IL-2 WW1, Part 3 - air-to-air at last!

[33LIMA 972]

My first couple of missions in the IL2 Dark Blue World 1916 'Code of Honour' campaign hadn't given me much experience of dogfighting. It was to remedy this that I returned to skies over the Western Front with the RFC's 56 Squadron. This time, I got my money's worth (proverbially speaking, of course, the mod & campaign being free).

 

From the mission briefing below, you'll see that an obliging Hun pilot had evidently decided to help me fill the air-to-air gap in my logbook, by challenging me to a duel! One thing about scripted mission campaigns - they can provide a degree of variety which you tend not to get in 'dynamic' or 'random mission generator' equivalents.

 

 

This mission was an air start, placing me just short of the duel's appointed location, over the Lines. For this mission, I'd chosen another attractive 60 Squadron skin in the 'aircraft setup' screen, this time I think of a machine flown by New Zealand ace 'Grid' Caldwell, hence presumably the 'silver fern' marking on the upper fin.

 

 

Staring ahead into Hunland, I soon made out a dark speck at about my level, drifting slightly left from the glare of the rising sun, to the East.

 

 

There was no sign of AA fire but I nevertheless took this to be my enemy, arriving for our appointment and not hesitating to meet me on my side of the Lines. I climbed slightly in the hope of starting the fight with a bit of a height advantage but it was not to be. The enemy had seen me too and came straight at me. So we started with a head on pass. I'm not actually sure if he was firing at me, but I was certainly firing at him, as the range rapidly closed.

 

 

As he swept past, I saw he was a light blue Roland DII, one of the types unique (I think) to DBW 1916. This was not a particularly successful machine and served in small numbers, usually in quieter sectors or secondary theatres, so it was a bit out of place in a hot sector of the Western Front in July 1917. Pilots reportedly disliked the unusual and view-blocking centre section pylon (replaced with more conventional struts in the later DIII model) and were not impressed by the heaviness of the controls; but my opponent seemed not in the least put off by any of this, for he threw his kite about quite readily, making plenty of use of the vertical.

 

 

The combat seemed to resolve itself into a series of near head-on passes, as each of us tried to get his nose around faster. This is where things started to get awkward. I soon realised I was suffering from two fairly serious issues.

 

First, there was the IL2 padlock. Perhaps it was partly unfamiliarity, and perhaps it was IL2's padlock limitations (range and angle?), arguably preferable to the padlocks of First Eagles, Over Flanders Fields and Rise of Flight, which are easier to engage and maintain. Of course, X-ray vision is not realistic but I'm with the crowd who thinks that padlock should not break too soon after a target disappears behind some part of your plane, given you should often be able to extrapolate his course and pick him up coming out the other side, without too much fuss. Anyway, whatever it was, I was mostly unable to initiate or hold a padlock on my foe. Not being a fan of head-tracking kit, I was reduced to using mouselook to (try to) keep 'eyes on' the Roland.

 

The second issue was the very poor visibility from my plane. Being in the middle of a fight for my virtual life, I wasn't much bothered about the rendering issues in my SE5's virtual cockpit (which the plane's readme describes as 'provisional', so the much-needed improvement may be coming). The problem was that the wings - mainly the upper one, with its inaccurately-placed and too-thick struts supporting an odd, drooping centre section -  blocked a great deal of my view.  I know that Fifty-six's pilots lowered the seat position before taking their SE's to war, thereby losing some of the ability to see over the upper wing that persuaded the Royal Aircraft Factory to adopt the original, higher seat. But I also know that even with the lowered seat position, which was adopted as standard, visibility from the SE was still considered very good, ace James McCudden specifically commending it. The view from the SE in the 'big three' current WW1 sims seems much better, and I have flown a dogfight in the RoF version using only mouselook and without undue difficulty. Adjusting the zoom setting seemed to make no difference. I could have switched to the IL2 'no cockpit' view but dislike using such features, useful though they may be.

