Siggi

I'm rooting through the cupboard marked "Brutal Cynical Retorts", but it's one of those remarkably rare occasions when I can't bring myself to deploy one (gentle soul that you are). "Bollocks" will have to suffice.

A whole lot of confusion on that link. v1.10, v1.20, v1.02...what's what?

Shot down two Fe2 (mission review confirmed it) but got no claim form. When the form didn't come up I assumed they'd both made it away (first was gliding down, smoking, and I'd heard one of the crew scream, the second was lightly smoking when I'd run out of ammo). So it was down to no witnesses. Those chaps are forever lagging way behind me, I usually have to turn back to pick them up. I'd give them a proper bollocking, but as I'm a lowly flieger I think that might get me into trouble. The flip side is that if I'd waited for them to catch up (five of them) they'd have probably poached all the glory. What's one to do.

Is it at all buggy? Straight forward installer? Where's the download at? :yes:

Black = destroyed.

Yes, and that would have seriously sucked.

This has nothing to do with DiD. The flight leader has the final say in how, when or indeed if a given target is attacked, depending on the situation prevailing at the moment. If he chooses to fire at it from altitude, drop personal grenades upon it, or ignore it altogether in favour of enemy planes covering it from above, that's his call to make. Just as it's his call to decide the ground-fire is too severe and not attack it at all. It's also the player's choice to take the role of a complete coward and run away from everything he sees. How the player chooses to behave within the sim environment, so long as it does not step outside the boundaries of the realism standard applied in DiD, is his/her business. You may argue that the game does not provide a function where an AI flight member can report a leader for dereliction of duty, if the leader's behaviour could even remotely be called such. Well, the game also fails to provide hand-grenades, such that could be dropped upon a target from altitude and fully satisfy the requirements of an ordered attack (do the orders stipulate low-level strafing? No, they do not). Soldiers routinely interpret orders in such a way as to satisfy the letter of the requirement and offer the greatest chance of personal survival. When given orders to attack ground-targets I shall continue to fire a few rounds from altitude and drop hand-grenades upon it (with suitably modified fuses of course, they have a looong way to fall ).

I already have A, R and H mapped (attack, return and help). All realistic if one assumes the use of gestures (close range) and flares (long range). I don't want to be using anything that puts me outside the cockpit etc.

That sounds ideal. Nobody's PM'd me yet, so I'll put it on hold for him.

I don't do all that target-marking malarkey (don't even know how it works), the best they get is me hitting the "A" key a few times.

The sig you can customise yourself appears under your post each time. Widow's avatar tag can be modified only by the staff. Or so I believe.

Custom avatar-tags, coolio! :yes: Until somebody gets a ripper.

I would have been a bit between a rock and a hard place with this one. I needed full throttle to climb and catch the Fees anyway, so even if I'd thought to remember the need for witnesses...just assumed my chaps would be able to see what happened, it was a beautiful clear summer's day. I'm just glad to be still alive, I seem to be having much better luck with my first German pilot than with the last few RFC chaps. Alfred Williams was a high-point so far, probably due to flying pre-1.26 patch or something. It's a lot more dangerous up there these days.

It's entirely selfish I'm afraid. a) I get a kick when somebody else gets a kick. b) I hate waste. c) It makes me look good. d) It's worth bugger-all anyway. Altruism deconstructed 101.

That's a bloody good idea! It always feels a bit 'wonky' having a pilot with kills after just a few missions and a couple of hours. Filling one out nicely with a bunch of missions and hours but no kills would feel 'right'. Home defence, like a kind of extended training.

Thanks Jammer, it's always nice to have my derangement appreciated.

Cheers Davy. I was thinking it'd be a usual BBC production until I watched the clip, it looks like it'll be a good watch.

But he started it first!

Third mission, tootling over the lines with three of my chaps, spotted a glimpse in the distance (TAC red) but failed to see anything definite. About thirty seconds later I take a burst that cripples my kite (Hardcore DM) and I try to make it back over the lines. Another burst and I try to get lower but I suppose the old bird had had enough and I blacked out to awaken in a Stalag. This lark isn't any old cakewalk, is it.

Anything that keeps me on my side of the lines is good.

You bet we can choose different behaviour here. It's a game, with no career-officer just itching to put into the stockade anyone who fails to offer up his limbs or life for the sake of an extra pip on his shoulder. I've seen more than my fair share of that kind of amoral degeneracy. The meat and potatoes of just about any military system you'd care to mention. How was it once famously put...? "Lions led by donkeys." I prefer my version...lions led by hyenas.

I shan't bore you with my war stories. Suffice to say I was at the sharp end, getting my hands dirty, not sitting on my fat arse back in some HQ bunker forcing young conscripted lads to go get themselves shot to ribbons over some political 'domino-theory' crock of horse manure so I could get an extra pip on my shoulder. Hollywood, eh? Talk to me about "realism" matey...through a pair of binoculars was it? Tell it to Capt Winters.

If you think no combatant ever avoided targets he deemed too dangerous you don't know much about warfare. The history books are full of such accounts. I've just been reading a book my brother gave me, regarding air-to-ground attacks over Normandy, and a large number of Typhoon pilots simply pointed their noses in the general direction of the enemy, fired all their rockets and then got out of it. If there was no flak they got rid of some cannon-rounds too. You have a ball with the hollywood-style tactics, I'll carry on doing my utmost to stay alive.

Damn right it's super-realism, I value my ass and I'm not getting it shot off if I can help it. My chaps are free to swoop down while I provide...ahem...top cover. If they decline they get no censure from me. We're fighter pilots, not mud movers. If HQ wants mud moved they can send the right tools for the right job (2-seaters).

Sounds like an ideal candidate for an 'Alternate Universe' solution, where each Jasta fits a Ruestsaetze (field modification) speedo inside of the cockpit.