Bletchley

Hello Herr Prop-Wasche, I can't claim any of the credit for that - it is all part of the original PPF by Bluevoss. I just adapted it for OFF. I added the sections on initial training missions, tours of duty, promotions, leave, etc. You are right - the lack of connection between actual outcomes and the fate of your wingmen is a disapointing feature of CFS3/OFF, and I find that the non-ace AI pilots seem to die or disappear probably much faster than they should (at least, in quiet sectors or quiet times). It is a bit of fun, so long as you don't mind all the dice rolling between missions :) Bletchley

With the DH2 we recommend the full load (100% from July 1916 onwards, 50% before that when the drums held only 47 rounds each). recognising that it would probably have been easier to change the Lewis drums on the DH2 - voluntarily breaking off combat to simulate the re-load process can be done, but you have to be able to estimate how many rounds you have fired. I found in practice that this is very difficult to do (in the heat of action it requires a cool head to time the bursts and calculate the rounds fired), but if you are good at this then that would be a good alternative. Something similar to the RB3D ReLoad patch would be even better :) Bletchley

Yes, you are right SirMike - one drum of Lewis (47 rounds up to mid 1916, then 97 rounds thereafter): These two comments from pilot's combat reports in Henshaw's 'The Sky Their Battlefield' appear to sugest that the over-wing Lewis might not have been routinely re-loaded in combat, and that the small 47 round drum was used at least up until the end of April 1916: 30th April 1916 Nieuport 16: "Carlisle [pilot] complained that with more than the maximum of 47 bullet burst available that both [Aviatiks] would have been shot down" 29th May 1916 Nieuport 16: "Combat with Albatros A-type ... ended combat at 3000 ft when unable to change drums" (Ball). I have nor come across any similar comments yet with reference to the DH2, which sugests that the fixed Lewis in front of the pilot was much more easily reloaded (drum changed). The introduction of the Foster mount made it easier to change a drum whilst flying, but it was apparently still a time consuming and difficult task (particularly at higher altitude, and gloved up). I don't know if there is a good way to simulate the problems of re-loading the Lewis - the options we seem to have are either (a) Restrict loadout to 1 drum, or (b) continue with the current arrangement where the player gets a full 3 or 4 drums of Lewis ammunition already pre-loaded (like having a single 300 or 400 round drum). We came down on the side of having just a single drum, at least for the wing-mounted Lewis. Bletchley

"The figures for Lewis gun loadout is based on the 47 round drum up to mid 1915" Oops! I meant "mid 1916" :) Sorry. Bletchley

Some of the background to the ammunition loadout figures can be found here: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/other-wwi-aviation/49045-how-many-rounds-did-they-have.html The figures for Lewis gun loadout is based on the 47 round drum up to mid 1915 and the larger 97 round drum thereafter, and assumes that the pilot will not reload it in combat (we found pilot statements that indicate that the early Lewis mounts made it extremely difficult, if not impossible to reload the Lewis whilst also flying the plane). With the introduction of Foster mounts it became easier to reload the Lewis whilst flying, but was still a difficult and time consuming operation (particularly when at altitude, and gloved up) and many pilots would not attempt it unless they really had to (and would have to break off combat to do so), so we made a larger ammunition loadout optional. The figures for belt-fed guns are speculative (see link above), but there is evidence that most pilots did not normally take the maximum amount that would fill their ammunition boxes (unless ground strafing), and that British aircraft peformance figures assume a much lower looadout (around 40% or 50% of maximum loadout) for the twin Vickers (so 40% or 50% should be an optional figure for the Camel and twin-gun Sopwith Triplane). There is also similar evidence that German pilots would normally restrict themselves to a 40% loadout (2 x 200 round Parabellum belts) for the twin LMG 08/15. This is still rather speculative and very much WIP, so I am sure British_eh would welcome comments on this (as would I). Bletchley If you are wondering what the Pilot Personality Profiles are, they were posted a long time ago as a bit of fun (a game within a game, that will bring your wingmen to life), but I include an updated version here:

They probably crashed - the AI isn't very good at landing. Bletchley

The DH2 had a Gnome Monosoupape 100 hp, so this engine had no throttle - just the mixture control lever and the blip switch. I think the N11 had the Le Rhone 80 hp (but I havn't checked that, so someone might have to correct me). The Le Rhone rotaries had a throttle, mixture control and blip switch, with the throttle also controlling the mixture to some extent though not very well. Bletchley

