Flyby PC

Certainly was in 1914.

I can't help directly Erik, but I am reasonably sure there was a CFS3 online squadron who have RCAF as a prefix in their callsigns. You might have more luck tracking down the squadron rather than Gunsjmd. I kind of assumed this was an online squadron, but it's possible they might also have been vets from the Canadian Air Force with an interest in combat sims. Google isn't a great help, because naturally it flags up the Canadian Air Force, but I did notice there's a certain RCAFTailwind who hosts some CFS3 movies on YouTube. You could try contacting him via his YouTube account, or perhaps trawl through the CFS3 SimOuthouse members for the RCAF prefix. For an even longer shot, you might try IL2 or related forums, because the online compatbility issues were popular with multiplayers, and I know the Boys of 60 still fly there, and I believe the MOG fellas still fly there too... I'm less certain about the RCAF fellas, I just don't know what happened to them.

Wow. That one image makes it look much more menacing. It has a War of the Worlds type feeling about it. You could half expect to see a heat ray shooting out. In some of the other pictures, you'd be forgiven for thinking the concept was a cross between a penny farthing and a kid's wind up toy 'tank' - you know? The one you make with a pencil, rubber band and a cotton reel.

I think the word to remember is prototype. You probably learn more from a prototype which doesn't work rather than one that does. That way faults don't make it into production and the Mk2 version is usually an improvement. Not to be unfair about the German designers, the British tank designers were years off the pace. Quite relevent was a recent program in the UK about the tank drivers of WW2. Some of the Desert Rats who fought with Montgomery in North Africa were well and trully horrified with the Cromwell tanks they were given to drive ashore on D-Day after the likes of the lend lease American tanks such as Grants and Shermans they'd seen in N. Africa. It was cramped, full of lethal rivets, had flat square armour, and a tiny main armament. I also think the turret could foul the drivers hatch so he sometimes couldn't get out. They were going into battle against crack SS Panzer Divisions with Tiger tanks and 88's which could pick them off at 2000 yards. Talk about courage... The Cromwell grew into the Comet tank which had more punch and some improvements, but it would have been interesting to see how the 1945 Centurion would have competed with the German armour if it had arrived a year earlier and had gone ashore on D-Day. Mind you, in WW2 weapon design, a year or two could be a very long time indeed. Believe it or not, until 1943, British Tanks were restricted to 40 tons weight so existing infrastructure could transport them. By 1943, after engagements with the 88's of the Afrika Korps, designers were briefed to design tanks which could survive being hit by an 88 but yet remain under 40 tons. When this weight restriction was lifted, and lessons were learned from T-34's and Panther tanks, it all came together in the Centurion, but it just wasn't ready in time to see service. It's easy to condemn the weight restriction with hindsight, but I suspect the must greater impetus for change was coming up against the 88's, but it all took time. In fairness to the British designers, they were still fighting WW1, and had two categories of tanks, slow and heavily armoured tanks to support infantry, and a second category of light, fast, cruiser tanks designed to be fast and mobile to exploit breakthoughs like cavalry. Heavy tanks were not in their design concepts or brief; an obvious error in hindsight, but no worse perhaps than the strategic error of the Luftwaffe never developing heavy bombers because they never anticipated the need for them. I don't mean to be critical of the German tank designers, but it seems these drawing board designs for giant tanks are focussed and built upon the undeniable strengths of the Tiger, when in reality German designers learned more upgrading it's weaknesses and limitations - unreliabilty/support, fuel supply, too heavy for the battlefields, strategic mobility... I'm thinking about the Panther tank. It proved to be less decisive than the Tiger, but I think it's a much better tank than it's more famous brother the Tiger.

I have heard tales about tank crews being killed when they were asleep underneath their tanks which settled on top of them and crushed them. Not a very pleasant way to go. It's all about torque - that's the force it takes to make the wheel turn. It's all about force times distance and ratios etc, and to make such a big radius move would require a tremendous lot of force to be applied to the centre. You can see for yourself, try turning a bicycle wheel with your fingers. It's much easier to turn the wheel near the rim than near the centre. Even supposing the engines could deliver that amount of power, which I doubt in 1915, if it had run, I expect such massive force would have quickly destroyed the gears on whatever drive system was used. It wouldn't be very long before something went 'ping'. I reckon to work at all, you would have to apply the force from the engines out on the radius. They might have done this, it's hard to tell from the picture, but I don't see any drive teeth or gears on the radius. I think it's interesting how the Germans were looking at tanks as fortresses. From an undouted lead in tank design, (with the exception of the T34), I think German Tank design lost it's way. Bigger isn't better, and there's no obvious understanding about sloping armour demonstrated in their heavy designs, nor lessons learned from Kursk or the Ardennes about keeping their tanks fuelled. They seemed more concerned with the expression of power than actually delivering it, but even some of their 56 ton (I think) King Tigers were flipped on their turrets by Allied bombing. If they actually built a Ratte tank, how on earth were they going to transport it to and from the battlefield?

