was held along the Amiens Defence Line, a line stretching from Mezieres to Ignaucourt and Hamel, and on 5th April the German attack towards Amiens was finally blocked, just ten miles short, at Villers Bretonneaux. On the 9th April the German focus switched to the Lys valley with a surprise assault on the weakly held British and Portuguese line in heavy mist. After the initial breakthrough and swift advance, this attack was also held, although in the ten days that it lasted the Germans managed to recover nearly all the territory lost to the British in the previouse autumn. By the end of April, however, both attacks had been halted. The Germans were aware, though, that a decisive breakthrough was still an urgent necessity - In April nearly 120,000 US troops had landed in France, to be followed by a further 220,000 in May and another 275,000 in June. German attention now switched again to the French sector, for one more throw of the dice before it would, finally, be too late...

New mission, same new flak. 1917(2) covers the period May - December, starting with the winding down of the British Arras spring offensive and ending with the Battle of Cambrai in the autumn. During this period the French front was quiet, following on from the failure of Nivelle's offensive on the Aisne, and attention was now about to switch to the Flanders area. During one of the worst summers on record, wet and miserable, the British repeatedly tried to break through the well prepared German defences in Flanders - starting with the successful capture of the Messines-Wytschaete ridge in June, to prevent the Germans from gaining overlook of the preparations for the major British offensive of that year, the Third Battle of Ypres, that opened on 31st July but failed to make much progress, continuing sporadically after this initial failure into further assaults: on the Polygon Wood (end of September), Paschendaele Ridge (October), and then the Battle for Paschendaele itself between 30th October and 10th November. Finally, with the use of tanks, a partial breakthrough was achieved further south, at Cambrai, but it was ultimately a failure due to the lack of reserves needed to exploit the opening, and ended with a successful German counterattack south of Bourlon Wood. In this eight month period there was a considerable shift in air tactics on both sides of the line. The German air service, despite expansion by the end of the year to almost twice the size that it was at the start, was still struggling against numerically superior odds and an influx of British pilots now better trained, with technologically superior aircraft, and deployed in larger squadron-strength offensive patrols. To prevent the British regaining air supremacy over the vital 'active' areas of this front, the Germans responded by grouping their best pilots and Jastas into the first wing-sized formation, or Jagdgeschwader 1 "Richthofen's Circus", that could be moved along the front to wherever it was most needed. This had the effect, however, of taking the best pilots and units away from the 'quiet' sectors, and this allowed the British Corps machines to go about their daily photo.recon. and art.obs. missions in these areas with far less opposition than might otherwise have been the case. Both the British and the German air services also started to develop a doctrine of ground attack, a development of the 'contact patrol' into a full fledged 'battle' or 'protection' patrol aimed at the silencing or supression of the mg nests and hidden artillery batteries that formed the major obstacle to the advancing infantry (the product of a new doctrine of 'elastic' defence, developed first by the Germans along the Hindenburg Line and subsequently adopted by the British as well). Scouts, such as the DH5 and the Camel, were used for this by the British, whilst special 'Schutzstaffeln' two-seater units were used by the Germans. The period also saw the development of the first 'wireless intercept' missions on both sides, where the wireless signals from the enemy art.obs. aircraft were triangulated by listening posts along the line, and a pair or section of fighters, held at readyness, would be 'scrambled' to intercept (but often arriving too late). The British also extended the strafing and bombing missions into the German rear areas, targetting the lines of communication and airfields, whilst two-seaters would bomb the airfields and railway junctions by day and night. Despite these efforts the British had nevertheless failed to make a decisive breakthrough by the end of the year, and were about to be forced back onto the defensive as the German forces started to redeploy westwards after the end of the Russian campaign in the autum of 1917. The Germans knew that if they were to have any chance of winning the war in the west, they needed to strike now, before the USA's entry into the war tipped the balance decisively back in favour of the Allies...