"wondered why the RoF Dev team took away the throttle - i thought and heard from Bletchley they did have a throttle, if only for reducing revolutions from 1200 down to roughly 700, and did the rest with the blip switch. But maybe they did this with the one mixture throttle, which is present and works." Catfish The Oberursel engine was very similar (not quite a direct copy) of the Gnome 100 hp rotary. I think the RoF team may have confused the Gnome 100 hp rotary with the Gnome Monosoupape 100 hp rotary (several text books do the same), and have therefore assumed that the Oberursel was a monosoupape engine with a mixture control but no throttle. But the Oberursel, like the Gnome, did have both a throttle and a mixture control - and there were levers to control both from the cockpit. There was also an 'isolator' switch to selectively cut ignition to one cylinder at a time (I think, to isolate any cyclinder that might be misfiring), and a blip switch. Bletchley

Hello, I have recently been looking into the bursting charges used in WWI AA rounds, and this has led me to wonder how this is modelled in OFF. Has the bursting effect (the blast) of AA shells been transferred directly from CFS3 to OFF, or were any "WWI" Shrapnel and HE rounds created for OFF? I have noticed that the AA near misses in OFF are frequently fatal, or appear to be so from my limited observation of the effects (can anybody else comment on this, from their own observations?). But historically, I think, there was a greater chance of non-fatal damage effects (particularly when Shrapnel rounds were being used). WWI HE rounds had a significantly lower blast effect than WWII HE rounds of the same weight or calibre, as the bursting charge was different. Incidentally, I think I have now discoverred why British AA rounds burst with a white smoke, even after they changed from Shrapnel to HE - they probably used an Amatol HE filling, as against the TNT HE filling of the German AA rounds: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/other-wwi-aviation/48590-tnt-amatol-anti-aircraft-he-shells.html Bletchley

Thanks for the replies :) I have no problem with the current AA settings - I know that the accuracy of the AA has been subject to quite a bit of change and is, I feel, just about right for most of the war when set to "Normal" (and if it isn't, we have the option of the "Easy" setting). It is just that I had observed this apparent tendency for AA rounds to rip aircraft apart with each hit/near miss, and it was this that led me to wonder if the blast effect of the AA rounds were still of WWII and not WWI strength. But if other people are finding more varied damage effects, then this might not be so. On the other hand, if this is so, then this may be something that the developers might like to look into with Phase 4. Even if the CFS3 AA blast effect has been reduced for OFF, it may have been done in a generic way - making a distinction between Shrapnel and HE, if this is possible, might be a good development? The British continued to use Shrapnel as the weapon of choice for their AA ertillery well into 1916, despite evidence that it was less effective than HE. And when they switched from Shrapnel to HE, the Amatol 80:20 filling used in British munitions from 1917 onwards was probably rather more effective than the equivalent German TNT filling. So there is, I think, some historical evidence to support greater variety in AA artillery damage effects. Bletchley

Those living in Hampshire have access to one of the best WWI Aviation collections in the world, currently housed in the Farnborough Public Library - this is largely due to a huge donation by QinetiQ of historical books and documents (many thousand) to the library from the former Royal Aircraft Establishment. Many of the books and documents are very rare indeed (around 50 were found to be unique, and so important that they were re-donated by Hampshire Libraries to the National Archives at Kew in London). You can browse this RAE collection, to get a flavour of what is there, by entering the keyword 'qinetiq' in the online catalogue. They are all on open public access, although you may have to ask a librarian to fetch the rarer items from the locked glass fronted cabinets. Unfortunately, many of these items are so rare or fragile that they are not available for loan, but in an attempt to make at least some of these more widely available a significant number have now been digitised and are for sale on 2 CD-ROM ("Piston Engines of the Great War"). The price helps to cover the cost of digitisation and fund further projects, such as the current project to digitise the collection's copy of the WWI German Technische Berichte with English language abstracts and translations (in association with Akron State Library in the USA, who have kindly loaned a missing volume of this publication, and Cranfield University who have provided advice and offered to host the digital content via their AERADE portal). The Technische Berichte was produced in Germany between 1917-1918, and is the German equivalent of NACA technical reports (USA) or ARC (UK), and it is now very difficult to access via the few remaining hard copies. Bletchley http://www3.hants.gov.uk/library/aviation-collection.htm http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:zTwnfC5Vqw8J:www.theaerodrome.com/classifieds/showproduct.php/product/311/cat/2+piston+engines+of+the+great+war+hampshire&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

