First Eagles: Fokker Scourge

[33LIMA]

Recreating the dawn of the fighter aircraft in First Eagles 2

 

"Hundreds, nay thousands of machines have been ordered which have been referred to by our pilots as "Fokker Fodder" ... I would suggest that quite a number of our gallant officers in the Royal Flying Corps have been rather murdered than killed" Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, campaigning in 1916 against the dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the design of RFC aircraft

 

"...McCudden gave him another burst, and the Fokker broke off the attack. For the rest of the flight, the Fokker merely accompanied them, more like an escort than anything else. 'We live and we learn' was McCudden's comment on the deflation of the Fokker Menace story"  Alexander McKee in 'The Friendless Sky'

 

The deployment of small numbers of a rather inferior monoplane armed with a fixed machine gun synchronised to fire forward through the airscrew was just one of a series of swings in the fortunes of the main combatants in the WW1 air war. Shortly beforehand, French pilots like Garros and Pégoud had sent shock-waves through German ranks with similar weapons, unsynchronised but with deflector wedges to protect their props. And within months, the Fokkers themselves had been eclipsed by superior enemies in the form of the Nieuport 11 and DH2, which in turn were outclassed by the Albatros.

 

But it's the Fokker 'Eindekker' which gave its name to a whole chapter in air warfare, even if this owes as much to its exploitation in a British politician's campaign to secure a bigger role for private enterprise in British military aircraft design, as it does to the plane's own qualities. For despite its gun, the Fokker was a rather mediocre aeroplane, low-powered, with wing-warping rather than ailerons. And while its principal RFC prey the BE2c certainly suffered from a badly-placed observer with a limited field of fire, there are accounts which confirm the BE was not just the 'Fokker fodder' of legend and could defend itself ably enough if well-handled and not caught by surprise.

 

Anyway, enough potted history! Having recently flown Stephen1918's superb new BE2c in the hostile skies of Spring 1917, I wanted to step back nearly two years and see the BE (and/or its fellow RFC machines) from a different perspective - through the gunsight of a predatory Fokker pilot, hunting his two-seater quarry in the period which truly pioneered the concept of the fighter aircraft.

 

I decided to kick off a campaign in Ojcar's 'Armchair Aces' month-by-month campaign, starting in August 1915. At this time, Immleman and Boelcke were on the threshold of making names for themselves flying their new Eindekkers. Keen to do likewise, I created a new pilot and opted to fly with Kampfeinsitzer Kommando (KEK) Douai, based at nearby La Brayelle and flying against the RFC.

 

Thanks to the modders, no other modern WW1 sim comes close to First Eagles in its flyable planeset, just as Red Baron 3d set that standard, before it. FE benefits from an excellent series of Eindekkers by modders Laton and BortdaFarm. Versions available are the EI, EII, EIII (which look much the same but have progressively more powerful engines) and even the twin-gunned but overweight EIV. And there are some look-alike Pfalz equivalents. For this campaign, our mount was the Fokker EI, with only an 80hp engine and a single 'Spandau' 7.92mm LMG 08/15. Ojcar's 'Armchair Aces' campaign integrates modder aircraft like these (and many more) into the FE campaign system and was therefore a natural choice to try my hand with an Eindekker in campaign mode.

 

At this time, it was common for a flying unit on any side to operate more than one type of aircraft. Fokker monoplanes were initially allocated in ones and twos to ordinary two-seater units. While I believe you can do this sort of thing in single missions in FE, in campaign mode you have one plane type per squadron. As a staffel's Fokkers seem generally to have operated independently of the unit's two-seaters, it's easy enough to handle this by using the squadron roster, pre-mission, to ensure you fly either on your own or with one or maybe two companions. No need for missions with eight or twelve Fokkers lined up on the flight line, impressive though that may look! Operations in (slightly) greater strength become more realistic later, by which time Fokkers were often concentrated into Kampfeinsitzer Kommandos. I believe KEK Douai was associated with two-seater unit Flieger Abteilung 62 and actually formed in late 1915.

 

Our first mission was in effect a 'scramble', to intercept an incoming enemy flight headed for Aniche airfield nearby. Although air defence/air raid warning systems were rudimentary at this time, it is clear from many accounts that Eindekkers were 'scrambled' in this fashion and did not always just fly patrols.

 

To accompany me, I'd selected one other pilot, a senior NCO by the name of Rall, and here we are on the grass at La Brayelle. Assuming you haven't opted for an air start, FE starts you off in this fashion, with your prop just starting to turn, which gets around the issue of invisible ground crew in other sims (although I quite liked the invisible mechanic's cry of 'Good hunting, sir!' or 'Hals und beinbruch!' as you started up in CFS2 WW1 expansion 'Combat Aces').