I've never seen it before. Might be the biggest tank, but at 40 tons it's definitely not the heaviest. I also expect it would take some meaty torque to drive those big wheels, and I suspect you could stall the engine or force a change in direction with a sandbag. If the big wheels dipped into a trench or even just some mud, I honestly don't think it would have the grunt to get itself out. Just think how much power a modern agricultural tractor needs to drive itself with wheels and weight a fraction of the size. It would be hard to stop once it got going, but it would take a lot of work to get it going. I'm assuming however those big wheels were driven from the centre, not some mechanism driving the rim. That might have made a difference. I'm also wondering how robust those wheels are if buckled by a shell. Definitely interesting, but I'm guessing there's one big reason it isn't better known....

Perhaps the most poigniant thing isn't the photographs, but why they were left in the camera. I don't imaging stereoscopic cameras were either cheap or commonplace during WW1, and you'd think it might be strange to be left sat on a shelf for the best part of 100 years. There's at least one explanation I can think of... Be aware also, these pictures will mean different things to different people. My father died in 1977 and left a box of similar 'non descript' pictures of his travels during WW2. It sounds a bit dull, but the detective work it takes to find out the locations and circumstances behind the pictures often more rewarding than the picture itself. It'll be quite a challenge for such old pictures, but somebody might take it to extremes and learn a lot more than you'd think possible.

It's always very revealing when you read contemporary accounts of wartime events. Notwithstanding the authors intent, which makes it worth reading anyway, but for the inadvertent glimpses which it gives you into the authentic context. Little things, which you wouldn't or couldn't make up. Without flying OFF and simulation of WW1 flight, and hurting towards an imaginery barrage balloon with my own rockets, the poems references to a feignting approach from high, a headlong dive to fire rockets from above and catching the backfire in your face might not have meant half as much to me. I'm still learning more however, he counts to 5 to make sure the rockets are clear. Does that mean firing rockets was like firing a musket, where there's a pause between firing and the discharge of the weapon, so the five second drill was to keep your aim steady and true beyond the moment of pulling the trigger, or was the 5 second delay to let the rockets and their sticks fly clear of their mountings an still be on target? I'm tempted to think it was the first scenario, because I was led to believe that trying to keep your sights on the target right through the shot and any recoil was good disciplined shooting anyway. I think it's quite probable the rockets would have had a 1 or 2 second fuse, because when you think about it, most rockets do. To me, such details make all the difference in the world, because you can understand that the words were written by someone who was actually there, and doing the things they describe. That's not to condemn fictional writing, but it's just not in the same league as genuine first hand narratives. It's very though provoking. I might never have guessed that rocket attacks were in effect flown as dive bomb attacks, but it actually makes a whole lot of sense considering the arcing trajectory of rockets fired horizontally. I love the way that flying combat sims opens your mind to understand and interpret what people who flew in combat for real were saying, and perhaps get an insight into why they might do certain things in a curious or particular way.

12th of Never? And that's a long, long time...

Not to criticise, but I know at least 1 building destroyed which doesn't mark the bomb which did it. The site (Throgmorton Av) is straddled by a HE bomb and a parachute mine, no direct hit, but I understood the building took a direct hit. That said, I suppose a direct hit with an incendiary bomb was more than capable of destroying a building and those types of bombs would be far too numerous to record. I don't doubt the map is diligently done and the bombs marked reflect recorded bomb sites, but there were a lot more bombs than that. Edit - I stand corrected!!! Just noticed that map is just from Oct 40 to June 41. Yikes.

It all rather poignant when you think how many real WW1 pilots would be ticking the first box, and how many fewer would make it to the 20-30 box. Such a waste of living years.

46, but these past 2-3 years have put years on me, but we all need a few bad years to make the good years better. Before you ask, it's nothing embarrassing or life shattering, I'm just an indirect victim of the Banking collapse and trying to hold on to what I've got while praying for sunshine.

