Uber Flak

[sgha 0]

Just seeking some guidance here - I have been enjoying the scenery, weather etc, but.....

 

So far I have flown about 1 hr 45 mins in 3 missions all set in 1916. Twice shot down by flak over the lines. The other time 4 out of the 7 escort and bombers shot down by flak (but not me ) plus, I suspect from watching the review mission timeline, several other a/c in non-player flights on both sides.

 

The only thing I can see which affects the ground fire is the AI Range box which I have on "realistic", since I think it affects the air guns too and I do not want to change these(?)

 

The last mission my flight of French N17s (very amusing flying that sideways over the aerodrome, BTW) actually managed to fly along the lines for about 5 minutes before I was hit.

There must have been 8-12 guns firing judging from counting the bursts. This is at a time when there may have been only a few dozen AA guns in the whole german army, and shells were in short supply. So something is not right. My question is what can be done about it?

 

I appreciate that some things are CFS3 hangovers and maybe hard or impossible to change, but I would like to know how the adjustment is made if possible, given that there is no multiplayer issue here about everyone having the same game and I am quite happy to do my own editing if that is all it takes. I have looked in the SOH forum but my searches have revealed nothing pertinent. Can anyone explain to me what the thinking is on the design choices and limitations on flak in the game or point me to a thread somewhere that does this?

[Olham 164]

There should be something like "groundfire" in the workshop; put that on "normal" or "easy"

for the beginning. The sim is hard enough without them being cracks.

Also, don't fly straight. You best zig zag on your way - that helps a lot!

[+Polovski 419]

Stick AI range on normal and all should be well..

[Red-Dog 3]

Hi sgha, i'am with olham,what i try to do is aim for the last flak burst which will have you zig-zaging anyway.

[sgha 0]

Normal it is then, see what happens in the next few flights. Thanks for the tips.

 

Meanwhile I am exploring the files .... hmm, "burst radius=1", hmmm.....

[Rickitycrate 10]

Hi sgha, i'am with olham,what i try to do is aim for the last flak burst which will have you zig-zaging anyway.

 

 

I've been brought down often by flak too. This idea sounds real good to me. Just zig zagging I feel I have flown right into the flak sometimes.

[Olham 164]

Then, one of the zigs or zags was wrong, Jim! Lol!!!

[Rickitycrate 10]

Sometimes I zig when I should have zagged. It's an age old problem. But now I have a better plan.

[Olham 164]

I should think, they had something like that, UncleAl - I mean, they had planes, subs and Zeppelins!

 

But in the artillery, I saw another method, what you can do, when you're not sure about the target distance.

You just use different loads in the cartridges. So, one granade bursts at 7.000, the second at 7.500, and the

third at 8.000 - one of them may hit you with it's shrapnels.

[sgha 0]

I wonder what was available and when, reason I ask is because when I was a bowhunter, range to target was critical. The arrow path to target, was rather flat, out to about 20 yards, but at 25, it dropped as much as 4 inches, at 30yards - 9inches. And your target is only 4 inches in diameter. Which is the reason why so many Deer were wounded, and run away to bleed to death in the woods. So aside from clearing your shooting lanes ( don't take much to deflect an arrow), it becomes critical for you to know how far away an object is within 1 foot. a log, a stone, a tree trunk.

 

I used a pocket optical device, through a series of prizms, you see two of the objects in question, you turn an adjustment wheel until one crisp image appears. Then you look at adjustment wheel, and the exact distance is shown. It's only 10-50 yards. But it doesn't require batteries

 

Did they have such a system as that. In 1916 a good human estimation of altitude ?

 

By 1918 a foolproof method ?

 

In 1916 all these range finding devices were in their infancy. Your optical method will be very ineffective at long ranges since the angle between the sightlines is so small, even if you expand the distance between the prisms. Alternatively if you guess the aircraft type and know its wingspan you could calculate the range from the observed arc covered by the wings. If you guess the aeroplane type right you might get a value +/- 5% for range if you have excellent optics and a favourable angle, ie the aeroplane flying directly towards you or away. For an aeroplane at 5,000 ft this would still be +/- 250ft of error. But then this is just range not height - for height you have to correct for the horizontal distance between the observer and the aeroplane, ie more trig calculations based the angle above the horizon. Actually I do not know if WW1 AA fuses worked off time (ie range) or pressure (ie height). Anyone know?

