Simply the best - the SSW DIII

[33LIMA 972]

Flying the German Air Service's premier fighter in First Eagles 2

 

The Siemens-Schukert Werke's DIII and DIV are described with some justification in Gray & Thetford's 'German Aircraft of the First World War' as 'Without doubt...the best German fighters to reach operational status'. The first SSW D-type (biplane scout/fighter) was basically a copy of the French Nieuport 11 with a German engine and a conical spinner. But the DIII was a wholly-new machine, a barrel-shaped fighter built around the powerful Siemens-Halske ShIII rotary engine. Early operational deployment in Spring 1918 ended with the aircraft being returned for modifications to correct serious engine problems but - joined by the DIV version with a reduced-chord upper wing - the type was back on ops during the summer. The Siemens-Schukert was highly manoeuvrable and had an outstanding rate of climb with excellent high-altitude performance. They served with Jastas 14, 15 and 22, the Marine Jagdgeschwader and, in the home defence role, with Kests 4a, 4b, 5, 6 & 8. Their work in the latter capacity inspired a member of the Independent Force, formed to mount 'strategic' bombing missions into Germany, to pen the following appreciation:

 

'It's not the Pfalz or the Fokker Scout

It's the Siemens Schuckert that we worry about

They do fly high, with the beaucoup speed

We can thank our stars that it's the pilots they need!'    

 

The plane and the mission

 

First Eagles is one of the very few sims ever to have featured this outstanding warplane, courtesy of the A Team Skunkworks. Public assess to their functional download pages is by email application only and once granted, care must be taken to observe the site's download and usage rules, but it's very worthwhile as the A Team's collection includes some excellent and essential WW1 types like the Sopwith Pup and Triplane.

 

http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/

 

In fact, as the A Team acknowledge, their SSW DIII is based on that featured in Illusion Software/Silver Wish Games's Wings of War. You may remember that when released, this neat little WW1 air war game's great-looking planes and excellent landscapes and envirommentals had many simmers attempting mods to make it more sim-like. Sadly, these didn't get far beyond unlocking all the flyables and killing off the deadly rocket armaments, but it was still great fun and a highly professional and well-produced package, well worth a blast if you can track down a copy:

 

 

Back in FE2, I wanted to play a campaign mission so opted for Ojcar's 'must have' Armchair Aces month-by-month campaign set. In the FE campaign creation screen, I cycled through those for Flanders in the last months of the air war till I found a staffel flying the SSW DIII - Jasta 14 (which really did fly the type) in October 1918, flying from Masny aerodrome, north of Cambrai and west of the larger town of Valenciennes.

 

When I kicked off a mission, I found that the weather was awful - a few patches of blue sky visible but mostly cloud, rain and general murk. Not for me. I don't much mind bad weather in Over Flanders Fields, but only because - apart from the clouds themselves - it doesn't really hinder your visibility. In FE and in RoF, more realistically, bad weather really does clobber your visibility. It also makes for dull screenshots, because your plane is dull and unlit (unlike OFF, where the planes in bad weather look bright, like they've been spot-lit for a movie). Another problem with bad weather in FE2 is that you're stuck with it for the campaign, as it inexplicably lost the original FE's ability to vary weather, in-campaign. Anyway being stuck with murk is not my cup of tea, really.

 

 

So I edited the campaign's data file in Wordpad, replacing the starting (and in FE2, unchanging) weather - 'INCLEMENT' - with 'BROKEN'. That did the trick. Things looked better, and there was no murk to blind me.

 

The weather sorted, my first mission was a defensive patrol, behind our side of the Lines, down south to Bonvais, the far side of the town of Cambrai. Two aircraft were allocated to the mission but as I usually do, I opted to pick three to accompany me, selecting Vizefeldwebels Neumann, Heim and Josten from the bottom of the staffel roster screen.