New missions, flak. 917(1) covers the period from January through to April 1917 : the withdrawal of the German army to the Hindenburg Line, the diversionary Battle of Arras and Nivelle's great offensive in the Champagn. It was a period in which an Allied numerical superiority in the air was pitted against a technologically superior and increasingly well organised but still outnumbered German opposition, as the expansion in the RFC and RNAS saw hundreds of the older machines and under-trained air crew flooding into France. In the first months of 1917 the German army took the strategic initiative, following a period of poor weather that hindered the Allied recon. activity, with a well planned 'scorched earth' withdrawl to a prepared defensive line. British recon. and photo recon. resources were stretched to the limit, with scouts being drafted in to take on some of the work, as they desperately photographed and mapped the new German trench systems, whilst other two-seater units covered the advancing troops with low level contact missions. The advance was harassed in many places by German two-seater aircraft doing the same, and by aggressive but sporadic attacks by the German Jastas (although many of these were now in the south, to cover French preparations in the Champagn region). So much British effort was going in to recon., and on escorting the recon. aircraft, that Allied bombing switched to night bombing, of rail and communication centres, with little in the way of day bombing. The British then launched their attack on the Arras front at the beginning of April. The Art.Obs., particularly counter-battery work, now had the highest priority, along with tactical recon. and photo recon. missions along the front, with some scouts once again being drafted in to do some of the recon. work and also to attack the balloon line. Heavily escorted day bombing now resumed, mostly against rail centres, to try and stop the Germans bringing forward reinforcements. As the British threatened to break through at Arras the Germans drew in air resources from the south of the region, and the now numerically strengthened German fighter force (including new types such as the Albatros D.III) started to take a heavy toll on the British Corps machines, bombers, long recon., and their escorting scouts. On 14th April the French launched Nivelle's long awaited offensive in the Champagne, but the Germans had advance knowledge of the detailed planning for this and it ground to a halt, after very heavy losses that tore the heart out of the French army. By the end of April the French were back on the defensive and fighting at Arras was winding down. But new British aircraft types such as the SE5 and the Bristol Fighter, deployed too little and too late to have a significant impact, were already in France, and others such as the Camel and the DH4 were on the way...the pendulum was about to swing again as the British, having survived 'Bloody April' with the offensive doctrine intact, and despite heavy losses in the air, prepared for a major offensive in the north.

Readme File 31/3/2011
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HPW Rear Guns Bullet Spread Mod
 
by Herr Prop Wasche
 
Zip file contents:
 
HPW Rear Guns mod folder and subfolders
HPWRearGunsReadme.txt
 
Mod Description: The HPW Rear Guns Bullet Spread mod adjusts the Less Accurate setting in the Rear Guns selection box located in Workshop to make the rear guns for the AI observer somewhat less accurate than it is in the stock game. Please note that this mod does NOT alter either the Normal or the Accurate settings for the AI observer, on the theory that users who prefer these settings are masochists already who do not wish the bullet spread for the AI to be watered down any further. Instead, this mod is intended for those who feel the AI at the Less Accurate setting in the stock game is still just a little too accurate.
 
####EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS####
This mod should be used ONLY with Jonesoft's Generic Mod Enabler. ALSO, BECAUSE THIS MOD ALTERS SOME WORKSHOP SETTINGS, ANOTHER COPY OF THE JSGME PROGRAM MUST *FIRST* BE INSTALLED INSIDE THE PARENT OBDSoftware FOLDER--NOT THE CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields FOLDER!! THIS WILL CREATE A SEPERATE MODS FOLDER LOCATED INSIDE THE OBDSoftware FOLDER. COPY OR EXTRACT THE HPW REAR GUNS FOLDER AND SUBFOLDERS INTO THIS NEW MODS FOLDER!! To activate the mod, you must run the JSGME program LOCATED INSIDE YOUR OBDSoftware FOLDER and then click on the HPW Rear Guns file. Do not worry about having two copies of JSGME installed in OFF. I have tested this out and it does not seem to cause any issues with either OFF or my system. Just make sure you copy or extract the gun mod to the correct copy of JSGME, located inside the OBDSoftware folder.
####EXTREMELY IMPORTANT INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS####
 
VERSION HISTORY
 
Initial release
 
------------
Thank you for downloading and using the HPW Rear Guns Bullet Spread Mod. I hope that it adds to your enjoyment of Over Flanders Fields and HITR. I would again like to express my thanks and appreciation to OBD Software for all of their help and encouragement. Of course, with the exception of the small tweaks contained herein, all work remains the sole work and property of OBD software. If you have any questions or experience any problems with the installation of this mod, you can reach me at www.combatace.com at the Over Flanders Field forum.
 
