Balloon busting in WoFF

[33LIMA 972]

Taking on one of WW1's more dangerous jobs in Wings over Flanders Fields

 

 

One of the features of the often-static trench warfare during 1914-18 was the widespread use, by both sides, of tethered observation balloons, both to monitor movements and developments on the enemy side of the Lines, and to direct artillery fire. Naturally, the air forces regularly made efforts to inhibit the effectiveness of these balloons by attacking them. This could be a dangerous occupation, for both balloon busters and those being busted. The latter were probably the first airmen routinely issued with parachutes, but they didn't always work. And aircraft attacking a tethered balloon were relatively easy targets for guns deployed to defend them. On the German side, this included an auto-cannon that fired bursts of big tracers which the British airmen knew as 'flaming onions'.

 

A few WW1 fighter pilots actually specialised in shooting down balloons. One of these was ace Rudolf von Eschwege, the 'Eagle of the Aegean', whose career was vividly described between the wars in 'German War Birds' written by Claude W Sykes under the pseudonym 'Vigilant'.  Von Eschwege developed a taste for attacking the 'sausages' but In the end, fell victim to a trap sometimes sprung upon balloon-busters, whereby the balloon was crewed with dummies and loaded with a large explosive charge in the basket. This was fired by an electrical wire from the ground, when the attacker was close to the target, with results that can readily be imagined.

 

Balloon-busting is prominently featured in my favourite WW1 air war movie, The Blue Max. Although the target looks a bit too much like an aluminium-coloured weather balloon, the scene is all the better for the absence of the sort of CGI used for the rather contrived balloon attack sequence in the more recent The Red Baron. A plus for the earlier movie is that the aircraft used by our hero, George Peppard alias Leutnant Bruno Stachel, was a nice flying replica of a Pfalz D.III, a type reportedly favoured for balloon-busting due to its strength in a fast dive.

 

 

 

You may recall that a realistically-dangerous balloon attack is a major feature of another much-superior old war film, Aces High, using Stampe SV.4s converted to resemble SE5a's

 

 

Getting on to combat flight sims, these missions are of course a regular feature in the classic Red Baron 3D. Invariably, a flight of enemy fighters is circling over the balloon, ready to pounce, but realism is the better because the target balloon is winched down as you approach. If I recall right, this also happens in Rise of Flight...

 

 

...though not in First Eagles/FE2...

 

 

...or in Wings over Flanders Fields. Fortunately, in none of them are you liable to be blown up by a TNT-loaded balloon basket, although the exploding gasbag itself could perhaps be a hazard, as illustrated in the FE2 screenshot above!

 

As luck would have it, I wasn't too far into my current WoFF Jasta Boelcke campaign before I drew a balloon-busting mission. I was given a flight of no less than six machines for the task, plus another flight of three in general support, so with the Staffelfuhrer's exhortations ringing in my virtual ears and undaunted by the typically abysmal spring weather, off we go.

 

 

Nothing much to it, I think to myself. I would cross the Lines near my target, taking full advantage of the extensive cloud cover, swing around and then clobber the sausage headed for home and safety. Still dangerous, very possibly, but complicated...well, not especially. Little did I know...

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

Altogether, now...not...

 

With my five flight-mates tucked in beside and behind me, I set course for the front, ignoring the recommended dog-leg route and slowly climbing to just below the briefed 3,000 metre altitude. If this meant I arrived in the target area ahead of the other flight of three Albatrosses, that was fine – they could cover us on the way back.

 

As usual, I’m flying in the external view, and looking around. Not that there’s much to see, with rain and clouds hampering visibility. Also as usual, I have the Tactical Display turned off.

 

Flying in this fashion, I’m still short of the front when a look behind at my formation reveals it’s no longer there. They have in fact turned right and are climbing hard, obviously towards something they have spotted.

 

 

I feel like the Staffelfuher in The Blue Max who finds that contrary to orders to avoid air combat, everyone else has joined Bruno Stachel in attacking some SE5s. Except they didn’t even warn me first. I turn after them and scan the skies up ahead, trying to make out what it is they are hunting.

 

 

To digress, this sort of situation is one that WW1 combat flight sims don’t handle especially well. With no radios, a flight-mate spotting another aircraft would typically dive alongside the leader, waggle his wings, then point out the sighting. Not something readily programmed or ever attempted, AFAIK. A sudden red glare from a warning flare, or the rattle of a warning MG burst, are perhaps things that a sim could use for this purpose. Instead, what we get is that either your wingmen will ignore the enemy unless/until attacked, or attack without warning the leader.