 

But then this also assumes that the fuse actually works at the desired height/range, when in fact there would have been an additional random error due to manufacturing tolerances (plus a fair number of duds).

 

Another method would be simple trigonometry - take two sightings from observers a few hundred yards apart (a known distance) and then calculate the range and height, of course for this to work you need a well worked out system of communications and preferably a simple computer, or at least a set of preprepared tables.

 

All this is just to get range and height. Still have to get target course and speed. Looking at the target with a stopwatch gives a rough idea of course and speed, but since you can only guess the windspeed at target height and direction there will be an error as the shell is affected by the wind.

 

While everyone surely got much better at all this between 1916 and 1918 it is still something of a miracle that anyone was ever hit and the facts are that hits by high level AA were rare except where large formations of bombers were attacking well protected targets which would have been mostly urban manufacturing centres, not the front lines. In WW2 procedures were standardized, optics perfected, fuses were more acurately manufactured, propellent was more uniform, the guns had higher muzzle velocities, the explosive charges were more powerful, fragmenting cases more lethal and eventually radar could be used for height determination.

 

Hard to quantify the effect of all of this but I would make a preliminary guess that the ability of a WW2 AA battery to identify a target point and get a shot within lethal distance was probably about 10 times as good as that of an battery in WW1, more if you are just looking at 1916. The only disadvantage in WW2 was that the aeroplanes were three times as fast.

 

My worry in OFF is that we have WW2 standards of accuracy and lethality modeled into the AA but WW1 target speeds! This would make OFF AA about 30 times as effective as it should be.

 

Note this applies to high level AA - low level AA - certainly that from small arms, would have been about as lethal as WW2 as it is just a matter of volume of fire aimed by eye.

 

I would be only too happy to be proved wrong on this, if someone can explain how the AA system actually works in CSF3 or OFF.

[Olham 164]

Wikipedia was useful again here.

 

"The Krupp 75 mm guns were later supplied with an optical sighting system that improved their capabilities,

but these sorts of systems were not deployed by other forces."

 

Here's the full site about Anti Aircraft Combat.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti_aircraft...bat#World_War_I

[Bletchley 8]

The Wikipedia entry is not very helpful for World War I AA, as it is mostly innaccurate.

 

The predominant AAA gun used by the German forces was the 77mm, supplemented by captured 76.2mm Russian guns (these were favoured by German AAA crews as it had a higher muzzle velocity, but once catured stocks of shells ran out they had to manufacture their own). Towards the end of the war these were supplemented by an 88mm gun, with an even higher muzzle velocity, but these were in short supply up to the end of the war. The French used a 75mm gun, with a muzzle velocity similar to that of the German 77mm. The British used a 13lb gun with the lowest muzzle velocity in 1915/16, switching to an 18lb gun that took 13lb shells (also, confusingly, referred to as a 13lb gun, but with a higher muzzle velocity than the original 13lb gun): this remained the predominant AAA gun deployed by the British on the Western Front, supplemented later by a small number of the higher muzzle velocity 3 inch gun (on a par with the German 88mm for muzzle velocity and accuracy). Both the German 88mm and British 3 inch were converted naval guns, and neither of them were as mobile as the 75/77/76.2/13lb guns which were all converted field pieces, and were therefore used primarily in fixed locations to defend strategic location in rear areas or for home defence.

 

At the start of the war both sides had only quick firing 'pom pom' type weapons of around 20mm-37mm (1lb or 2lb for the British), firing solid shot, tracer or incendiary and designed not to shoot down aircraft but as anti-balloon weapons (it is thought that the 'flaming onions' often referred to by Allied pilots was in fact the German quick-firing 37mm firing tracer rounds). The shell of choice to begin with was shrapnel, but it was soon found to be an inneffective round against aircraft - the shrapnel rounds were shot out along the trajectory of flight when the shell burst, having little lateral spread, and even when the ball contents of a shell hit an aircraft then the spread was such that often nothing vital was hit. The Germans and French quickly switched to firing the HE round, which was far more effective as a near miss could crumple the relatively weak structure of a WWI aircraft, thus bringing it down. The British, on the other hand, had problems developing a fuse that would work reliably with the 13lb gun, and were forced to continue firing shrapnel rounds until well into 1916. These rounds burst with a characteristic white smoke from the black powder charge, and enabled Allied flyers to distinguish between those and the German HE rounds (bursting with a dirty grey or black smoke). It is possible that the smoke from British HE rounds was subsequently coloured in order to maintain this distinction, although I have seen no evidence for this, or (more likely, I think) that British AAA continued to use a small number of shrapnel rounds as 'markers'.