 

 

As we took off, I noticed flak bursts quite low in the sky, ahead of us. Snatching a glance at the in-flight map, it seemed clear that this must be the flight we were intended to intercept. Peering into the sky near the tip of the trail of busts, I could make out a pair of specks. These looked to be heading towards a friendly airfield which I could see as I gained height, a few miles distant. Today, I would not have to look far; trouble was coming to me!

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA]

The 'Tizzy angle', World War One-style

 

Unsurprisingly, my 80hp Fokker was neither particularly fast not a great climber, so overhauling the enemy flight was a slow job. I kept my climb rate low to maintain airspeed, anxious to intercept them before they reached the nearby airfield, lest they be intending to bomb it.

 

 

As we gained height, I adjusted my heading to acquire and maintain the 'Tizzy angle'. This is nick-named after the Polish WW2 RAF pilot who described how the optimum intercept course involved keeping your heading such that the enemy plane stayed at the same angle in your arc of vision, as you closed. If it seemed to be moving ahead, you were liable to come in behind it and end up in a tail chase. If it seemed to be slipping backwards, you were going to arrive ahead of it. Keep the enemy's image fixed in a constant direction, just growing in size as you closed, and you had it right - the 'Tizzy angle'.

 

 

I closed slowly but steadily, watching the flak banging away. Looking around in case of threats, I could see another trail of bursts in the sky, some way off to my right. They didn't seem to be heading my way. My assigned target was in sight ahead, so I stuck with that. As any good Prussian officer will tell you, orders are orders.

 

 

The race was now on - to intercept the enemy airmen before they arrived over the friendly airfield!

 

As we came closer, I could see that my wish was about to be granted. Having flown Stephen1918's superb new BE2c, I now wished to meet it in the air, in combat, and that is exactly what these two enemy machines were. BE's often left their observers behind to carry more bombs but the emergence of the threat from Fokkers rather inhibited that practice. These two, though bombed up, were also ready to defend themselves.

 

 

It finally became clear that I was not going to reach the Englishmen before they reached the airfield. I saw the BEs change course as they swept over it and cut the corner to catch them, glancing down to see the impact of the bombs I had not been able to stop.

 

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA]

Battle is joined!

 

The airfield, its AA defences firing defiantly, remained un-bombed. The BEs sailed on…towards another airfield close by. I only just failed to catch the Englishmen before they finally cut loose with their high explosives. Fortunately, their loads just cratered the centre of the second airfield, leaving the hangars and their precious contents untouched. Now, I was about to make them pay a high price for digging a few holes.

 

 

I singled out the leading BE and swung in behind him, leaving the second one to my flight-mate.

 

 

As I was closing the range and lining him up for a burst, the enemy observer opened fire. Tracers whipped towards me and there was the whack of rounds hitting my machine somewhere close by. I nosed down slightly, eased off to one side, and returned fire, snapping out short bursts. The range was a bit longer than I would have liked but I was now committed to my attack. I hoped my fire would cause the BE to evade, enabling me to close the range more quickly. Instead, the RFC machine held its course. Suddenly, he seemed to stop dead in the sky in front of me, as if his speed had suddenly fallen off. As indeed it had; grey smoke billowed back from the Englishman and just before I broke away, out of the observer's field of fire, I could see that his propeller had stopped turning. Trailing smoke but under control, he was still headed for the Lines, but would clearly never reach them.

 

 

One down, one to go! But it was not going to be so simple...

Looking behind to see where the other BE was and what my flight-mate was doing, I got a bit of a shock. There were two aircraft behind me...but both were monoplanes. I stared rather stupidly at this spectacle for a second or two, before I had the sense to break hard right. One of the monoplanes was my flight-mate. But the other was an Englishman in a Morane Sauliner 'Bullet'. There were two of them, in fact, and their intentions were clearly unfriendly.

 

Leaving the BEs for now, my comrade quickly went for one of the Moranes. I seemed to be Number One on the other Morane's hit list and had to break hard to avoid his tracers. My friend seemed well-placed to deal with his chosen target; the other Morane was clearly going to be down to me.

 

 

As I turned into the RFC machine, it didn't take me long to realise that this was not going to be easy. I've been flying FE quite a while now and one of the good things about the AI is its variability. And the fact that you can quite quickly form an opinion about the skill of the individual enemy you are facing, from how he flies. This guy seemed to be at the 'hot shot' end of the scale, from the way his machine zipped about the sky and refused to be shot down.