 

Here we are on the grass at Masny. The SSW is one of the relatively few FE planes not to feature individual aircraft markings, and although there is at least one different skin available, I elected to stick with the stock one, with a snake-marked brown fuselage and 'lozenge' pre-printed fabric wings. As usual with FE planes, there's plenty of animation - wheels, pilot, control surfaces, the rotary engine and even the cocking handles on the MGs. And provided you don't have shadows turned off in the plane's .ini file, you get dynamic self-shadowing (in the cockpit as well as outside if you have the sim's graphics/shadows option set to 'high' or better).

 

 

As usual, FE kicked off the mission with my engine just having started and my prop picking up speed, which is arguably more realistic than the ground-crewless self-starting featured in other sims. In the external view, I paused to let the others take off and then opened the throttle. There was little swing and once my wheels were off the ground, I decided to go for broke and perform an immediate test of my machine's renowned climbing abilities. I yanked back on the stick and up she went, cocking a snook at the row of Fokkers parked outside the canvas hangars to my left. Off to a good start, at any rate!

 

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

Onward and upward!

 

I called up the in-flight map and oriented myself. Clearly, the wide brownish line weaving north to south marked the shelled area around the trenchlines. The big grey splodge east of our airfield was evidently the substantial town of Valenciennes. The smaller one to my west was Douai, with Cambrai down to the south, just over half-way to my objective, Bonvais. The latter was a village barely visible as a meeting point of several roads, south again of Cambrai.

 

 

 

Still climbing, I switched back to the external view, corrected my course, and started blipping my engine to enable my flight, which was together but left and below me, to close up. The A Team's SSW runs either full power or throttle off, so blipping - either by using the 'B' key or just pulling the throttle back from full power - is the only power control you have. I'd have expected fuller throttle control on a late-war rotary engine; it may take only a simple Wordpad edit to the plane's data file to change this. But it's no big deal, and it certainly didn't stop me from climbing rapidly in the fashion I'd expect for a plane with the SSW DIII's reputation.

 

 

FE2 doesn't include seasonal terrain by default but I have FEG as well and copied across the seasonal terrain textures; hence the dull terrain shades. If you can't do this, there are user-made seasonal terrain textures available here at CombatAce, in the FE downloads secrion.

 

Here's the view from the DIII cockpit. The later SSW DIV's reduced-chord upper wing will have improved pilot visibility, whatver other benefits it conferred. From photographs I've seen, this cockpit is quite an accurate representation. FE/FE2 supports head tracking but I'm quite happy to make do with mouselook, panning and padlock, which are all supported and work well in this sim.

 

 

Having quickly climbed up to about five thousand feet - rather above the briefed mission height - and very glad I'd defied Mother Nature and improved the weather and hence the visibility - I looked around. On the climb out, I'd noticed a pair of inoffensive and undoubtedly German two-seaters pottering about low down and close to another nearby airfield. But now the skies seemed clear - no planes, no flak bursts. So I decided to 'warp' (=Ctrl+N, 'next encounter'). As it usually does if there's no enemies en route, this brought us out at the 'initial point', at the briefed mission height of a couple of thousand feet, closer to the front and a mile or so short of our objective area, Bonvais.

 

 

I began another climb, the better to tackle whatever might lie ahead. I hadn't got very far when there was an explosion nearby, then another, each accompanied by a flash which quickly faded to a large puff of grey smoke. Enemy AA fire, and quite accurate. We were still some way on our side of the Lines, a sign that all was not well below. But in FE, flak often fires a short way over into enemy territory, so I thought no more of it.

 

 

Continuing my climb, I looked for any sign of enemies in the air, concentrating ahead, in the direction of our objective. That way, the skies looked clear…but not behind us. Finally looking around, I saw the black German flak bursts immediately, cursing myself for not having checked behind us sooner. They seemed fairly close, and they were definitely above us. I turned into them without further ado, followed by my flight-mates.

 

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

First blood!

 

I peered at the flak bursts, looking for their target. At first they'd seemed to be drifting left to right, leading me to hope this was a flight passing by, behind which we could creep. But the reason it took me a while to see the planes was that they had swung around and were now coming at us head-on, in a slight dive. There were two at least, probably three or more; the type I could not tell. I pulled up my nose slightly and aimed myself at the right-hand enemy, as we rushed at each other head to head.