 

At the start of the war both sides were essentially firing over open sights, and individually targetting or laying each individual gun in an AAA battery. As the war progressed, however, sighting, ranging, and fuse technology (along with muzzle velocity) increased in leaps and bounds so that, by the final year of the war, both sides were using very sophisticated technology (including the use of simple electrical computers) and use of centralised command centres for each battery or group of guns, with a consequent increase in overall accuracy. From early 1917 onwards the Germans introduced into flak units a new type of advanced stereoscopic binocular that used trigonometric principles to obtain the slant range distance to the target, and a new type of mechanical fuze that was more accurate at heights over 15,000 feet (over that altitude the standard powder fuzes of both sides worked less well in the thinner air at altitude, causing significant innaccuracy and a greater number of duds). All fuses in this period were timed, not activated by pressure. The British and French both introduced ranging and sighting instruments based on tachymetric methods, which measured the rate of movement required to track the target in order to calculate speed from which deflections could be arrived at: the French Brocq system converted the movements into proportional electrical currents used to calculate fuse range, and automatically computed deflections were then sent electrically to dials attached to the guns. Height finders such as the British Barr and Stroud UB2 were also employed - this used two sets of lenses and prisms at either end of a 7 foot baseline, reflecting two images that were brought together to a central point (vis Uncleal). Height was obtained from range and angle of sight, using trigonometric calculations. By the end of WWI, the AAA was probably better than that deployed at the beginning of WWII.

 

It is difficult to find reliable figures for AAA effectiveness. The best figures are those for the German flak forces which demonstrate a significant increase in accuracy and effectiveness from 1915 through to 1918, with an expenditure of 11,500 rounds per aircraft shot down in 1915 to 5,040 rounds per aircraft shot down in 1918. The figures for French and British forces vary widely, and appear to be generally lower but it is almost impossible to make useful comparisons on the figures available as there is no indication of what the figures are based on - the best that can be said is that they are likely to follow a similar pattern. When we look at pilot and aircraft loss figures, the ratio of pilot/aircaft losses to AA fire and air-to-air combat is almost identical between British and German forces, when looked at over the whole period of the war. If we remove accident figures, the ratio between air combat and AA is 17% to AA losses and 83% air-to-air combat losses for both aircraft and pilots on both sides (so for every 100 aircraft or pilots lost, 17 of them would be lost to AA). This figure includes ground fire from MG and rifle fire. If we look just at losses to AA the figure drops to about 8% to 9%. This varied greatly from month to month, and should not be taken as a per mission frequency in OFF.

 

Personally, having played with the settings, I now use the "Realistic" setting now only for 1918, "Normal" for 1917, and "Easy" for 1915/16. This setting also changes the distance from which AI pilots start shooting at you, so some personal compromise has to be made here. Easy, as I undestand it, means the AI has to get in close before opening fire, and Realistic means that they will fire accurately from further out. I also never except ground-attack missions, or balloon-busting missions, unless the sector that I am flying in is indicated as 'active' (i.e. I am flying in support of an offensive). I think this is historically acceptable, and helps to keep me above 3000 ft where the AA is less lethal :)

 

Bletchley

[Siggi 10]

Excellent stuff Bletchley, thanks for posting all that. It's a shame the setting is tied into both AA and e/a, that makes it problematic to dictate a more realistic spread of settings vis a vis AA over time. So I guess the 'Normal' setting is a reasonable compromise.

[Dej 17]

Superb Bletchley. I really enjoy your posts, they're always so delightfully informative.

[dixieflyer 0]

There was an article in OTF (Over The Front) within the last year or two that had a good article on German AAA during the war. I'll see if I can dig out the reference.