 

Readme File 30/3/2011
------------
HPW Front Guns Bullet Spread Mod
 
by Herr Prop Wasche
 
Zip file contents:
 
HPW Front Guns mod folder and subfolders
HPWFrontGunsReadme.txt
 
Mod Description: The HPW Front Guns Bullet Spread mod adjusts the Accurate, Normal, and Less Accurate settings in the Main Guns selection box located in Workshop to make the front guns for both humans and AI somewhat less accurate, resulting in fewer kills per mission at each difficulty setting. The following chart gives the player an idea of the differences between the settings in the unmodded game and in the mod. Higher values indicate a wider bullet spread pattern, and thus a less accurate bullet stream.
 
Bullet Spread (OFF)
Accurate: .20
Normal: .50
Less Accurate: 1.00
 
Bullet Spread (HPWFGBS mod)
Accurate: .40
Normal: .75
Less Accurate: 1.25
 
Basically, this mod gives the player more options in his or her selection of bullet spread. In terms of bullet accuracy, the OFF Accurate setting allows for the most accurate shooting, while the HPWFGBS mod Less Accurate setting allows for the least accurate shooting. Notice that the Normal setting in the HPWFGBS mod is exactly between the Normal and Less Accurate settings in the standard game. I have found that this setting best achieves the goal of making the game more challenging while not excessively handicapping the AI's ability to shoot down opposing aircraft. The Less Accurate setting in the mod is for those very accurate shooters who desire a particular challenge. If you are currently shooting down more than 2 or 3 opposing aircraft per mission, you may wish to use this difficulty setting. Note, however, that your AI wingmates as well as your AI enemies will also have more difficulty shooting anyone down at this setting! Perhaps in P4 we can wish for separate front guns settings for the human and AI pilots, respectively. Hint, hint!
 
####EXTREMELY IMPORTANT####
INSTALLATION: This mod should be used ONLY with Jonesoft's Generic Mod Enabler. ALSO, BECAUSE THIS MOD ALTERS SOME WORKSHOP SETTINGS, ANOTHER COPY OF THE JSGME PROGRAM MUST *FIRST* BE INSTALLED INSIDE THE PARENT OBDSoftware FOLDER--NOT THE CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields FOLDER!! THIS WILL CREATE A SEPERATE MODS FOLDER LOCATED INSIDE THE OBDSoftware FOLDER. COPY OR EXTRACT THE HPW FRONT GUNS FOLDER AND SUBFOLDERS INTO THIS NEW MODS FOLDER!! To activate the mod, you must run the JSGME program LOCATED INSIDE YOUR OBDSoftware FOLDER and then click on the HPW Front Guns file. Do not worry about having two copies of JSGME installed in OFF. I have tested this out and it does not seem to cause any issues with either OFF or my system. Just make sure you copy or extract the gun mod to the correct copy of JSGME, located inside the OBDSoftware folder.
####EXTREMELY IMPORTANT####
 
VERSION HISTORY
 
Initial release
 
------------
Thank you for downloading and using this mod. I hope that it adds to your enjoyment of Over Flanders Fields and HITR. I would again like to express my thanks and appreciation to OBD Software for their help and encouragement in the making of this mod. Of course, with the exception of the small tweaks contained herein, all work remains the sole work and property of OBD software. If you have any questions or experience any problems with the installation of this mod, you can reach me at www.combatace.com at the Over Flanders Field forum.
 
 

New mission files. In late August the German air service is reorganised and the small scout sections are brought together into the first Jasta units. Boelcke returns, having recruited more pilots to form a new crop of fighter pilots, amongst them Manfred von Richthofen, and new scout types start to arrive at the front (starting with Halberstadts in the last weeks of August). This leads to a more aggressive attitude from September onwards, with flight or Jasta strength patrols starting to contest Allied domination of the sky over the battlefield. The British are still patrolling aggressively, despite the now inferior machines, with a policy of deep offensive patrols, long recon., and now frequent bombing missions to strategic railway junctions, airfields, and lines of communication. The photographing and detailed mapping of opposing trench systems also continues, with art.obs. and photorecon. by both sides. The German air service continues to send their solo photorecon. missions far into Allied airspace, but they need to fly ever higher as Allied flak becomes more effective, with the switch from Shrapnel to HE shells and development of better targetting doctrine and technology. By the end of the year the stage is now set for 'Bloody April' 1917, with the Allies struggling to push the German scouts back from their Front sectors where increasingly vulnerable Allied art.obs. and photorecon. machines are going about the daily task of registering the artillery, counterbattery, and photography...