Dej

For those wanting to know where the USAS squadrons pitched in WW1. There an interactive map on This Site, which, incidentally is very well presented overall. I'm sure I'm not the first to refrence this in these fora but, in the spirit of reminders....

I'm generally happy with the DM and apparate variations therein I can put down to my own inconsistent piloting. I DO share FB's observations though that I seem too easy to damage with a few shots and the enemy too hard, i.e. I see puffs of smoke and debris but they fly on unfazed. My poll answers are not strongly felt but if you guys did another set of DMs I'd ceertainly give 'em a try... variety is the spice after all

Bet that pint's on the list of 'best pints I ever drank' Nice One.

Hope you and the family have a wonderful Christmas, WM. And, of course the same felicitations to everyone else in this great community of WW1 aviation enthusiasts.

Glad all those battling through bad weather and earthquakes made it okay. But you've 'proper' bad weather to deal with... we've had 5 inches (12.5 cms) here in the South of England this evening and it's taken me 5.5 hours to travel the 37.5 miles from work to home! Can you guys with proper bad weather send a bunch of people who can cope over to the UK, please. Ta.

IMHO those are the best to date. But mark what Olham said. And don't be offended by the more acerbic Uncleal... it's what he's like... Marmite Man.

At risk of shamelessly plugging my own video, if you stream this you'll see - about 45 secs in - a group of Rolands in perfect formation sweep into an attack on some BE2s. The original footage is in one of the OFF preview videos but I forget which one, hence I'm digging this out. Making the point that I think the Walfisch is kinda overlooked in OFF. It's a pig to fly but it had some of the best AI in the sim I think - haven't gone up against in since HiTR though. So, not all two seaters are sitting ducks.

Still tweaking. My FPS is higher than it's ever been but control seems sluggish... just a question of me and my rig adjusting. The AI issue I have nowt to say on as hasn't already been said. Overall though the whole sim just looks so much better and the wind buffet and noise... SO IMMERSIVE. Just want to say thanks too for the new artwork, the SE5 scene you get with a British campaign is just perfect almost brought a tear to my eye when I first saw it, did bring a huge grin to my face. Kudos the devs.

Definitely worth £6 WM. Spitfires and air combat scenes, plus, it's a good story and well-acted to boot. Cinematography-wise it's as nearly as good as Pearl Harbour but it has the advantage of decent acting, realistic flying and a plot!

For the Brits to ponder: Why is there only one Competition Commission?

This is a very interesting project indeed. May I ask, Lou, as you seem to have created a persona for your static display, which medals will be adorning the tunic and what their imagined (and real, if you'd care to share) provenance might be?

Good post BH. I've come to appreciate your views on things as you've been so often proven correct (not meant to sound patronising - I really have). Sometimes my measure of the AI allows me to win but more often my experience definitely confirms your penultimate point, that I'm not as good an airmen as other sims (and earlier versions of OFF) had led me to believe. Certainly not at full DiD, anyway.

Nice one Creaghorn. The newspaper reports was another area I was hoping would be addressed in P4 but I said nowt because it's of so little importance compared with the other development the OFF team have on their plate. Now we just need an enterprising soul to do the same for the Allies... I'd offer but I'm honestly too bloody busy with RL.

Another quick 'n' easy one is Windows Texture Viewer or WTV which ia available here: Windows Texture Viewer . If you have Photoshop then the NVidia plug-ins for reading DDS file with PS can be located from that link too.

IIRC, exhaustion featured heavily in the Luftwaffe's performance in the Battle of Britain. The second front in Russia didn't open 'til '41, but in July 1940 the Luftwaffe had already fought across Poland, the Low Countries and Norway then found themselves fighting a technologically equivalent and brilliantly resource-managed opponent over it's own turf where a downed but uninjured pilot could return to fight the same day... and often did... notwithstanding the 109's limited combat time over the South of England. In truth, though, the RAF didn't so much win the Battle of Britain, as not lose it, forcing Operation Sealion to be cancelled. It was in Hitler's plans, I believe, to recommence operations against Britain in '41 but Barbarossa had kicked off and the fight against the Soviets was going very well indeed so he 'took his eye off the ball'. By the time USAAF heavy bombers made their first raid on 17 August 1942 the Luftwaffe, particularly in the West, was a shadow of its potential self, having already lost many Experten in the BoB or to the Russian Front. Not that it probably seemed like it to the B17 and B24 crews braving the carnage of daylight bombing. The above, of course, simplifies things somewhat, but I am of the opinion that had the Luftwaffe not already begun bleeding itself to death in the BoB and the prior storming of continental Europe, Allied losses in the bombing of the Reich would have been far greater. Assuming the incompetent interfering of Luftwaffe High Command had allowed. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe still gave a bloody good account of itself.

