Bletchley

Hi Becker, I am sorry that you received no answer to this very good question. I hope this late contribution will still be useful, though my answer is "it depends" :) Mission frequency for recon. and art. obs. units depended very much on tempo of operations and atmospheric conditions - if it is an 'active' Front and visibility is good and the days are long then yes, a mission per day in 1915 is reasonable. If it is a quiet Front in winter you might want to reduce that to one every other day and then reduce it even further by cancelling the mission if you get to the airfield after your briefing and find that it is raining, or there is heavy cloud or mist (just quit the mission and fast forward to the next day). In 2015 you would invariably be flying these missions on your own - so if the game assigns a whole flight to the mission you can reduce the fuel for the other members of the Flight to 5% or 10% and they will just take off and land again without flying the mission with you. B.

I would just add 'Wings of war' by Rudolf Stark, as I don't see it mentioned above - this is a very readable first-hand account by a staffel-leader from one of the non-elite German fighter units. B.

There is also a Workshop setting - if you want to make sure that the transfer request is not rejected, you need to set it to always approved.

Hi I have fully re-worked and updated my mission file set, fully compatible with BH&HII, and this is now available from the Downloads section here : There is also a separate set of Defence missions (the solo missions that kick in when a unit is 'working up' or non-operational) that have been changed slightly to give them a national flavour to fit in with the main mission set. Also available from the Downloads section as Bletchley's Defence Mission Types. When you add these to WOFF and use the '3rd Party Mission Types' switch in Workshop they will expand upon the stock set of campaign missions (especially so for the Recon. / bombing units) and add historical detail and instructions to the briefings. The primary log entries will be added in the language of the unit. Have fun, and let me know if you have any problems. B.

View File Bletchley's Mission Types for WOFF BH&HII Missions edited by Bletchley especially for 'Wings Over Flanders Fields' and updated for BH&HII They are designed to add variety and more historical information and detail in the briefings to add even more immersion! Submitter Bletchley Submitted 06/03/2021 Category Maps, Missions, and Campaigns  

Bletchley's Defence Mission Types for WOFF BH&HII View File Defence Missions edited by Bletchley especially for 'Wings: Over Flanders Fields' and updated for BH&HII They are designed to add a national flavour to the briefings for the Defence Mission Types used by WOFF when a unit is Working Up or is otherwise non-operational for reasons other than bad weather Submitter Bletchley Submitted 06/03/2021 Category Maps, Missions, and Campaigns  

About 3,000 ft works for me

Escorts! There appears to be a random chance of a Bomber/Reccy mission being assigned an escort of fighters. This works well for French/USA and British missions, where historically the fighters were routinely assigned escort duties to their larger friends. For German missions it doesn't, in my opinion, work so well - from what I can gather the elite German fighter units were never assigned escort duties, and for the 'lesser' units it was a rare assignment from the end of 1916. Escorts were provided by the 2-seater Schutzstaffel units that were based with the Reccy units from early 1917 and formed part of the Reccy flight when in the air. In tinkering with the mission files over the years I have noticed that there is what appears to be an ON/OFF switch included in each mission entry at line 13 (it is set to either '1' or '0'). Missions assigned to cross over to the enemy side of the lines are set to '1' and those that do not are set to '0'. Other than that, I don't know what this switch does - changing the '0' to a'1' or vice versa appears to have no effect on the mission, that I can determine. If it is redundant, it would be great to see this re-purposed to switch fighter escorts 'Randomly On' as now, or 'Off', so that an entry of '1' retained the random chance of a Bomber/Reccy mission being assigned a fighter escort whilst changing it to '0' switches this off. This would not effect the stock missions, as all Bomber/Reccy missions are over the enemy side of the lines and all have a '1' at line 13, so would continue to get the random chance of an escort. And the fighter missions don't get fighter escorts anyway. For the 3rd Part Mission sets, however, being able to set escorts to 'Randomly On' or 'Off' in the mission file would enable the mission creator/editor to switch all or some of the German fighter escorts 'Off' to give an historically more accurate German Bomber/Reccy mission. It would be easy then to assume that the 2nd or 3rd aircraft in a German Reccy or Art.Obs. flight is the Schutzstaffel escort, and German fighters would no longer routinely cross the lines in close support of the Reccy and Bombing flights as they currently do. B.

Looks like Westminster Bridge has taken a hit from a Zeppelin raid :) B.

There is also a key to select all engines, if you want to control both engines as one... B.

Would also be nice if the Caudron throttle animation was reversed as I think, as with most if not all French aircraft of this period, the throttle was pulled back to open the throttle (not pushed forwards as was normal for British and German aircraft) Also true for Italian aircraft, I think, if OBD extends WOFF to the Italian theatre at some point... http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1343 https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/39441/has-there-ever-been-a-plane-with-reversed-flight-controls/39443 Might even do that for the actual throttle controls, though I suspect that might lead to confusion and complaints! Historically, I think it did cause a number of accidents. :) B.

Caudron G4 as the training machine for French careers? Instead of the the BE2, as now. I think it would make Lt. Triggier very happy :) B.

Stupendous Louvert! A very nice, very clear map for navigation. A huge amount of work. I will certainly use it, many thanks! I guess the download version will be printable? B.

Edit (again) : the aluminium alloy pistons didn't dispense with the need for obturator rings (the 9Bf still had them).