 

The solution to this in WoFF is to leave the Tactical Display turned on, but set to a range that is a reasonable representation of the ‘warning zone’ you would expect to get from the extra eyes of your flight. I have this set to 2,000 yards, so as to be well within my chosen 6,000 yard ‘dot mode’ range at which planes show as specks. This allows for the fact that as leader I’m the flight’s main spotter, the others having to attend to keeping formation as well as scanning the skies. And as RFC ace Albert Ball found, larger formations can tend to relax their alertness due to the ‘safety in numbers’ effect.

 

Of course, none of this is much good if you leave the ‘TAC’ turned off, nearly all the time…as I do. I turn it on now, of course. It shows two grey unidentified aircraft icons, in different directions. WoFF’s ‘rejoin’ command for some reason only works as a recall after ground attacks so I don’t have my preferred option of keeping the flight together. So I let the others go for their chosen target, and turn towards the other potential one, which seems to be trying to come in behind us. Sausages are definitely off the menu, for now.

 

I very quickly discover that I have broken the rule I set myself after my first operational mission – to avoid combat with Sopwith Triplanes. For the second unidentified aircraft – a ‘bogey’, in WW2 terms – turns out to be one of these fast-climbing and agile opponents. He’s coming straight at me and I make a determined head-on firing pass, his single gun against my two – using my firepower advantage in the hope of doing some damage before we get into a fight where he will hold most of the aces. And it works! The triplane breaks to my right and dives away.

 

 

I turn too, to keep him in sight, but take care to stay above him. But the Englishman is no longer in the mood for a fight; he comes around until he’s heading west had then makes a run for it. I come in behind him and cut loose as the range winds down.

 

 

He breaks hard and I pull up and above him, wary of getting into a turning fight with a much more agile foe. But he’s losing altitude, and now, flying erratically to boot. I see that part of a tailplane is missing. I watch him level out, wobble, lose more height, then recover again.

 

 

The skies around me seem to be clear now, as far as I can see…which isn’t very far, admittedly. I have no idea where the others have gone; there is just me, and the triplane. Nevertheless I hesitate to lose height. But the enemy is just as hesitant to oblige me by crashing. So down I must go.

 

 

One firing pass gets some hits, and I pull up and come around for a second one.

 

 

But it’s not necessary. The Sopwith slips between some trees and crashes in a field. Banking left as I fly over, I see that our business together is concluded.

 

 

But not the business of my mission, which is hunting an observation balloon. I’m naturally well pleased to have vanquished one of the accursed triplanes which nearly made my first mission my last. But there’s still that balloon. I have no particular interest in such targets but they probably have more military value than an enemy scout. Hoping for company before I set off again, I circle around, but none of my flight appears. I’m tempted to call it quits and go home, rather than now tackle a mission with one aircraft that was allocated to six.

 

But I decide to make a go of it. My original plan still seems valid – use cloud cover the sneak over the Lines, come around in a wide sweep and attack the balloon from behind as it were, while headed back east. I turn around and set course directly into a large cloudbank over the front, climbing once again.

 

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

Death of a sausage

 

 

Coming out the other side, the cloud is more broken and I find myself over the enemy’s trench lines. From my map, I know that my target is somewhere ahead and to the right. And there he is, an indistinct pale grey spot which I can see is not attached to the scenery, but hovering above it. He’s quite low down, perhaps to give him a view below the clouds, and maybe a couple of miles off. I fly a little further west. The enemy AA seems not to have seen or identified me and there are no other aircraft about. So far, so good.

 

I swing around to the right in a wide turn which is calculated to bring me in above my target. Just one pass, I tell myself, then it’s back across the Lines and home. This is no safe place for a solitary Albatros. You can just about see the balloon, a little grey splodge in the V-shaped area of green between the 'ears' of a cats-head-shaped cornfield, directly above the foremost cylinder of my aircraft's motor.

 

 

I roll right and dive on the observation balloon. He doesn’t look as big a target as I expected and I wish I’d switched to the gunsight view, rather than aiming as I usually do, along the line of the cylinders of my inline engine.  I’ve throttled back so I’m not diving too fast, but I’m still worried that I’m not going to get enough hits to knock him down in just one pass.