 

 

 It seemed we each opened fire at the same time, tracers briefly flashing back and forth across the rapidly-diminishing gap between us. He came straight at me, unflinching. I felt a suddden apprehension, realising I was now staring virtual death in the face. I made a slight but rapid movement of my controls, right at the last minute, praying he would not mirror - and cancel out - my move. Then whoa!!! ...and relief as he flashed past, missing me by inches, it seemed.

 

Instantly, I pushed the nose just below the horizon and banked hard around after him. At the same time, I gave the signal for an attack, just in case any of my comrades hadn't already taken the hint.

 

 

He was an Englishman in a red-nosed Camel. I was soon behind him and following his every move, snapping out short bursts as he turned and jinked. I gained ground on him, sensing victory. But we were not alone. At intervals, rounds slammed into my plane from somewhere behind me. I ignored them. I was determined to get my man and relied on my own manoeuvres in his pursuit to put off the aim of whoever was shooting at me. I continued to take hits and really ought to have paid the price for my conscious target fixation. I could clearly see the increasing number of holes and tears in the wings around me.

 

 

But suddenly, the Camel under my guns sprouted a trail of grey smoke and I saw his prop spin to halt. Enough! Now it's time to spare myself the same fate! I broke hard left, determined to revenge myself on the chap who'd been trying to kill me.

 

 

Meanwhile, my flight-mates had started their own merry dance. A second Camel was after one of my men, but he in turn had a Siemens-Schukert on his own tail.

 

 

The two Camels were not alone. The enemy behind me was in an SE5, as it happened. My third flight-mate had quickly settled the hash of one of his friends, whose burning machine left a dark banner of greasy smoke staining the heavens, but it would be up to me to deal with the other SE

 

 

This didn't take long. A tight turn brought me out behind and below him and a long-range burst sent him down, engine smoking.

 

 

Having knocked down the SE, I turned into a climbing spiral at full power and looked around. My trusty machine was well-holed - FE visual damage modelling tends to over-do the 'well peppered' look though it certainly leaves you in no doubt you've been hit - but I seemed to be flying normally. And we had evidently swept the skies of opposition. All four SSWs were still there, thank goodness, but the only sign of our former opponents was a couple of pillars of smoke from crash sites down below. I signalled a recall.

 

 

Apart from our flight, the skies now seemed clear. An 'unofficial' sweep with the excellent FE view system established that there were numerous other flights going about their business, including some US Air Service Camels and these fellows: friends in Fokker DVIIs and some more foes in the form of Belgian Camels and bombed-up RAF DH4s.

 

 

But none were to be seen from our position. It looked and felt like were now masters of all we surveyed. And so we were...in the air, at any rate...

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

A different kind of target...

 

Irritated, I realised that we were again under fire from enemy AA, over our side of the Lines. 'This should really not be happening', I thought. What was going on?

 

Looking down, I could see some gunflashes from the ground, a pair of weapons maybe a hundred meters or so apart. Two enemy AA guns on our side of the Lines - evidently there had been a breakthrough here!

 

 

I should have paid more attention to the planning map at the mission briefing! One of the neat features of FE is that this map - which for security reasons presumably, you can't take with you on the mission! - will show you a black line, bulging away from the Lines, portraying as a salient any side's penetrations into enemy territory. The map also displays ground unit symbols (in NATO format) and if you mouse over them you get a display of the unit's title (if known) and what it's doing eg '36th (Ulster) Division - Conducting offensive operations into Bonvais'. I made a mental note to be rather more attentive to what was happening on the ground, at future briefings!

 

What caught my eye next lay off to one side of the AA guns. There was a little cluster of four dark objects in a field, evidently on the move from the small clouds of dust they were trailing. Enemy vehicles…possibly tanks! I turned and commenced a shallow dive towards them, intending to strafe whatever it was, unless identified as friendly as I ran in. At the same time I gave my flight the signal to commence ground attacks.