It might be how the aircraft are assigned. In mission builder, bombers or even some fighter bombers will ignore instructions to attack things they're not allowed to attack (even though they are). I know in CFS3, some of the Tempests & Typhoons, plus Mossies I think too, will fly combat air patrols but won't engage fighters. If I recall correctly, the Tempests have cannon, and are awesome fighters but they won't attack aircraft because they're fighter-bombers, not fighters. It's a glitch, but a CFS3 one. I'm guessing its a CFS3 thing, and guessing specifically that you're instructing fighter aircraft to attack ground targets and they're a bit confused. If you open the mission in an XML editor, I bet the aircraft are designated fighters, and you're designationg them to attack ground targets. If you assigned them to attack aircraft, my guess is they'll be quite happy to scuttle off and do it. I think it's relevant to spawing. Some CFS3 interaction occurs with spawns. For example, fly over a spawning point, and an interception will be prompted. For variety, some of these spawns will be randomised, in the sense that instead of particular fighter types such as DR1's etc being scripted, there's an option for generic 'enemy' fighters to be spawned, or enemy bombers perhaps. That means any aircraft designated a fighter can be spawned, and obviously, you wouldn't want bombers to be spawned in a dogfight. It means spawns work as intended, but with a degree of random chance so the mission might change every time you fly it. There is a % probability a spawn will occur, and designated as an enemy fighter spawn, you won't get the same type of aircraft spawned every time. OFF missions are written differently, and missions are scripted, so there aren't spawns, but the AI aircraft still observe their fighter / bomber status and ignore missions they're not meant to accept, as in bomber flying as fighters, and fighters flying as bombers. Edit - doesn't matter whether you specify the correct payload, the designation is in the aircraft's configuration file, and you can't change it in game.

There was something about the Amercan superchargers, or perhaps two stage superchargers not being available in the early years I seem to recall. The P51 Mustang was a reject as far as the RAF was concerned because it didn't have a supercharger, and lost performance at altitude. The American supercharger made all the difference. I forget whether the US was reluctant to share turbocharger/supercharger technology, or whether the Brits thought it too complicated. There was something about it, but I forget. I recall it as the US not sharing the tech, but can't place the information. The Mosquito was always a thoroughbred. It wasn't so much the demise of Blenheims and Battles which prompted a rethink of the Mosquito, so much as the Mosquito being a prototype when Britain was under extreme pressure all available production was needed for replacement aircraft of known type. There wasn't any slack capacity or spare materials for experimental bombers. DeHavilland had to convince Beaverbrook that the Mosquito would not hinder production. Once flying, the Mosquito was initially considered as a good replacement for the Beaufighter, but an equally good photo reconnaisance or bomber. At 30,000ft, the experimental aircraft were getting close to 440mph with excellent handling, and that performance and multi-roll versatility was already putting the Mossie in a class of it's own. It was faster than anything else flying, including interceptor fighters like the Spitfire.

Did your dad ever have an opinion on Gilbert - Henri Déricourt, the reputed double agent who perhaps betrayed the Prosper network in F section? Was Déricourt a traitor, and if so to whom? MI6 or the Gestapo or even both? Or was he just sailing very close to the wind?

I think if I remember correctly the Mossie had one of the best survivability odds of the war. For a long time it was the fastest thing in the air. I'm sure I recall one veteran saying that flying at ground level, you had about 5mph on a FW 190. You were fine, unless of course he went into a dive. Not sure how seriously he meant it. I forget which book, Mosquitopanik it might have been, but there was an extended dogfight between 4 Mossies and 4 FW190's, and they split with honours even, shooting down 2 of each. A Mosquito could carry a 4,000lb cookie bomb all the way to Berlin. A B17 could carry 4,500lbs to Berlin, (although up to 8000lbs for shorter ranges). The 2 man Mossie did it faster than the 10 or 11 man B17 and used less fuel too. I don't mean that as a criticism of the B17, but a measure of just how good the Mosquito was. I believe the cookie bomb was a blast bomb designed to blow the roofs off buildings and leave them more vulnerable to the incendiaries that followed. Having said that, I think the Brits were years ahead of the US and indeed Germany in bomber design. A Wellington could still carry 4,500lbs. Even the Halifax could carry 12,000lbs and the Stirling 18,000lbs. There were clearly some very different theories about bomber designs. Even the B29 could only match the 22,000lbs of the Lanc. I suppose the RAF had the benefit of evolutionary designs, whereas the US had to catch up quick. Pointless conjecture, but I do wonder however what a few Lancasters (or B29s) dropping 12,000lb Tallboy or 22,000lb Grandslam 'earthquake' bombs would have done to the japanese tunnel systems at Iwo Jima and other Pacific strongholds. To the best of my knowledge, they never did but I feel sure they'd have done a lot of damage.

Is it? (I'm on mobile broadband and it's a bit big to watch). I know they flew very low. I think it was the Operation Jericho raid when one aircraft damaged his tail wheel clipping a rooftop, and on another occassion, a Mosquito flew home after picking up some of the wire rigging from a ship they were attacking. These flights were extremely low.