Remember too, that the weather in 1917 in particular was unseasonal, following on from a bad winter in '16 and including the wettest summer locals had seen for some years, hence the quagmire of Third Ypres (Passchendaele). That's British weather... yesterday.

Try this one Olham. Again, not very big pics but lots of them. http://www.military-art.com/mall/artists/ww1aces.htm

Great stuff, HPW. I tried it out tonight, got back into my DiD campaign after a forced absence of a few days and was landed my first Scramble. It was snowing heavily and I couldn't find the bombers at first and then couldn't reach them when I did spot them. I was circling slowly back to the aerodrome expecting to land without any result when I noticed white archie off to my forward starboard, even despite the snow. I hurried on over and there was a Halb DII, blinded by the weather, which I duly shot down for my first Krauts vs. Crumpets campaign victory. Real good to get on the scoreboard and even better to do it in such an immersive way. Thank you very much indeed I've been there recently... it's much nicer when it's not full of shellholes

Rabu's maps are excellent, but far too big to overlay on the in-game map and by the time you've reduced it enough to fit all the legibility is lost. This looks like a viable alternative. Keep up the good work Waldemar. Here's a suggestion though. If you can set the non-black part of your overlay to transparent and remove the thick 1918 Front line you could overlay the same image on each of the campaign maps that have their appropriate period front line in red and quickly redo all of them. After all, although the front line moved the towns and villages didn't... disappear altogether maybe :-( but not move.

To be fair, Lou did say 'modern day Immelmann'. It's today a quite different manoeuver from that whcih we now call a 'wing over' that Immelmann made his own. The illustration in 'Practical Flying' is clearly NOT an Immelmann as we call it now. Sim FMs notwithstanding many WW1 aircraft didn't have the aileron 'muscle' that later sircraft had, so a roll, flick, snap or otherwise may well have been beyond them. I know in this sim I have to put a fair bit of rudder on to persuade an SE5 over on her back; the Camel will do it easily but not without a dip and raise in the vertical plane... so not a roll really... more like a kebab

We've learnt that 'all being worked on' is the stock answer to any query raised... but the difference in OFF is that it genuinely IS! I doubt there's much that we players can draw the devs attention too that they aren't already aware of, and plan to fix. Me, I've stopped looking for enhancements to OFF, I KNOW they're coming... I'm busy wishing for an OFF dev cloning device

There's too many requirements in there for Western politicians to meet... five out of eight max, I'd say! That Albatros is truly beautiful but for me the Brisfit has it, just as Hasse Wind said... I'll go for menacing over beautiful any time when it comes to fighter aircraft. If planes were women... and they almost certainly are... I'd be the guy going for the long-nosed Italian lass with the sandy skin, ringlets and one arm slightly longer than the other ... guess which.

Flying DiD means as a minimum flying 'full real' in terms of flight model, engine management (mixture control optional), gunnery, cockpit only view, weather and other effects... PLUS having 'Dead is Dead' turned on in the Workshop. The aids (for want of a better word) such as TAC, Labels and Warp give rise to the variations DiD/T, DiD/L and DiD/W or combinations thereof. 'Krauts vs. Crumpets' is pure DiD, no aids. The only difference between how Fortiesboy flies and DiD is the Death on Dice Roll setting instead of Dead is Dead, but it's the significant difference from the point of view of the rules. Not playing DiD doesn't mean playing easy, no. OTOH, playing DiD does mean not easy. Mind you, I found DoDR to be sometimes more frustrating than DiD, because it seemed to kill erratically. I've survived slightly less than perfect landings with DiD set that I'm sure DoDR would randomly have rolled my number on. I doubt that it is actually the case, but DoDR seemed more 'bloodthirsty' playing in Campaign mode than it did in QC.

Siggi's explanation of the birth of DiD highlights exactly those things that appraiserfl noted, that instant ressurection kills immersion and renders the sim ultimately boring if you have no real 'skin in the game'. Now, as Bullethead would rightly point out, OFF is NOT combat flying in WW1, and your real 'skin' is not at risk. But with DiD it kinda doesn't matter because you put in a lot of nerve-wracking hours (hopefully) and dry mouthed, sweaty hands on the j/s moments, which take something out of you and leave you proud of surviving... and that final, inevitable, loss really hurts.

I watched it when it was first shown. It's worth watching, Olham. Daniel Radcliffe's performance is maturely underplayed while David Haig is extremely good as Kipling, but then, as he wrote it and played the same part both on stage and in the TV version he should be. It's good, but I didn't personally find it as moving as the documentary on Walter Tull.