Bullethead

I'd like to see awards for wounds. Every nation in WW1 had them at least by 1917. The Brits had wound stripes, the Germans had wound badges, the French had red stars, and the US had unofficial things prior to instituting the Purple Heart after the war.

Amen to that. Since at least the Russo-Japanese War, if not before, arty has caused about 75% of all battlefield casualties. Maybe that's not the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least on our side, but those wars have a long way to go to catch up with the 20th Century. This always used to be my retort to all the grunts and special forces guys who said they could put a bullet between my eyes at 1000m or kill me 10 different ways up close. Hehehe, I've noticed MadMatt here. He can tell you how I advocated a bigger role for arty in Combat Mission: Barbarosa to Berlin

I know aces play by special rules, but this is ridiculous! This afternoon Jasta 4 was told to fly from our airfield, which is right on the front lines, to defend another one about 30 miles behind the lines. Go figure. Anyway, I led 2nd Flight, circled ones, and then lead off towards the objective, climbing all the way. I left 2 of my wingmen and all of 1st Flight behind by doing this. Soon all that was on TAC was my 2 faithful followers, at which point I warped. When I came out of warp, 1st Flight was, as expected, way higher than my guys were, and I still only had the same 2 guys--the others hadn't reformed during the warp. And off in the distance was a flight of SE5s. They were much higher than we were, about as high as 1st Flight, so I just kept on going and climbing. Meanwhile, 1st Flight engaged the SE5s and we soon left them all far behind. When last seen, they were fighting close to the deck while we were at about 5000 feet. So now the 3 of us in 2nd Flight (the other 2 still MIA) flew on and encounted a flight of Camels. Nothing was on TAC but us and them, 1st Flight still being way behind fighting the SE5s. The Camels were about the same height as the SE5s had been, but we by now weren't much lower. The Camels declined to bounce us so we climbed hard after them and turned in behind them. We closed in and, after a lengthy stalk, finally a bit higher than they were. All this time we were heading away from where we'd left 1st Flight, and also by now well off the waypoint track. And still nothing was on TAC but us and them. Once we were about a mile behind and slightly above the Camels, I ordered my wingmen to attack. I flew on a ways before diving myself, to see how the fight developed before committing. The Camels gave no sign of having noticed us, and I thought I might actually surprise them. Then just before we got into range, tracer suddenly lanced down from directly above the Camels, one of them puffed smoke from many hits, and their formation scattered in all direction. It was 1st Flight diving vertically down on them from some unbelievable altitude. Within seconds, all the Camels were dead, before any of 2nd Flight was able to fire a shot. There's no way 1st Flight could have flown to that point. They certainly weren't in the neighborhood all the time we were stalking the Camels. Plus, 2nd Flight had been climbing full-out since leaving them, yet 1st Flight was now way above us despite being way lower when last seen. I can only conclude that they teleported in to poach my victims. Does having a Blue Max grant you superpowers?

Something's definitely not right. I suppose I'll have to reinstall. I'm having other problems besides 1st Flight's strangeness, such as a frequent partial crash of the game when I end the flight.

Well, I call it "capturing a gun" because it has an heroic ring to it. What actually happened was, after the official end of hostilities, me and my troops were touring the battlefield looking for souvenirs instead of clearing out a by-passed bunker complex like we'd been told to do. We were especially interested in visiting the targets we'd fired on, most of which were artillery batteries. So we came to this D-30 battery and it was all gratifyingly laid waste, except this 1 gun which had somehow survived unscathed and been abandoned in its emplacement. After checking it over for booby traps, we spent the better part of an hour figuring out how to fold it up for transport, and then we hooked it to our Hummer and laboriously towed it back to our position. The Hummer's front wheels were nearly off the ground . By this time, our camp was a real military museum. Other guys had brought in similarly acquired tanks, SP guns, BMPs, MLTBs, BTRs, other types of towed arty, trucks, and land rovers. One guy had even tried to bring in a friggin' FROG launcher complete with big-ass rocket, but had been refused entry due to fears that it had a chemical warhead. So as you can see, there was nothing special about me acquiring an enemy artillery piece. Back at ya

The OBD guys have said that this isn't a good idea for the Fee. The Fee's so-called "vertical abilities" are far lower than what the fighter AI expects to have available, so Fees with fighter AIs spend most of their time stalled. I'm hoping OBD eventually makes a 3rd type of AI for 2-seat pushers. They seem to need one, because neither of the existing AIs does a very good job with them. As mentioned above, they lack the power to use the fighter AI. With the bomber AI OTOH, they're just clay pidgeons. Tractor 2-seaters in formation can cover each other's blindspots, but not pushers, which is why 2-seat pushers used the Lufbery Circle defense. Right now, of course, the only 2-seat pusher is the Fee, so I can understand why OBD didn't spend the extra time on it. Still, the Fee one of the most common Brit planes up to about mid-1917, so the lack of a suitable AI for it is rather noticeable. And it will get more noticeable if future expansions fill out the "Age of the Pusher" with Voisins, Farmans, Gun Busses, etc. I suppose developing a special 2-seat pusher AI would be a lot of work, especially if you take it 1 step farther and split it into "fighter" and "bomber" versions. The "fighter" version would break up the circle after the Huns blow their energy and go chasing off aggressively while pretty much eschewing the vertical. And on top of this, there'd need to be a new wingman command to get your flight to do the circle properly, because flying in a circle while hitting R repeatedly doens't work that well. Oh well, I can dream