Edit to above: for 7Z read 9Z! Also, to add - R&P changed from using cast iron pistons to aluminium alloy pistons at about the same time as Gwynnes, I think (as did Le Rhone and most other British aero engine manufacturers), so that might help explain the better performance of the RP a/c with the higher serial no. Also, as you can see, the early AR1/BR1 was not significantly better than the 're-pistoned' Clerget, until later improvements were made to the BR1 (including a higher compression ratio), and the Gwynnes 9Bf was comparable to the later BR1 in output and performance.

Loss of power in Clerget rotaries was mainly due to loss of compression from worn or badly fitting obturator rings - these needed replacing very frequently (about every 15 hours, if I recall correctly). Those made by Clerget appear to have been better engineered, and suffered less from this loss of compression, than those engines made under licence in France or England. Ruston & Procter (RP) made steam traction engines before the war, and built Clerget engines under licence for the RFC. Despite their lack of previous aero-engineering experience, their engines appear to have been better than those made by Gwynnes for the Admiralty (Gwynnes made marine pumps before the war). Gwynnes made both the 7Z and the 9B, and their reliability was so poor that Bentley was sent by the Admiralty to 'sort them out'. Amongst other improvements, he managed to persuade Gwynnes to replace the original Clerget cast iron pistons with aluminium alloy pistons, which dispensed with the need for obturator rings (as the aluminium alloy was better at distributing the heat). After Bentley had left to work on his BR1, Gwynnes worked with Clerget engineers to produce the 9Bf that also used aluminium alloy pistons (which also had no need for the obturator rings). The 'good' Gwynnes Clerget in the above post may have been one of these later ones (at least, the serial number of the a/c is higher). You might find these threads from The Aerodrome forum of interest :) http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/40767-powerplant-sopwith-triplane.html http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/34659-sopwith-camel-f-1-engines-part-1-a.html http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/34660-sopwith-camel-f-1-engines-part-2-a.html B.

Here are the Beta versions of the OFF Mod translated over to WOFF (with improvements!) AS before, there is an 'Active' and a 'Quiet' version. They are packed for JSGME, unzip and pop the Active and Quiet SEctor (two folders) into JSGME MODS folder. Activate 'Quiet' Sector Mod when WOFF Campaign tells you that you are in a quiet sector, deactivate 'Quiet' Sector Mod and replace with 'Active' Sector Mod when the WOFF Campaign tells you that you are in an active sector or have transitioned from quiet to active and vice versa. If not using JSGME just copy the relevant (Quiet or Active Sector) BritishBomberMissionTypes1915.txt file over the existing one in the WOFF OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields - campaigns - CampaignData folder (keep a copy of original WOFF file for backup). Please post here if you have any problems. B. BritainBomberMissionTypes1915.zip

I have taken out the mission causing the problems (Contact Patrol and Bombing), and tested the rest - all seems OK now, at least flying the BE2. DukeIronHand, no the OFF mission mod will not work in WOFF - but the one below should work. I have had to make changes, as the function of the mission files have changed. Have been able to work out some of those changes (I think!) but still puzzling over others. I don't want to make too many changes until I understand it a little better, as each change might have unintended consequences... so I am sticking to 2-seater missions in 1915, that benefit from a little added variety. BritainBomberMissionTypes1915.txt

I have deleted my post with the modified missions, as they seem to create problems with WOFF.... will have to do some more testing, sorry B.

Glad you like it Buddy I can't work out how to create lone-wolf type missions (i.e. ordinary mission types, but with no other flight members), as I think "Lone Wolf" missions are now called up by some other bit of code in WOFF (as Transfer and Scramble missions are). I haven't looked in detail at the mission files for 1916-1918, and I am a bit wary about changing these at the moment as the way in which the mission types function has been changed in WOFF - each squadron has a 'primary role' now that interacts with the mission folder, so that a primary role of Reconnaissance (the predominant one for two seaters in 1915) will now only select those missions coded 'Reccy' in the mission files. I have added back Art.Obs. missions to this type, as in 1915 that level of differentiation wasn't there yet (might even add back the combat air patrol and balloon attack types, that you currently only get if you select 'Fighter' as your pilot type) although you will find these are rare - mostly tactical and long reconnaissance, with a few of the other types to add spice. Use of W/T and Camera equipment was in its infancy in 1915, and the BE2 in use was mainly the earlier type with the 90 or 100 hp Renault or RAF1A engine rather than the RAF4 engine, and the Parasol was similarly limited in HP, so carrying extra weight (bombs, camera, wireless set) meant that the Observer had to be left behind - so you get the instructions to ditch ammo. You can, if you want, give bombs, camera or W/T to another flight member and make then ditch the ammo, and so become part of their escort if you want to play it this way I will do a German version for 1915, and probably a French one as well, and maybe bundle them with the OFF Weather mod (more detailed Weather for 1915, as the WOFF 1915 weather, although much better than the original OFF version, is still not as good IMO) to make a 1915 Mod, but nothing more at the moment as I want to spend my time playing the sim. at the moment. Here is a version of the 1915 Weather Mod that I have made for WOFF - I have an older system, so it is optimised for someone (i.e. me) struggling with low FPS, another reason that I am sticking to 1915 at the moment. It reduces air activity, making the 'Light' setting in Workshop 'Super Light'. If anybody wants the 1915 Weather Mod with the original air activity settings for WOFF back in I can do this as well. The old AA and MG Rate of Fire mods are unnecessary now: the AA now uses a less lethal shell more suited to WW1 than the 88mm Flak shell used in OFF, and accuracy changes with time; and Rate of Fire (at least for the Vickers) also increases from c. 350 rpm in 1915 to c. 700 rpm in 1918. OFFHistoricalWeather1915.txt

Javito, they are here OFF Pilot Personality Profiles.rtf