Dej

Almost works for me, HPW, except I think it might be too warm a word. I'll be guided by Olham's viewpoint. If 'auffangen' carries that implication then 'cradling' will do rather well.

This is the only I consider upgrading my PC for.

Final version (of course, it's poetry... so actually just MY final version) Midnight For a long time we have been more than thrice denied. In our efforts coincided all our dreams, those of our fathers and our mothers, Now we stand before our graves, fielding Deaths, to come to our End. Our reason is thus: We are children of a breed without a child’s rebellion ‘gainst its breeding. Soulless. Our eyes muckrake in our own minds, grubbing out pain. Long time more than thrice denied... and more than one God to benumb. For us there is no blessed return, no ‘Amen’ for our lamentation In tender mouths that once were ripe with sweetness... Our mothers failed us, that bewailed us, We are stunned by their ‘maternal ways’. And that shall never leave us. Maybe if we just acknowledge we are the children of Error The 'Unforgiven' of our time, Maybe then... WHAT? ... Soulless ... A country blanches away, And many fell, and we long for its pillow.

Methinks 'twoud be the psyche prior to WW1 that informs yon poem... can you shed any light on that Olham. Here is my second pass: Midnight For a long time we have been more than thrice denied. In our efforts coincided all our dreams, those of our fathers and our mothers, Now we stand before our graves, drinking up Deaths, to bring our End. Our reason is thus: We are children of a breed without a child’s rebellion ‘gainst its breeding. Soulless. Our eyes muckrake in our own minds, grubbing out pain. Long time more than thrice denied... and more than one God to benumb. For us there is no blessed return, no ‘Amen’ for our lamentation In tender mouths that once were ripe with sweetness... Our mothers failed us, that bewailed us, Their ‘maternal path’ astounds us. And that shall never leave us. Maybe if we just acknowledge we are the children of Error The Unforgiven of our time, Maybe then... WHAT? ... Soulless ... A country blanches away, And many fell, and we long for its pillow. Reasoning: Line 5: Stäuben – balk at, buck against (as in ‘buck the trend’) so I use ‘rebellion’ to convey that; Line 6: More sordid now, I think, which I hope the author wanted; Line 16: ‘blanches’ as in blood leaving the face, because Germany bled. Hope that works for you, Olham.

I shall, but first a question: 'die, die den Weg der Mutter kamen' would they be 'Mummy's Boys' in today's parlance, i.e. Overly attached to their mothers?

Here’s my take on it. Again, it’s an indirect translation, based on my comprehension and interpretation of the poem, but I’ve attempted to keep the English ‘attuned’ to the German. Dear God, the man was utterly embittered... and not without some reason Midnight For a long time we have been more than thrice denied. In our efforts came together all our dreams, our fathers’, our mothers’, And fell. Now we stand before our graves, sucking up Death, to bring our End. Our reason is thus: We are children of a race without resistance to its own breeding. Soulless. With eyes that probe mind-inward, extracting pain. Long time more than thrice denied... and more than one God must we sate. For us there is no blessed return, no ‘Amen’ for our lamentation In mouths that once were ripe with sweetness... Our mothers failed us, that bewailed us, Thus we mistrust their ‘motherhood’. And that shall never leave us. Maybe if we just acknowledge we are the children of a mistake And therefore unforgivable by these days, Maybe then... WHAT? ... Soulless ... A country fades away, And many fell, and we long for their pillow. Reasoning: Line 1: In English, a ‘gesture’ can mean an ‘effort’ as in ‘a futile gesture’; Line 4: I think ‘graves’ is appropriate for ‘Bahren’. The poet is waiting for Death, believing it preferable, emphasised in the last line; Line 6: I think the poet is implying some kind of racial imperative or drive, which should have been resisted – but was not. Line 7 builds on this – alluding to a critical ‘macho’ self-image that lead to the wrong actions and was exacerbated by the attitude of the women (see Line 11); Line 8: Gods demand sacrifices. German sacrificed her young men on the altars of War, Ambition and Expansionism. If this was written post-War then her land and her economy too, were sacrificed on the altar of Reparation. All of these seemed insatiable; Line 9: I feel the ‘Amen’ warrants ‘lamentation’ for ‘Weinen’; Lines 10 thru 12: The betrayal of womenfolk, those that raise men to feel they are weak if they do not fight and send them off to War with smiles and kisses... only to offer cold comfort when their exhausted men return. Lines 11 thru 16: I think the poet is asking what it would be like if Germany just ‘took her lumps’; accepted she was to blame for the War and got on with life... and he concludes there is nothing to live for, hence the last line.