 

 

As I swept in, I could see that my intended target was a troop of four British tanks. Their markings as well as their movements indicated they were not captured and in our hands [the Germans frequently re-using captured tanks, which were generally better than their own A7V model]. So I selected one in the middle of the group and opened fire as the range closed. I was not expecting to do much damage and I didn't. Apart from spurts of earth being thrown up around the tank, I saw no sign of damage. I only just managed to pull out in time, my second near-miss so far on this mission!

 

 

Looking back, I realised that, having turned right as I climbed away, I was now in a good position to make a firing pass along the line of the two enemy guns I'd seen originally. These were not the stock FE truck-borne AA weapons, but a couple of wheeled guns. So they might have been field artillery in action, rather than the AA guns that had been firing at us. If so, better still, as we would therefore be helping directly our friends on the ground. One way or another, those guns were now for the chop.

 

 

I took out one weapon on each of two passes. Both targets went up in a rather satisfying fireball, presumably caused by the explosion of their ready-use ammunition. Whatever it was, the enemy gunners were now well and truly out of business.

 

 

Swinging around again, I resumed my firing passes at the nearby enemy tanks, which were pressing on regardless in the same ragged formation. I might not be doing them much damage or even putting them off their stroke, but perhaps I might have been providing some much-needed comfort to whoever was facing them, down there on terra firma.

 

 

Looking right as I passed over them, I saw that the lead tank, which was a little way ahead of the other three, had stopped. Puffs of light smoke danced around the snout of the metal monster as his tracers whipped out at an unseen target in a hedgerow beyond the road just ahead of the tank.

 

 

As I pulled away, my ammo almost certainly nearly gone, I saw the other three tanks slide into line beside their leader. Whoever was ahead of them, was going to be in for a very hard time. I could do no more.
Regretfully, I carried on, away from the vicious little fight developing behind me down there, and called my flight back together.

 

 

But the war wasn't quite finished with us, yet. 

 

As we flew towards what was evidently the northern limit of the salient the English had pushed into our lines, I saw some tracer fire, zipping out horizontally from an MG on the ground towards what must have been German positions in a village to the north. As this was on my route home , I thought I might as well try to help out, one last time.

 

 

I nosed down and fired off my remaining rounds at the enemy machine gunner, pulling up just in time to clear the spire of the church in the little village where his targets lay. Phew! Another near miss!

 

 

I didn't hit him. This became fairly clear as I pulled away; the enemy MG gunner quickly switched from shooting at his previous target and sent a burst of tracer up my backside, instead. You can see some of his tracers on the left of the pic below, curving up after me.

 

 

I could have sent my flight-mates after this rather nasty little man but they were likely low on ammo too. I wasn't going to risk planes and pilots on this last target. So we carried on. This time the battle really was over and we arrived back at base without further incident. It had been an eventful mission, not ideally suited to the high-flying abilities of our fine aeroplanes, but with the enemy pressing forward relentlessly on the ground with plenty of air support, we could not complain.

 

 

A review of the debrief confirmed that I was credited with a Camel and an SE5a, while Neumann got another Camel and Josten an SE. I was also credited with the two guns destroyed. Three of our SSWs were damaged but we all made it home. In recognition of our success, the debrief finished with a nice medal screen. A citation in the name of Friedrich August III, King of Saxony, awarded me the Ehrenkreuz mit Schwerten for my courage and leadership in the face of the enemy, with a nice illustration of the medal alongside. Great stuff!

 

This was a typically eventful, satisfying and enjoyable First Eagles mission. For me, it reaffirmed why, of all the WW1 air combat sims I've played (FCG, RB3D, OFF, RoF, CFS2+Combat Aces, IL2+DBW 1916, FEG, FE2) I consider FEG/FE2 - thanks to a great combination of solid core features, all the better for the many great mods freely available from the skilled hands of so many talented people - to be 'simply the best'.