 

My Fokker soon showed itself for the rather primitive fighter it was. Tight turns had often to be backed off as my machine shuddered on the verge of a stall. To make matters worse, the other Morane had avoided my flight-mate's attack and it was now everyone for himself with the well-flown Moranes looking likely to come out on top.

 

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA]

The tables are turned...

 

To digress a little, the warning you get when you're 'pushing the envelope' in First Eagles - a comparatively realistic audible and visible 'buffeting' effect (no 'stall horn', red light or text message!) -  is another area where FE really shines. Coupled with good Artificial Intelligence, Damage Models and (at the hardest setting) Flight Models, it's just a great dog-fighting sim. Combine this with sensible wingman commands and responsive wingmen, plus good aircraft visibility and a very serviceable view system, and you get a sim that's also good at patrol-leading. Dog-fighting and patrol-leading - probably the most important things for a WW1 air war sim to do well, and in my experience, FE is best at both. Add to that (including close variants) a couple of hundred flyable planes, unique aircraft and squadron markings, great aircrew animations, several theatres of war, campaigns to match, extra medal packs and skins plus all the other free add-ons, and you've got quite a package, light years ahead of the original rather limited release.

 

Meanwhile, back at the front...the skillfully-flown little French-made monoplanes stubbornly continued to refuse to co-operate in our endeavours to shoot them down. I was now well and truly caught in a close-quarter turning fight, without the height or the speed to 'extend' and then re-engage on my own terms. The urgent need to avoid being shot down myself gave me no time to try to seek help from, or co-operate with, my flight-mate, of whose whereabouts and actions I remained largely ignorant. What to do...???

All I could think of was using the vertical, in an effort to get him into my sights - and keep myself out of his. So I 'yo-yo-ed'. Having been turning hard, my low-powered Fokker didn't have the energy to go up, so that sort of decided it. I pushed my nose down, rolled into his turning circle until my 'lift vector' was ahead of him, and then pulled up. Still no good; he whipped past my nose before I could get off a round. Again! Another try, using what energy I had left. This time, more through luck than judgement, I found myself coming into him from ahead, as he appeared to try to foil my yo-yo by turning into me. Knowing that this fight had been quickly slipping away from me and that I might not get another chance, I squeezed off a short, desperate burst as he zipped past. My clumsily-handled machine shuddered on the verge of another stall and I recovered with difficulty. I looked around, fully expecting to see the Morane on my neck and about to give me the chop.

 

But no! There he was, low down and wings level. Wounded, damaged or just recovering from his last move, I did not know or wait to find out. I quickly swung my sights to bear and cut loose with a long burst which was rewarded with a stream of smoke.

 

 

The Morane, engine out, glided down to a forced landing. I knew I'd been lucky to get him but I wasn't hanging around to congratulate myself - there was work still to be done!

 

 

I watched him go for a moment, letting it all sink in, then looked around for my flight-mate. There he was, above and behind me, engaged in a turning battle with the second Morane.

 

 

I swung around and climbed up to their level. I was keen to see my comrade get a kill but wasn't going to take any chances with these dangerous opponents. So I started making firing passes at the Morane while he was occupied with my comrade - a bit of improvised teamwork. After one frontal pass at low level, I looked back to see the Englishman had rolled over nearly onto his back. I watched as he fell in that attitude into the ground, apparently unable to control his machine. Whatever the damage had been, it had been quickly fatal.

 

 

I felt a sudden release in tension and looked around again.

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA]

Not over yet!

 

What I hadn't noticed amidst the excitement was that our fight had drawn the attention of more enemy aircraft, This time, it was a couple of Englishmen in single-seat Nieuport 10s.

 

 

Looking behind me after the Morane's crash, I could see my my flight-mate was low down near the deck and fighting for his life against some newcomers. I swung around immediately and went for a Nieuport which was chasing my comrade all over the sky. I caught him by surprise and was surprised in my turn when, after a short burst, the RFC machine went on fire and plunged earthwards.

 

 

Knowing their reputation and my Fokker's limitations, I was rather dreading a fight with these Nieuports. But this pair - flying two-seaters adapted to serve as fighters, not as agile as the later Nieuport 11 'Bébés' - evidently lacked the flying skills of my first victim. To deal with the second enemy, I applied the same tactics I'd used against the last Morane. I let my flight-mate fight him, but took advantage of the enemy's preoccupation to have a crack at him as opportunities presented themselves. Once again, this improvised teamwork paid off and it was not long before another burst from my gun set the last Nieuport on fire, too. I've noticed that some FE planes are more prone than others to become 'flamers' and Stephen1918's Nieu. 10 seems to be in the 'fire risk' category. Anyway, down he went!