There is nothing I don't like about a Mosquito. BIG all time favourite. I hope they build a dozen of them and fly them over my house every day.... well maybe not every day, but certainly pretty often. Now what we need are some new Mosquito movies like 633 Squadron but without the cheesy plots. These Mosquito missions were better in real life than the plots in the movies. - And occassionally far more tragic too. The boasted very accurate low level bombing, and could 'bowl' their bombs in the front door of Gestapo HQ buildings. One mission however, Operation Carthage, went tragically wrong. The wing tip of a low flying Mosquito clipped a streetlight and crashed into a school. The explosion was misread, and subsequent aircraft dropped bombs on the school too. 86 Children and 18 adults were killed, and what was even sadder was speculation that some kids survived the crash, and the friendly bombing, but were trapped in basement levels and drowned while people tried to dowse the fires. Horrible story, but the attack did destroy the correct target too, and destroyed a lot of Gestapo records and personel. It was late in the war too, March 1945, and a great tragedy for Copenhagen.

Well he denies it, but we have fingerprint evidence - but it's only circumstantial.... Dog likes coffee. What can you do?

My dog doesn't like tea, but minesweeps tables for unfinished coffee. Says all you need to know about tea.... (and reminds you to wash your mug properly ). Incidentally, you know the old snobbery about tea and which goes in first, milk or tea? Well, most people say tea first and add milk, but once apon a time, a real old blue blood type let me into a secret. She said you put the milk in first. Good quality china tea cups are very thin, and the hot water alone can crack the cup. If you put the milk in first, it takes the shock out the boiling water and the cup is less likely to crack. I'm guessing the richest toffs had the thinnest china, so put the milk in first. - But don't think for a minute that I care.

I heard many years ago that importing Russian timber was considered too risky because it was too common to find embedded shrapnel which would wreck the modern equipment in sawmills. I don't know if that's true, but certainly could be. I'm in two minds whether I like these 'reminders', but I'm a little biased because I don't like distressed stonework. I actually think those blended photographs are much more poigniant merger between the past and the present, but then again, seeing such things in real life is often quite different again. Like seeing how small tanks are if you remember a previous thread. As for that jet going missing, it possibly had very good urban camouflage and they forgot where they parked it. (Sorry, derivative of a corny joke I heard when I bought an ex MOD landrover many moons ago).

Is Berlin left like that deliberately Olham? A lot of that masonry is repairable.

It's funny, but there's a uk program called Time Team, where archaeologists excavate sites over 3 days and compile the story of a site. To watch it, sometimes you think the only thing the romans and saxons ever did was run around the country smashing pottery everywhere they went. I wonder in the decades and centuries to follow how our time will be defined, - not by our pottery but maybe by our shrapnel.

Just to dwell on the subject, I recently read a document 'ghost' pricing the defence budget for Scotland going it alone. The document was quite blasé about 'who would want to attack Scotland?' and what specific threats would Scoltand actually face etc. but when I think about it, most wars occur from circumstances you couldn't really predict, - or at least predict in time to have a defence policy to cope with it. There are obvious strategic decisions, nuclear issues obviously, but I mean more strategic ideals, like the UK's desire to reach out and hit hard over long distances, whereas Scotland's defence would be focussed on just that - defending Scotland, inshore and off shore. It's not as straightforward a choice as you might think. The defence budgets can hardly cope with existing UK commitments, and recently a Russian aircraft carrier was close enough to shore off Scotland to be seen dumping bin bags into the sea, and there wasn't one single British Warship within 500 miles nor maritime air patrols either since the Nimrods were scrapped. Don't misunderstand, I have no animosity towards the Russians or anyone else, but not having a single warship within 500 miles just screams of complacency. We're currently building two aircraft carriers but can't afford aircraft to put on them. What kind of defence policy does that sound like to you? It's easy to take peace for granted, (or not peace perhaps given the wars we're still fighting), but attacks on our homes. Are we really so far away from the next conflict that we can be so complacent, or are we just waiting for the cycle to repeat? How robust is the peace we currently have? Here in Europe we have Turkey and Syria brewing ill feeling, Turkey and Greece still simmering, the Spanish government is making belligerant gestures toward the Catalans and stirring civil war skeletons... Riots in Greece, riots in Spain, civil unrest over austerity and renewed interest in far right extremism. I get a bad feeling sometimes the further behind we leave the last war, the closer we are coming to the next. I want to have friends everywhere, because having a friend somewhere/anywhere/everywhere makes it harder to believe a war could sneak up on you, and you also won't have to believe the spin your government puts onto people in other countries having a few problems. (I think that tells you how much I trust the UK media Human Drone). Strange times... Secure for the most part, but flash points are all around us, and history confirms how quickly they can spiral out of control.

Scotland MIGHT be changing and breaking the mould. It does have certain opportunities, but whether it is brave enough to take them is the million dollar question. There is cause for hope and optimism, - but the mainstream media seems absolutely determined to snuff it out. It's going to be a curious fight - one side has all the winning arguments, but the other side has a vice like grip on the media. - Absolutely not kidding, if you want objective journalism the best impartial news is Aljazeera.