Hmmm... think I'll go read 'The Waste Land' again... oho, back to school... Sorry, Mr. Pascoe, my dog ate it. I have a, perhaps misplaced, feeling that it might put one 'in the groove' as it were. It's the immediate English poetic work that springs to my mind with very 'uncomfortable' language.

Well, there's always the Zombie option: "Nobody expects a Zombie. Their chief weapon is Surprise... and Fear. Their two chief weapons are Surprise and Fear... and a ruthless morbidity. Erm, their three chief weapons are..." etc. Shiloh, if you've the CD version of CFS I believe you need to upgrade to 3.1 and then play a mission to initialise it for OFF. That advice might have been superceded but will do no harm to do anyway.

Hmm... 'Outcomes: Hard AI Gun Range'. Is that Louvert-speak for 'firing squad' ?

Sorry to darken the tone once more but to return to the original question - and I should love to find a fitting translation for this poem because it is so powerful - are there any idiomatic uses of any of those phrases that strike a chord with modern Germans, Olham? That might help we native English speakers find an equivalent, or at least, an acceptable approximation?

No more than the rest OFF us Glad it's got you hooked... it's one of those 'had to be there' things.

That's very good Lou. Made much more sense. I'll take closer look myself tonight. One thing I did wonder was whether the first line with 'we are more than thrice denied' is meant to echo Peter's denial of Christ? Would that make sense Olham? I don't know how that part of the New Testament looks in German

'A' for Attack; 'H' for Help ME!

Well, I do squeeze my eyes tight shut just as I hit 'em, does that count?

Well, if you're saying those feature have always been there SB, it just goes to show I haven't looked hard enough. Jeez, don't reckon I deserve P4... haven't appreciated P3 enough yet! 3000+ skins, for example - no other WW1 sim comes anywhere near.

85 sorties with the same pilot is something I personally find impressive, in 'Blimey, how many years is it now' years of playing OFF I've never had a pilot go beyond 67... and roughly 70% of my otherwise most long-lived pilots have died in collisions... still need stabilisers

Here is the third in the Fateful Morn series - a bit different from, and a darned sight more difficult than the prior images, being a combat scene. This is because of its subject, Captain Robert Alexander Little DSO* DSC* RNAS and RAF, the highest scoring Australian ace of all time with 47 victories. Little took off at night and any scene with his machine on the ground wouldn't have been well-enough lit to make a good image, plus, it wouldn't have been a 'fateful morn'. Or so I thought, and so chose to feature his machine later in the story, caught by the searchlight beam and with the Gotha above and dawn breaking in the East. Lighting the scene, however, proved a real pig. Bizarrely, there's nothing like having 'real' lights in the setup to really mess up the lighting! I've also shamelessly copied Sandbagger's skin for Little's Camel. A beautiful piece of work and thankfully the camera angle hides the areas where I couldn't do it justice. Anyhow, the scenario is: 04:10 HRS, 28th May 1918. Little has taken off from Filescamp Farm on a moonlit night to intercept Gotha bombers in the vicinity. Closing with one of the returning raiders pinned by a searchlight beam, Little's Camel is fatefully highlighted by another beam swinging across to join the former, temporarily blinding Little and exposing him to the bomber's alert crew. Little has thrown up his hand to shield his eyes and is banking his machine out of the light but in doing so will unknowingly drift into the machine gun fire of the Gotha's rear gunner, whose bullets will fatally wound Little in both thighs. Little will crash-land near Noeux, and survive the impact, but will bleed to death before help arrives. 3D rendering in Cinema 4D, post-processing (landscape blur, 'glamour' filter, film effect - Paintshop Pro X2) Mannock next... [EDIT] Camel skin initially wrongly attributed to Winder, now correctly noted as Sandbagger's work. Thanks Shredward. [/EDIT]

I might yet, Simon, but not for sale, just as a downloadable me-to-you for the folks here. I don't recall the provenance of all the aircraft 3D models I've acquired over the years and I'll not pass someone else's work off as my own where money's concerned. Lol, Lou, I'm doing that already... the squint's nigh permanent now!