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA]

Unfinished business...

 

Some way off, a trail of receding flak-bursts maked the line of retreat of a single aeroplane, which I took to be the second BE2 from the flight we'd been tasked to deal with. To my left, I saw my flight-mate's Fokker turn and head after the retreating enemy. I did likewise. The German flak ceased firing; evidently the Englishman was out of the battery's range. But it wasn't long before another one found him and he was again under fire from the ground, including some tracer fire from machine guns.

 

 

By now, my flight-mate was steadily closing the range, undeterred by the 'friendly' flak that was bursting around the BE. The Fokker started shooting. Then he stopped, broke off his attack and came around in a wide left-hand curve, back into formation with me. Had he been wounded or damaged? Had he run out of ammo? Whatever it was, this was now up to me.

 

 

My Fokker seemed to have only a very small margin of speed over the BE and as before, I closed slowly. At first, conscious of the damage I'd taken from his friend in my first attack, I nosed down then pulled up to come at him from well below his tail. But pulling up my Fokker's nose sharply from level flight invited a stall with little time for sighting, so I reverted to making an attack from dead astern and just slightly low.

 

 

I started cracking off short bursts, in an effort to spook him into weaving, ready at the same time to dodge any return fire. At first he kept to his course, but as I bore down on him he started jinking, then broke into several tightly-banked sustained turns.

 

 

This made him a difficult target but seemed to give his observer little opportunity to fire. I managed to get off a series of bursts and a final one at short range brought the fight to a sudden close by killing the enemy pilot (who disappears at this point in FE, Strike Fighters-style; as in RoF too I think, after a short interval hunched down in the cockpit).

 

Job done! Six kills in one sortie is a bit extreme, to be sure, even in the fairly busy skies of this first mission. But to put this in context, if I hadn't been very lucky after kill #1, that would have been the end; two of the kills really should have been shared with my flight mate; and two seemed largely attributable to the FE Nieu. 10 apparently having a 'glass fuel tank'. Another point worth making here is that I have not (yet) applied the arc-of-fire mod to Stephen1918's BE2c, so their observers still have a particularly restricted field of fire - even by BE2 standards!. Anyway after the debrief, lucky or not, a nice 'presentation screen' advised me that my achievement was being duly recognised with the award of the Iron Cross, second class. Well on my way, I am, to the coveted Blue Max…if I live long enough!

Had I wished to, I could have increased the challenge by upping campaign difficulty from 'Normal' to 'Hard'. From what I've seen, this increases the skill levels of the enemy AI across the board, to the point where the most skilled enemy pilots are really, really scary. But I believe this doesn't change your own flight's skill, so casualties there can be greater, in consequence. As I like to mentor my comrades and see them through my campaigns, I tend to avoid doing this.

 

Another point worth mentioning is that there were several other flights in the air in this mission, doing their own thing. This included some Vickers FB5 'Gunbusses' (one pair was the target of the other flak bursts I had seen), some Morane 'parasols', two Fokker B-types, and a couple more Morane 'bullets', this time from the French air service.

 

 

I have no idea whether or not I would have encountered other flights if I'd ignored my mission and flown a dozen or more miles north or south. But the FE campaign system can do a great job of putting you in the middle of what looks like an air war going on around you. To me, it feels very like Red Baron 3d and I'm fine if FE doesn't tie up system resources creating and/or tracking events you will (or should) never see.

 

As far as ground activity is concerned, FE campaigns are often quiet but can be as busy or as quiet as the campaign designer chooses to make them and the mission itself requires, featuring everything from guns, trucks, tanks, armoured cars and troops. In FE, I have seen ground battles in progress (as opposed to 'environmental' artillery strikes). But I, for one, am quite happy when it's 'All Quiet ON the Western Front', so long as it's not all quiet, ABOVE it. At least I can routinely see firing AA guns from the air, and even attack and kill them (though I have largely given that up since I started playing campaigns which also feature ground-based AA machine guns!).

So there you have it. This was not my first campaign mission in the iconic Fokker in First Eagles and it won't be my last. It was a tense and exciting mission, a flying predator but in hostile skies filled with unforgiving hazards and dangers at every turn. I'd been made to work hard for the results my little team achieved and I had been very lucky to survive that stiff fight with the first Moranes.