 

 

But I needn’t have worried. A sudden flame bursts on top of the balloon and he lurches perceptibly. Then he’s gone in a gout of dark smoke and flying embers. An oily-looking trail of smoke follows what remains of him to the ground.

 

 

 

I pull up and away, headed for the safety of our nearest front line positions. So far, even at the lowest point of my dive, I haven’t seen any of the MG fire from the ground that I’ve been expecting. And it is only after I have come off the target that I notice the grey bursts of enemy flak, appearing suddenly nearby. I continue to climb for home, throwing in an occasional jink to put off the enemy’s aim.

 

 

This seems to have the desired effect, and the flak soon gives up. By now, I’m at the level of the lower clouds, ready to fly into one if an enemy patrol tries to cut me off. But I seem to have caught them all napping!

 

 

I’ve just crossed our foremost trenches when I get a bit of a shock as an aircraft curves in towards me from my left rear. But I quickly identify him as another Albatros, one of my lost flight-mates rejoining in fact. Aircraft rendering in WoFF is much improved compared its predecessor, Over Flanders Fields, to the extent that it’s much easier, without zoom, to identify aircraft at a decent range.

 

 

Together, we fly home. This time I decide to fly all the way back to Proville, which is almost due east of our target and not too far off. When we get there, I see three more of my flight have landed ahead of us. I overfly the airfield and land. Looking over at the other machines rather than where I’m going, I blot my copybook by running into a fence I didn’t see. Drat!

 

 

The results screen shows me with claims for the triplane and a balloon, with my own machine wrecked by that darn fence in return! Happily, all the others have returned, with one machine lightly damaged and no casualties, though with no successes to show for it. For some reason, as other players have reported, despite knocking down what I’m convinced was my target balloon, the boss has decided that it wasn’t the one he wanted knocked down. Still, I’m quite pleased with my performance, and with the fact that the rest of the flight didn’t come to any harm in the absence of their leader.

 

 

I decide that I do not wish to specialise in balloon attacks, and hope that the Staffelfuhrer is sufficiently unimpressed with my performance on this mission, that he will not come to a different conclusion! Hopefully I will soon be back to scrapping with the enemy in the air. And perhaps this awful weather will improve, too. At any rate, WoFF has succeeded nicely in easing me back into the role of a virtual First World War fighter pilot and flight leader; it's as if I've never been away!

[33LIMA 972]

Postscript – death of an ace

 

 

One of WoFF’s many good features is the fact that you get to fly with or against historical aces, identified as such in your squadron and mission rosters, and in the labels which, if turned on, identify other aircraft and your target on the Tactical Display a.k.a. 'TAC'. These hot shots are generally indicated by the abbreviation ‘HA’; which should probably have been a reserved term, since it was used by the RFC for the first couple of years of WW1 to indicate 'Hostile Aircraft'. They later changed this to EA, 'Enemy Aircraft', reportedly because the staff people thought ‘hostile’ invested the enemy with too much of an air of danger, threat or suchlike.

 

The WoFF aircraft labels and the TAC can be quite sophisticated; the former offers the option not only of identifying other aircraft inside your set range, but can even be set to tell you what they’re doing – eg fighting, or going home. I have my labels set to ‘dot mode’ rather than text, to ensure aircraft are visible at my chosen range of 6 Km; I rarely if ever cycle through the other label modes. So I can only confirm if I am up against an historical ace if I turn on the TAC and select him as a target, at which point the aircraft type and the ace’s name will display under the TAC display. As I was about to be reminded.

 

The mission in question was on 5^th April. Further north, in the British sector, the Battle of Arras was about to get under way. In Jasta Boelcke’s area of operations, we have been meeting a mix of enemies, but mostly French squadrons. So it was to be, on this day.

 

Three of us were sent aloft to check out reports of enemy aircraft operating over the front, which likes a few miles west of our airfield at Proville, with another flight of four operating in loose support. I knew from the briefing that I had two aces as flight mates, Frommherz in his distinctive ‘blaue maus’ and Bernert with his black rear fuselage. At the flight line, thanks to the now-free WoFF skinpack, both of their Albatrosses carried the appropriate markings. No picture, I'm afraid - I wasn't planning on making a report of this mission, so screenshots are thinner on the ground than usual!

 

Once our formation had formed up, I climbed out along the recommended heading on a leg away from the front to gain height – just below 9,000 feet was the briefed altitude. Then we turned south-west for the Lines. The other flight was still climbing, over to my left rear, and they gradually fell behind and out of view in the cloudy conditions.