I'm impressed by the leather straps over the nacelle, they stand out 'just enough'... and the mud spatters from the tyres on the underside of the lower planes. It's those little details that make the difference. You guys been reskinning the pilots for P4 too... looks different?

Hasn't unpacked his toothbrush yet either I'll bet. A good C.O. would have given him a chance to fly around getting his landmarks locked in first too... doesn't auger well, I fear. Louvert's sig piccy is pretty much how I'd advocate looking into the Duty Room... give those names faces.

Well, the whole scene is set up in C4D, like a stage... models positioned, posed (ailerons, elevators etc) and lit, camera(s) placed, as a basic. Render and tweak. Next I add in the environment, i.e. sky and terrain and make sure the Sun is in the correct place for the season, time and latitude/logitude of where it's supposed to be. Render and tweak... several times. Then I start skinning, cos I know what the camera will see and therefore where I can get away with less detail. Render and tweak a bunch more. Then I add any other effects such as the Searchlights (parallel spotlights in C4D) and scene-setting paraphanelia such as crates, chocks, other aircraft being worked on, smoking mechanics etc. Render and tweak loads more times. When I'm finally happy, I turn on all the machine-hungry rendering options, set it off outputting the image file and go to bed. Get up in the morning, realise I've overlooked something or something doesn't work as I thought it would with all the bells and whistles, so do the last two stages over again next evening. Rinse and repeat. Last of all I'll take the final image file, whack it into Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro and add any enhancements for colour, or depth of field blurs, grainy filters etc. plus any bits that I haven't been able to model satisfactorily, such as trees. So, Cinema 4D is the bulk of it, really. [EDIT] Forgot to say, research... and liaising with the cognoscenti about such things as what was visible behind Cappy aerodrome (bugger all as it turns out) or what were the correct hangars at Bertangles... or, as is my present dilemma, what identification letter bloody Donald Inglis had on his SE5a! [/EDIT]

There's a workshop setting of Easy Claims, might be what you're looking for. Not sure what it does, I've never used it and it might need HitR to be there. Can't believe you're forgetting the names of the other chaps in your flight though... I suppose it excuses you writing any letters of condolence, but OTOH they might have very pretty sisters to hang on your arm when you're next on leave... which you're missing out on.

Welcome Shiloh. To add to Olham's advice above, the 'Flying and Air Fighting' primer on the Camel includes advice from Louvert, so read up on that first and then ask him any additional questions after you've flown the Widowmaker when you have OFF in your mitt, I'd suggest. Another point if you're a Camel fan is that of all the machines in OFF she does seem to provoke the greatest variance in flying experience depending on the rig you have... don't know why or how but that's how is seems to be. OFF is hard - it's meant to be - but it'll be a whole lot harder starting out in a Camel. Of course, you can make life much easier with the Workshop seetings and as a newcomer to flight sims you should take advantage of that until you have your 'air-legs'. Nevertheless, I'd still recommend starting out with a Sopwith Pup - it's the best behaved scout in the sim, then move up to the Sopwith Triplane before you try the Camel. Anyhoos, welcome again, and mine's a pint of Mauldon's Suffolk Pride, if you please.

Signature disallowed... it's making my PC feel inadequate.

Well, it's true that the English are a thoroughly even-handed and fair-minded bunch. For example, every nation they've fought alongside of they've also fought against... can't get fairer than that, can you? 'Bout time somebody ressurrected the 'If WW1 were a pub brawl...' post. That was so very apt.