 

You can also fly the Eindekker in RoF and in OFF or WOFF. Although I could not resist the delightful RoF Nieuport 11 and DH2, I didn't invest in the Fokker. Superbly-engineered as RoF's Eindekker is, the sim's planeset just doesn't cover the 'Fokker Scourge' period and I had no wish to play the part of fodder for Nieuports, De Havillands or Fees, with no BEs, Voisins or Moranes to hunt in compensation. Hopefully, RoF will one day get a BE2c (and/or a Morane parasol or the like). The position in OFF is only slightly better; there is a BE for your Fokker to attack, but OFF's version of the 'Quirk' is basically defenceless, armed only with a fixed forward-firing Lewis Gun and further handicapped by CFS3-style bomber AI. WOFF, if you have the system to run it, at last remedies this, adding a BE2c with a proper pintle-mounted Lewis, a Morane parasol and a BE12, as well as an Aviatik on the German side - and improving the AI, to boot. However, FE has always had very good AI and it still has much the best planeset for 1915; so it's still a great option to really savour the experience of fighting in or against the rampant Eindekkers. Highly recommended.

[+ojcar]

Hello, friend! I really like your campaign reports!

 

I had noticed time ago the flame-prone Nieuport 10 and 12, so I updated both planes with a smaller "damage box" for their fuel tanks. I also "spiced up" their AI.  Maybe you have miss it!

[33LIMA]

Hola mi amigo!

 

glad you like the reports, Ojcar. And thanks for the info - I had the old versions, and am downloading the new ones now.

 

Next time against the Nieu. 10 I will not be so lucky!

 

Keep up the modding - looking forward to the next installment!

[33LIMA]

Footnote - the Enidekker in OFF, and plans for WOFF

 

Having mentioned the limited scope for a Fokker Scouge campaign in OFF, I decided to give one a try. The earliest you can fly the supplied EIII seems to be November 1915, with Jasta 1. This I think is long before that unit's formation, tho the staffel is 'badged' as recce unit FA 32 in its selection screen - the title in the drop-down unit seletion list, and the in-game plane labels, inaccurately show Jasta 1.

 

The OFF Eindekker is, like Laton's FE version, a nice bird, with a rather better-looking cockpit.

 

 

However, the fact that you can't start a campaign until November 1915 means you've missed most of the 'Fokker Scourge' and will soon yourself become fodder for DH2s and Nieuport 11s. There are some other problems too. OFF tends to allocate rather large flight sizes - for Jastas anyway - and the ten eindekker operation in my first mission seems wildly unrealistic. Even for the later Battle of Verdun 'barrage patrols', I suspect half that would have been a more realistic 'maximum effort'. Still, it was an impressive line-up, most of which you can see in this screenie:

 

 

The next problem was the unrealistic mission - artillery spotting for a flight of Fokkers! I think Bletchley's campaign mod reduces or eliminates such mission allocations. And anyway, you can just do as I did, and assume that the Herren back at HQ have had a little too much French wine the night before and really intended you to fly a patrol up to the Lines!

 

The next problem I had was finding any enemies. First mission drew a blank. There seemed to be lots of Fokkers in the air - including my unit's first flight of four, which I bumped into, and another Fokker out on his own apparently. But I only found the flight of BE2cs we eventually attacked (on a repeat mission) by turning on the 'radar' (yes I know it's called the Tactical Display aka TAC but if it looks like a radar and it functions like a radar...) AND by increasing its range to the maximum 8 miles. Otherwise, we would have missed them. The grey flak bursts (maybe British fire directed at yet another Fokker behind the BEs?) which trailed them either only started as we got closer or weren't themselves visible further away.

 

 

WOFF has reportedly tackled the plane visibility issue - not being drawn until about a mile and a half distant is not far enough - by introducing a 'dot mode' you can turn on. There was at least one report that this goes to the other extreme and that the dots can be seen way beyond reasonable visual range. Doubtless this will be tweaked if necessary, the devs having already released some patches.

 

Anyway back in OFF...having closed with the BEs I somehow then damaged my plane diving after them. I had to watch the BE's pull away from me as I chugged along in their wake, with my engine making rather unhealthy chugging noises. The Englishmen were undisturbed also by my flight mates who, having already angered me, as usual, with their poor formation-keeping, seemed reluctant or unable to close with the enemy, despite my increasingly-frustrated 'Attack!' commands. We might as well have gone artillery spotting, for all the good we had done.

 

As for WOFF, OBD has announced a 'Fokker Scourge' add-on, to be released soon, adding to the current EIII two earlier Eindekker versions and a rifle-equiped BE2c (development screenies showed the rifle was a mid-WW2 Lee Enfield No.4!). A possibly more useful addition would be a pilot-only bomb-carrying BE2c, Immelman's first kill being one of these.

 

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