 

 

The first indication of trouble came when a glance behind showed Bernert was no longer in his place to my left rear. Scanning behind, I spotted him climbing hard to the left. Obviously he’d spotted something and broken formation to go for it. I turned on the TAC, but it showed no enemies and I decided against increasing its range beyond the 2,000 feet I had set. No amount of scanning revealed what it was Bernert had seen, nor any flak; likely the clouds concealed all.

 

I should perhaps have turned back so as to keep my formation together, but I was irritated by Bernert’s indiscipline. So I maintained my course, but kept a wary eye to my left rear, lest we should be jumped. After a few minutes, Bernert returned to formation, and I throttled back to let him catch up. I’d have a quiet word with him after the flight, but for now, it was back to the business at hand.

 

About half-way to our patrol zone, I spotted dark German flak bursts against the grey-white clouds, higher up and to our right front. I couldn’t make out their target but turned to climb directly towards whatever it was.

 

What it was, was a single French Nieuport 17. The daring fellow was diving straight at us, and he seemed to be on his own. I targeted him (via tha TAC, which is needed to activate the ‘padlock’ view) and ordered him attacked. Not to be left out, I had a go at him myself, careful to avoid the others – I was well aware that the great ace for whom our jagdstaffel was named died in a mid-air collision with a friend, while they were both chasing the same foe and unaware they were on a fatally converging course.

 

The Nieuport seemed well able to turn inside of me and I had I been minded to dogfight him, I would have had to use the vertical, to avoid him or mount an attack. As it was, up against three of us, he was quickly on the defensive. I stayed above him and rolled in for a few firing passes, breaking away after each, keeping my speed up, rather than being sucked in to a turning fight.

 

Shortly, the Nieuport’s flight became erratic and he fell off into a sideslip, and then a spin, from which he recovered a few hundred feet from the ground. He sailed on a little further, before force landing heavily in a field, well on our side of the Lines. I knew that at least one of the others had had a crack at him but wasn’t concerned about who would be credited with the kill. As Boelcke himself said, it’s the staffel that must fight and win the battle, not the individuals.

 

I climbed back up in a wide spiral, looking for the others. They had become well separated but were soon slipping back into formation, and I throttled back to let them close up.

 

Suddenly, a silver wing sporting a red, white and blue roundel flashed close past ahead. More Nieuports, and this time they had caught us all napping! There were at least two, and now we had our hands full. I picked a target and just in case anyone hadn’t woken up, gave the order to attack; then I switched targets to a second enemy. It was at this point, with the ‘TAC’ turned on to padlock my target, that I saw that this Nieuport was flown by an historical ace, William Thaw of the Escadrille Lafayette, formerly the Escadrille Américaine. In fact I believe that Thaw hadn’t ‘made ace’ at this point (and only just did so, with four aircraft and a balloon). But I didn’t know that, at the time! I don’t think WoFF lets you cut short the careers of real aces, but here was my chance, if not to do that, then at least to avoid providing him with one of his victories!

 

Perhaps it was all in my mind, but Thaw seemed to throw his little silver bird around the sky like the budding ace he was. To stay out of his way,  I ended up pushing the nose hard down and rolling around into him, before pulling up again, airframe creaking with the strain. Several times this got him off my tail, at the cost each time of several hundred feet in precious altitude. During the last of these pull-ups I somehow managed to get my guns onto him before I had to push down again to avoid a stall. It was a hasty deflection shot, but it was enough. Pieces flew off the Nieuport. I recovered and looked around for him. There he was, wings level, running for home! My trusty Albatros had saved my bacon, First, her powerful Mercedes engine had enabled me to make the yo-yo manoeuvres that had kept me in the fight. Then her equally powerful two-gun armament had enabled me to put enough lead into the air to make the one shot I’d been able to take, count. In a lesser aircraft, I’d likely have been dead meat.

 

All this time I’d been relying on my flight-mates to keep the other enemy or enemies occupied. Looking around, the sky now seemed empty – just me and Thaw.