 

Despite these handicaps, I did manage to pick up the dipping and turning Roland now and again. I even managed to get behind and put some rounds into him.

 

 

As I drew away from my firing pass, sure that I had got some solid hits, I watched my enemy carefully. I saw that he seemed to be flying much more sluggishly. It was time for the kill! But when it came, it wasn't the Roland who got the chop, it was me!

 

 

The cause of my virtual and fiery demise was not immediately apparent to me. There had been no AA fire in this mission and I was fairly sure that 'Archie' was not responsible for my losing the duel. I reckoned I'd been hit my MG fire from another aeroplane and sure enough, the Hun had not been alone. A couple of his mates had been in the air and had decided to intervene. All terribly unfair, of course.

 

Furthermore, my assailants seemed to have come a long way, for the privilege of despatching me. All the way from Austria and the Italian front, in fact. They were flying one of the distinctive versions of the Albatros DIII built in Austria by Oeffag. I'm pretty sure that the Austrians had better things to do their precious Albatrosses than send them to the Western Front. And as DBW 1916 now has models available of the German-built DIII and DV, there was really no need for the Austrian variant to show up. But show up they had and that was that.

 

 

To get my own back, I re-flew the mission. This time, I made a point of settling the Roland's hash without delay, making a greater effort not to lose sight of him and to hit him hard when I could.

 

 

I then gained height and flew around, to see if the two wayward Austrians would show up; and if so, whether I could repay them in kind for their services on the previous mission. I'm guessing their arrival was time-triggered, for they duly appeared.

 

 

This time, with a height advantage, I was able to pick out one of the enemy and fell on him: 'the Devil take the hindmost' as they say. I soon sent him down, apparently wounded, to a crash which, I'm sorry to say, made rather a mess of his nice aeroplane.

 

 

The other fellow lasted a bit longer. We had a short dogfight but I got behind him and hammered away until he leveled off and slowed down. I overshot but he was evidently in no condition to do anything about it.

 

 

At this point, those padlock and visibility issues got the better of me again and I lost sight of him for a while. When next I saw him, he was flying away quite fast, straight and level, in an apparently random direction; more to the south, rather than due east towards nearby German territory. Perhaps he had decided to call it quits on the Western Front and head back to Austria! Either way, I have seen seemingly-damaged Artificial Intelligence enemies disengage like this before, in IL-2, and they can be quite hard to catch up with. It took me a while to overhaul him but I finally did so.

 

IL-2 AI pilots appear impossible to creep up behind as they always seem to spot you and break; just as you are about to shoot, usually! The Austrian in the V-strutter was no exception but I was half-expecting it and his attempt to turn out of my way didn't save him.

 

 

In fact, his random (?) escape route had taken him towards my own airfield, which I recognised from previous missions; he had crashed just a short distance away. I trust the chaps on the ground will confirm my kill, if not all three.

 

 

Before I offer any further impressions of DBW 1916 in its latest iteration, I'm going to swap sides and have a crack flying for the Kaiser, in one of the several authentic German fighter (aka 'scout') types now available in DBW 1916. Watch this space for the mission report!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Great review..I have this installed, but it doesnt look anywhere near as good as this!

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks WM! Can't think why your install doesn't look as good, which is a shame as the IL-2 environmental and lighting effects are one of the strong points of this mod. Despite having only an 8800GT I can manage graphics maxed out with 'Perfect' settings with this. Maybe the SE5 missions pictured happen to be set in weather and at times of day when the lighting effects are seen to best effect; at other times, it can look a bit more bland:

 

 

[gambit168 27]

Great review..I have this installed, but it doesnt look anywhere near as good as this!

Im running a 2007 laptop with vista & a 4200 card & i got the new HD mod working for DBW1916 

so the skins can be true color not crapy 8bit indexed im using the all in 1 pack  408.m to Dbw1916   +  HD mod for DBW1916

work great no frame hits at all.