<BR><BR>It doesn't make any difference with Fees. There are Fee squadrons that are fighters (and eventually get Brisfits) and Fee squadrons that are bombers (and eventually get RE8s), but regardless of role, their AIs all fly the same way. If given free rein with an "attack" order, they just run away in a straight line and allow the enemy to hose them from behind with impunity.<BR><BR>I don't mind if the Fees fly rather lethargically even when being aggressive. But what really twists my tail is that none of them do the well-documented Lufbery Circle tactic, which was Fee SOP regardless of role, at least until the enemy blew his E.

The same unique ace skins? But that begs the question... OK, maybe some other squadron in the neighborhood hijacked my squad's 1st Flight skins. Then what the Hell happened to my 1st Flight? Why do they sometimes vanish without trace? Why aren't they back with me again after a warp? Why do friendly flights of whatever squadron materialize out of nowhere? Something strange is going on, no matter how you slice it. Or a Syrian division on your left flank....

I believe you are correct. Certainly I've never been able to see the replay until after I've filled in the claim form. It's amazing sometimes how much I thought I saw at the time (and put in the claim form) differs from what the replay says, but that's life in a swirling furball. Sometimes you think you're on 1 guy, sometimes you get on another guy who looks the same without knowing it. Sometimes you pour a bunchof non-lethal bullets into 1 enemy who subsequently dies and you think you got him, but the one you actually killed was a pilot hit in a snapshot which you thought did no damage to speak of. But despite all this, I still get most of mine confirmed .

That's how the time machine was invented. The guy who had already invented it went back in time to tell his prevoius self how to do it

Nope, it was 1st Flight of Jasta 4. I've noticed a lot of strangeness with 1st Flight lately, with all my various pilots in 1918 on both sides. When circling around home drome climbing without warping, 1st Flight often just vanishes. One minute they're a mile or 2 away following the same waypoints slightly ahead of me, then next they're just flat gone. Then when I head toward where the action is supposed to be, sure enough, there's 1st Flight already there and engaged. At other times, when I warp, 1st Flight just flat vanishes, usually never to be seen again. Leastwise, the're usually not visible on TAC when I come out of warp. But every so often, if a fight takes me in the right direction, I'll catch a glimpse of them on TAC at extreme range, usually fighting somebody.

If you prefer cold to heat, you are either still relatively young, or somehow managed to reach >= middle-age without wearing out your knees and various other joints. Every cold snap makes me remember all the sins of my misspent youth . Well, that's hard to say. In may day, an arty regiment of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children had 5 battalions, 3 tasked as direct support to grunt regiments and 2 as general support for the whole division. DS and GS battalions had different types of guns and what they had changed during my time with the colors. I worked with and pulled the lanyards on all. When I started, we had 2 battalions of WW2-vintage 105mm howitzers complete with splinter shields, 1 battalion of towed M198 155mm gun-howitzers, 1 battalion of M109 155mm SP guns, and 1 battalion of M110 SP 203mm howitzers. After I'd been in a couple years, all the 105s were replaced by M198s, but we didn't get rid of the 105s. We still had them in reserve and used them for helicopter-borne arty raids behind enemy lines. Just before Desert Storm, the M110s were retired and replaced by more M109s, but when we got over there, all the MPPS ships were loaded with M110s and their ammo, so we used them in that war, their last hurrah (also the last hurrah of the F-4, A-7, and other Viet Nam-vintage things). I happened to capture a Soviet D-30 122mm gun-howitzer over there. I was even allowed to take it home with me. Today it resides in front of HQ 14Mar in Fort Worth, Texas. I was NOT impressed by this weapon, mostly because it took about 20 minutes to emplace or CSMO, although it shot very well--I'm still picking out itty bits of shrapnel from its shells to this day, and one my cold-sensitive joints is courtesy of a large 122mm frament that bounced off the shoulder of my flak jacket. And as regards all Soviet arty, while the guns themselves are reliable as the Sun and sturdy as anvils, they're not accurate by US/NATO standards. The USSR used a circle of only 3000 mils which, while making the math easier to do in your head, sacrificed significant accuracy at arty ranges. Semper fi, Devildog! Always a pleasure to meet another Jarhead :drinks_drunk: I'll have you know that I was an FO, so I had the worst of both worlds.

Welcome aboard, Iti! Thanks for the drinnk . Gentlemen, this new recruit has good breeding. Notice how he steps right up to buy a round for us, whereas so many kids today have to be prodded into it. I do believe Iti will go far in this war

I fly close to my man, aim well, and of course he goes down. And sometimes I even manage to avoid colliding with him

Ah, I remember you from back then. Delphi was a cool place in many ways.