 

My first full-speed firing pass from dead astern hit him again, and sent the Nieuport into a turn to the left. I broke away hard and came in for another firing run. Then another, taking deflection shots at the turning machine, getting a few hits each time. I broke early, to keep my speed up and besides, no way was I going to risk ending my career in a collision. But on the last pass, getting impatient, I kept my guns onto him a little longer. The movement of my plane in the wind made it impossible to hold him rock-steady in my line of fire, so I was just snapping out bursts when the sight picture looked right. Just when a collision seemed inevitable, the Nieport’s wings came off and the fuselage, marked with the ‘T’ which identified its pilot, burst into flames, nosed straight down and fell like a blazing comet. This was one event I managed to grab a screenshot of - two screenshots, in fact!

 

 

 

Got him! No doubt about that one. I cleared my tail with a full-power climbing spiral to the right. Below, Thaw smashed into the ground and a vertical column of dark smoke briefly marked the spot. No other aircraft, friend or foe, were to be seen.

 

So what now? I decided I would cover the remaining distance to assigned patrol zone. Not much chance that the source of the reported enemy air activity was still there, but I might as well check it out, and finish with a bit of a lone wolf patrol.

 

Climbing again to the south west, for the second time I saw dark flak bursts, up ahead. As I climbed after them, I could see that they were receding, heading roughly west. Perhaps it was one of the Nieuports, heading home after the last fight.

 

 

I raced after whatever it was, but seemed to be making little headway; not surprising as he was well above me and I was in a climb. Then the flak stopped, and I realised I had reached the front lines. No point pushing my luck with a foray into enemy territory, I thought. Time to go home.

 

I swung around to the east, but was suddenly startled by the sight of tracer smoke trails and the zip and thwack of rounds going close or hitting my machine. I banked hard and looked around. Nothing. Surely not ground fire, at this height?

 

Crikey! A linen-coloured wing with a French roundel flashed past my nose and disappeared out of sight. Where the heck had he come from? And more to the point, where was he now? ‘He’ was a Sopwith ‘strutter’, an RFC two-seater also made in large numbers for French service. I quickly padlocked him and decided he was going to pay a hard price for so rudely catching me napping. But I quickly became aware that this was not going to be easy.

 

The Frenchman wasn’t listed as an historical ace, but he flung his kite about the sky like a true professional. He seemed to be able to turn very tightly indeed; most of the time, he had little difficulty staying behind my ‘nine to three o’clock’ line, which was just where I didn’t want him. So I gave up trying to out-turn him and went vertical again. This reversed our relative positions and finally I was able to make some firing passes, deflection shots as he turned hard.

 

 

I was very wary of return fire from his observer, but if any came my way, I didn’t see it. It may have helped, that I didn’t hold my position too long, but instead made a series of slashing attacks, extending away after each.

 

 

My hits took their toll and the Sopwith came out of his turn and settled into a descent to the west. I waited for him to crash land, but he seemed to float along nicely and to be in no hurry to go down. I turned over him, reluctant to go down to ground level to finish him off. 

 

This was nearly my undoing. More rounds whacked into my Albatros, and this time it was ground fire. Panicked, I threw my machine around to the east. I was promptly hit again and wounded. I put my nose down and jinked for home, hardly noticing or caring that the Sopwith had at last dropped to the ground and rolled to a stop.

 

Fortunately I was only just on the enemy side of the Lines and the ground fire soon died off. Soon I was back over our own trenches and checking my map for the nearest friendly airfield. Happily there was one just north of my track, not too far beyond the outer limits of the shelled area.

 

 

My good old Mercedes once more earned its keep and didn’t miss a beat until I switched off once my wheels had trundled to a stop in front of the hangars.

 

 

Eleven days in hospital was the price I paid for straying into the sights of ground MGs in my quest for the ‘strutter’. In return, I had two victory claims. Bernert had come to grief, his machine destroyed but the pilot just lightly injured like myself. Frommherz had fired some rounds, got a few hits but no victories, though he had made it back to Proville with no damage or injury. Not a bad day’s work. Granted, William Thaw will have miraculously survived his fiery plunge to earth but I’ve the satisfaction of besting him in single combat!

 

Already, my thoughts are beginning to turn towards that ‘Blue Max’. With eight victories once my latest claims are confirmed, I can see in my minds eye the pretty gold and blue enamel cross hanging at my throat, and my portrait on the Sanke postcard celebrating my ace status…but I mustn’t get carried away. It’s dangerous out there, and today, it could so easily have been me, going down in that burning, wingless fuselage. But we’ll not think of that. In a few days, I’ll be out of hospital and back in my Albatros at the head of my flight, in (Wings over) Flanders Fields.