"As far as the AI pilots outrunning you, well there's nothing you can do about that as the weights in the AI aircraft are different and they always have a higher performing craft. It's a CFS3 thing" I have noticed this as well - I struggle to keep the rest of the flight in sight during the initial climb to altitude, and often loose touch with them before we even cross the lines. Is it a 'bug' that is being worked on, or is this now impossible to correct ? Or, as a work-around, how much does fuel load have to be reduced before the mission starts to equalise the weights ? Bletchley

There are some more detailed notes on 'control of rotary engines' that Shredward re-posted from Phase 2 in the OFF Historical Archive, if anyone wants more detail on the control of different types of rotary engine: http://combatace.com/topic/37648-great-war-historical-archive/ p.16 Bletchley

With the exception of the early Gnome rotaries (few of which were still in use by mid 1915), the blip-switch was supposed to be used only when the engine was already throttled back to idle - either on the ground, when taxiing, or in the air when throttled back for landing. The blip-switch was retained on all rotary engines because of the high idle speed of the rotary - most rotaries could not be throttled back much below 600 rpm on the ground or 800 rpm in the air. I have seen some evidence that the blip-switch was sometimes used in combat, but officially the use of the blip-switch at high engine speed was frowned upon because of the damage that it caused to the engine. Blipping the engine could also lead to flooding of the engine with excess fuel, which could lead to the engine cutting out for several seconds or even a fire under the cowling - not something modelled in OFF, but a powerful deterrent to use in combat. I model late rotary management in OFF by using the number keys across the top of the keyboard, using 6, 8 and 0 only (most WWI pilots had 'preset' positions of the throttle/fine adjustment for idle, cruise, and full power, and stuck to these), and only use the blip when throttled down to the '6' position. The mixture control can then be used for fine control of the engine speed, as well as altitude changes. Bletchley

Just VAT, I think. B.

Catch, Louvert I am happy to lend my copy of 'Sopwith Scout 7309' - I could post it to Catch, Catch could then post it on to Louvert, then back to me :) PM me if you want to borrow it. Bletchley

Very atmospheric, thank you :) Bletchley

The liitle prop on the Sopwith Triplane would be the Rotherham Pump, a little windmill-type device that was used to pressurise the fuel tank - it would work with the engine off, as it is powered by the airflow, but I guess it would also spin faster as the throttle is advanced due to increased airflow generated by the prop. See this reference for pictures, etc. : http://www.aerolocker.co.uk/Shop/tabid/61/CatalogItemID/135/CatalogID/11/psnavcmd/CatalogItemDetails/psmid/401/Default.aspx To pressurise the tank on the ground, with the engine off, or if the Rotherham Pump failed, there was a hand operated pump as a backup. Bletchley

For those who might be interested in the history of World War 1 aviation maps and mapping, I contributed an article to the Great War Historical Archive section of this forum (under Knowledge Base): see "Aviation Maps and The Small-Scale Mapping of the Western Front". There are also links from that to the Macmaster maps, and to others (e.g. French and German) of interest. Bletchley

Deleted post (confusing) :)

The Index volume to the British official history (War in the Air) cntains a table showing monthly RFC/RAF hours flown and aircrew losses from July 1916 to July 1918, and from this you can get some idea of average RFC life expectancy. The figures for April 1917, for example (the lowest recorded) are 29,500 hours for 316 losses: or an average life expectancy of 91 hours. If we assume an average of just one or two patrols a day, at about two hours per patrol, this works out at (very roughly) 22-45 days, adding in around 33% for days grounded for poor weather or other reasons, and that gives you a figure of 1-2 months at the Front. The average life expectancy for 1917 as a whole was 175 hours - which works out at about 2-4 months. A 'tour' at the Front, for a RFC/RAF scout pilot, was about 6-9 months, followed by Home Establishment. Bletchley