Get the 1.32 Superpatch, then whatever the latest minipatch is after that (1.32f IIRC). The latest minipatch includes all the previous minipatches, so those are the only 2 you need. And IIRC, those are the only 2 available anyway.

Yeah, I'm still not used to flying for the Kaiser. Not just having 2 guns, but guns that fire so fast in comparison to the synchronized Vickers. Those German planes can really SHRED their targets, instead of the "death by a thousand pinpricks" which is what things like the Pup deal out, or "100 cuts" from a Camel. When flying for the Brits, you're likely to only have the 1 witness to worry about, but as a German you can slaughter enemies all over and who knows who'll be around then?

You of course know your own language and military far better than I do, but I was under the impression that this meant "2nd Seaplane Squadron/Group". I arrived at this conclusion because the land plane squadrons were "Seelandfleigerabteilungen". IOW, OFF's "MFJ 1" was I.Seelandfliegerabteilung in real life, or so I gather from my reading about it.

Good to meet another old cannoncocker. I and Olham also were in the artillery. As I'm sure you know, us arty guys are smarter than grunts. At least we're smart enough to have trucks . Even so, my pack weighed about 200 pounds what with all the radio batteries and MG ammo I had to lug around, plus 2 MOPP suits and whatever else I wanted to wear or eat. Glad I never had to carry it more than a few hundred meters . Still, I wore out 4 pairs of boots in 3 months in Desert Storm. I don't think my living conditions were any better than those of the grunts. I took my 1st shower of 1991 on 13 March. Prior to that, I got 5 gallons of water and a bucket every 1-2 weeks in which to wash myself and what was left of my uniform. It being about 38^F with at least a 15-knot wind blowing, that wasn't much fun. At least once a day, I tried to take my boots off for about 10 minutes and scrub them with baby wipes, and changed my socks every 2-3 days, turning them inside out in between. I lived in a hole in the ground which only had a roof if we were there more than a few hours. Usually we weren't so I had to dig a new hole usually every day, sometimes several times. And it rained about 2 out of every 3 days, and the rain was black with the products of burning oil wells. I joined up in early 80s, the last time that was possible for US troops. Within a few months, the canned C-rats were replaced by MREs, and a few months later the old tin WW2 helmets were replaced by the Kevlar "Fritzpots", so called because of their resemblance to German Stahlhelms. After that, we couldn't cook anything in our helmets like our fathers and grandfathers, which was somehow more depressing than just having to eating cold MREs.

I get queasy flying the Roland. I think it's because the wing completely hides the real horizon but looks like an horizon itself. This fake horizon then clashes with the motion you see going on above it. It's even worse when I fly it with TIR. This, plus the complete inability to see forward and down while landing makes me not fly the thing.

I'm thinking this has more the look of a squadron that's moving forward following advancing troops. Perhaps it was taken during the latter part of 1918. I figure the Germans cut the telephone lines on their way out of here.

Now that's cool! It looks like some of them are tending the wounded. Either that, or their delivering some operatic tenor duet at the loss of their leader I see you've gotten your Seebatros fuselage paint lined up very nicely, too.

This reminds me of a joke..... These tourists were visiting some picturesque European village nestled in beautiful hills. They climbed one of the hills to look down and observe the village and its surroundings in all their glory, and while up there they noticed an old man, clad in the traditional costume of the local villagers, sitting on a rock. He was staring down at the village and looked very sad, so they asked him what was the matter. So he said.... "You see all those houses in the village, all the pretty houses? I built some of them with my own hands. But do they call me a carpenter? No. "Inside all those houses are cabinets of the finest joinery, which took me all my life to master. But do they call me a cabinetmaker? No. "And besides that, the houses are full of furniture. Made of the most beautiful woods, finished in the most lovely colors. The villagers now and again sell a piece on eBay for a huge profit. With my own hands I made that stuff, my life's work. But do they call me a furnituremaker? No. "But you shag just 1 goat......."

Best I can tell, you can only cite 1 witness, and you have to spell his name exactly. It seems to me you want the closest squadronmate to you at the time you kill the enemy, regardless of whether or not he's your official wingman or even in your flight. To make sure of this, you might want to pause the game, get in external view, and turn on labels to spot the best witness. This seems to be the most important part of the whole process. You can get key facts wrong on the circumstances of the fight, such as even which plane of several similar ones you actually shot down, but as long as you've got the type of plane correct and a good witness, you'll probably get credit.

I suspect these guys are living in tents at best, because of the haphazard way the supplies are just being dumped beside the road. Structures to protect the gear are always built before structures for the comfort of the troops. Still, it's not too bad a place to be. It's adjacent to an improved road so supplies can arrive fairly easily and the troops can get to a village without too much trouble. The weather seems nice and the ground appears dry enough to lie down on for a nap. In fact, the whole scene appears quite relaxed and nonchalant, given that most guys are just sitting or lying around despite there being trucks to unload. I suspect this is due to the telephone lines being down, so HQ can't easily nag the squadron into doing anything, another benefit of living here. And PS: don't call me a bomber pilot. I was young; I was just experimenting