 

Warren

[RAF_Louvert 101]

I've noticed in nearly every account I've read from WW1 pilots that AA was not considered to be much of a threat at all in terms of actually knocking you down. More of an annoyance than anything, and in some ways a help. When it stopped you knew you had some very unfriendly types nearby.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Oh, forgot to mention. Bletchley, outstanding bit of information Sir. Thanks for sharing.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

[Bletchley 8]

If anyone wants to look more deeply into this (my post really only scratched the surface), here are some of the sources I used and would recommend:

 

Westermann, Edward B. Flak: German anti-aircraft defenses 1914-1945. University Press of Kansas, 2001. The first chapter covers WWI and early developments. A good academic look at German flak development and effectivness, although I think he probably overplayed the effectiveness a bit.

 

Routledge, N.W. Anti-aircraft artillery, 1914-55. Brassey's, 1994 (History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery series). Another good academic text, best on British AAA. Very knowledgeable on artillery pieces, muzzle velocities etc. and sceptical about many of the figures previously published on effectiveness.

 

Hogg, Ian V. Anti-aircraft: a history of air defene. Macdonald & Jane's, 1978.

Hogg, Ian V.Anti-aircraft artillery. Crowood Press, 2002. I found both this, and the earlier volume above, to be a bit leightweight compared to Westermann and Routledge (not so much based on primary sources), but with plenty of good photographs and detail on artillery pieces. Just one chapter in each on WWI.

 

Hide, David. 'The flying shot: the development of anti-aircraft defence', published in two parts Cross & Cockade International (vol.36, Pt.1, pp.3-22; vol.36, Pt.2, pp.71-96) 2005. This is a very good detailed examination of WWI AAA, but with little information on effectiveness.

 

In order to get more information on effectiveness, I also examined aircraft and pilot loss figures in:

 

Henshaw, Trevor. The sky their battlefield: air fighting and the complete list of Allied air casualties in the First World War. Grub Street, 1995 (only covers combat losses - still waiting for the promised companion volume to cover training/accident losses).

 

Franks, Norman; Bailey, Frank; Duiven, Rick. The Jasta war chronology: a complete listing of claims and losses, August 1916-November 1918. Grub Street, 1998 (only lists scout losses, not two-seaters).

 

Bailey, Frank W; Cony, Christophe. The French Air Service war chronology, 1914-1918. Grub Street, 2001.

 

Jones, H.A. The war in the air: being the story of the part played by the Royal Air Force in the Great War. Clarendon Press, 1937 (Appendix volume has a month-by-month listing of British aircrew losses and hours flown, although only up to mid July 1918)

 

Pieters, Walter M. Above Flanders Fields: a complete record of the Belgian fighter pilots and their units during the Great War, 1914-1918. Grub Street, 1998. A very complete compendium of the Belgian contribution in the air, and one that deserved to be better known.

 

Shores, Christopher; Franks, Norman; Guest, Russell. Above the trenches: a complete record of the fighter aces and units of the British Empire air forces, 1914-1918. Grub Street, 1990 (only aces, so the loss data is a limited sample).

 

Fedders, Peter A. 'German air losses and victories in 1917-1918' in Over the Front, vol.19 no.4, Winter 2004. A controversial article, but with a wealth of tabulated data.

 

Sometime agao I also looked briefly at the casualty cards held in the archives at the RAF Museum, Hendon. An old article of mine on the German AA effectiveness can be found in the Reference section at the Aerodrome forum, 'Some observations on German anti-aircraft fire over the Western Front, 1914-1918' (a bit dated now), and there are several good threads on AA in the Aerodrome forum itself.

 

Bletchley

Edited April 11, 2009 by Bletchley

[Bletchley 8]

Forgot one:

 

Franks, Norman; Bailey, Frank; Duiven, Rick. Casualties of the German Air Service. Grub Street, 1999. Incomplete, but with a translation on p.8 of loss figures from 'Statistisches Jahrbuch fur das Deutsche Reich 1924-25' p.50 Table 9 listing 'The losses of the Aviation units of the German Army between 2 August 1914 and 11 November 1918' from data provided by the German Reichsarchiv. Contains a breakdown for losses, including 'shelling and ground fire' as a category. Not broken down by year or month, though.

 

Bletchley

Edited April 11, 2009 by Bletchley