I think the button on the joystick is the 'blip switch'. I am not an expert on machine guns, but I read an interesting series of posts on the MGs used, the different synchronisation systems, and their effects on the rate of fire (at the Aerodrome forum). The need to cock the MG before firing it is, I think realistic - this put the first round in. Subsequently, the MG could suffer from a 'stoppage' or a mis-fire (not a jamb) when a round failed to load or eject the case, and the pilot would have to re-cock the gun to 'clear' the stoppage before continuing to fire: "Stoppages with designs that were Maxim-based, like the Vickers and Spandau, were common to the point of being routine. That is why aircraft designers of the Great War could never get away with burying the MG's for the sake of lowering drag and why nobody used wing-mounted MG's (save the almost experimental Dolphin mounting of Lewis') until the adoption of the Browning in the 1930s. The Maxim uses a heavy feed block to lift the rounds to the chamber and so high-G maneuvers easily prevent this from happening. The good news is that this same design prevents the double-feeding of rounds and all that is required to resume firing is to re-cock the operating handle or maybe bang the side of the receiver if the bolt is stuck at the bottom of it's travel. Voss may have experienced stoppages during his epic last flight but could have cleared them so quickly that no one noticed." (Epee, 15/10/2009) "I spent four days with Dave Watts in his booth at the DPR with all his Spandaus guns. He would be the person to ask about this one. One of the things I remember him saying is that the gun was more prone to getting miss-fire (dud) then a jams. It may look like a pilot had a jam as the gun stops firing when it gets a dud and the pilot has to re-cock the mechanize to re-charge a new shell then the gun will fire and this action is sometime misunderstand as a jam because of the gun stops firing and the pilot having to recharge the gun may look like a jam to some one observing this action." (Laserlloyd, 15/10/2009) See also this: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/aircraft/41918-synchronized-rate-fire-reality-urban-legends.html Bletchley

It might have been the Sopwith Camel with the 150/160 hp Gnome Monosoupape (there is another flyable Camel, with a 110 hp Le Rhone in the USA, but I am not aware of there being one with a Clerget). The Gnome Monosoupape has no throttle, but the 160 hp version has two magneto switches - one standard on/off switch, and a second one that could be used to change the firing sequence of the cyclinders to cut out a number of selected cylinders in each cycle, and reduce the power by 1/8, 1/4 or 1/2. It also had a fine adjustment and a blip switch, I think, as standard. I don't think this Monosoupape version of the Camel was used much, if at all, in a combat role. The Le Rhone had only one magneto switch, and a blip switch (the two are not the same - the blip switch was a button on the spade grip). The Clerget did have two magneto switches (so if one failed, the other one would at least keep the engine running), and a blip switch. The Oberursel used on the Fokker E.III also had a blip switch, both a throttle & a fine adjustment, and a 'selector' switch that could be used to select and isolate a single cylinder - this was not intended as a form of power management, however, as the intended use was to isolate and cut-out a cylinder that was mis-firing. Bletchley :)

Thanks for the interesting post, Louvert :) But we have to be a bit careful with the terminology. Phrases such as "with engine cut off", "without engine", "engine can be cut off" and "cut out the engine" do not always mean that the blip switch was used. It was normal practice with the rotary engines to cut off the fuel supply to the engine by pulling back on the 'fine adjustment' (a lean cut) or by using the on/off fuel cock, and this was certainly used for any prolonged period (such as, in a dive or in 'falling leaf' descent). The blip switch was supposed to be limited to those times when the engine had been throttled back, either when taxiing on the ground or when throttled back for landing - using the blip switch from full power could damage the engine by the stresses imposed, and lead to fire under the cowling as the excess fuel was ejected from the exhaust valves when the blip was released. These instructions were given to Naval 8 pilots by their CO, Christopher Draper: "DON'T 'blip' except when throttled right down. It is extremely bad flying and puts unnecessary strain on the whole machine." "DON'T switch off at any time in the air, or the plugs will oil up." McMinnies use of the phrases "switch off" and "switch on" in no.11 does, however, sound very like a recommendation to use the blip switch, and the use of blip switch combined with a slide-slip to control the rate of descent was common practice for landing after throttling back (no.12). So, I guess use of the blip switch could vary in practice and from one squadron or pilot to another - but it was not encouraged officially as standard practice from full power. The blip switch was necessary because of the higher idle speed (around 800 rpm in the air) of rotary engines, as compared to stationary engines (which had magnetos, but no blip switch). Bletchley

I suspect that some of the random engine failures that you read about in the pilot memoirs were from carburettor ice (or icing of the induction system). This was an unrecognised problem at the time, and pilots were often puzzled to find on landing that their fitter could find nothing wrong with the engine after they had reported loss of revs. or a complete (but temporary) failure (the ice would have melted by then). This did not occur at high altitude, as one might expect, but at low to medium altitude (temperature range 0 to +15 deg.C) in very damp or misty conditions, or flying through cloud (high relative humidity). Passing heat back from the exhaust alongside the induction manifold, or heating the carburettor (as was done for some of the German inline engines, to improve mixture distribution to the cylinders) could cure the problem - perhaps one reason why these German engines were regarded as more reliable. Bletchley