Bullethead

I come from a very long line of anarchists, bandits, pirates, and failed revolutionaries. My ancestors were chased out of many countries and stomped flat wherever they tried to set up their own. I therefore claim no nationality to any extant country. IOW, don't blame me, I just live here ;)

Humanity will never be free until the last priest is strangled with the entrails of the last king, or however it was said :). Or, as I prefer to say today, until the last lawyer is strangled with the entrails of the last politician...

You're too kind. Nothing I've made in my life would sell for more than $50 unless the buyer didn't know anything about the pricing of modern points. True masters can command their price into 5 figures. Where I live, most of the Indians weren't very good a knapping, if I do say so myself. This isn't surprising, because they didn't get much practice. Lousy Anna is mud all they way down to Hell, where there's a thin layer of baked adobe just above the flames :). Thus, the local Indians had to import most of their rock. Most of their points were therefore made of fire-hardened wood, antler tines, and garfish scales. The points I find lying around on the surface were doubtless lost during hunting. These are work-a-day points that don't have to look nice as long as they get groceries. In fact, the thicker they are, the more likely they are to survive. OTOH, their true artisans made very fine stuff, often paper-thin, that they buried with their chiefs in their mounds. Such things would be 1-shot weapons on the hunt or in war, however, despite the extreme skill needed to make them. Modern masters make stuff that you'd bury with a chief. I make stuff that's somewhere in between that and what you find lying on the surface.

I don't live in a city, town, village, hamlet, or anything officially recognized. I just live "in the country" somewhere near Lousy Anna's armpit. As Hank Jr. said, I can skin a buck, I can run a trot line And a country boy can survive Oh, the glories of satellite broadband, or else I wouldn't be here . The pic below was taken when I was standin' at de Crossroads Evenin' sun goin' down This crossroads is the closest landmark to where I live. As you can see, this is dead on the Blues Highway. The main gate of Schloss Geschosskopt is centered between the sign posts and you can just barely make it out if you know what to look for. Walking out there to take the pic just now, I stepped over a possum and a water moccasin, and ducked several swooping bats that were after the yellow fever, malaria, and West Nile mosquitos that swarm around here. Enter at your own risk http://www.flickr.com/photos/39416639@N02/3718309613/

Sorry for getting carried away talking about Spads in other threads, so now they have one of their own.... Anyway, I haven't flown the VII yet; I can only give my observations of the XIII. I don't know much about how the thing was supposed to fly, so I ask somebody with more knowledge on that subject to compare my observations with reality. Take-Off and Climb Below about 80 knots (based on HUD ASI), the beast is quite contrary. She badly wants to drag the right wingtip and careen off to the left across the path of your buddies. It takes substantial use of opposite rudder and aileron to keep the thing more or less level and on course. However, once she reaches 80 knots, she settles right down, leaps off the ground, and flies quite level and stable during the climb. The XIII's sustained climb speed is about 90-95 knots. She won't go any faster while pointed up for a long time, and can't get any slower without falling out of the sky. Initial climb rate is like 1500fpm but this rapidly decreases down to about 500fpm by about 4-5000'. This rate can be maintained to up to about 18000', but goes away completely by about 19500', at which altitude the XIII will motor along at 100 knots on the level. Combat Maneuvering The absolutely essential thing about the XIII in combat is never let the airspeed get below 100 knots, and only do that at the top of a vertical maneuver safely above the enemy. If you're 100 knots at the enemy's level, it's time to leave, because if you try to fight at that speed, you'll rapidly drop down to the XIII's stall speed, which is about 80 knots. When you reach that speed, 1 wing will stall and you'll go into a spin. This is probably why the beast is so crank on take-off while below this critical speed. Because of this high stall speed, don't even think about turning with anybody. You have to be going very fast all the time, and make extensive (but careful) use of the vertical. If you've got a decent speed on, you can zoom up to a safe altitude between passes before you're forced to come down as your speed falls off toward 100 knots. This is the only way to make multiple passes in a fight. The other choice is just to make 1 pass and run away. The Spad cruises at like 110-115 knots, which is obviously too slow to fight with. Therefore, the XIII can ONLY sucessfully engage lower enemies, when it can build up to 150-200 knots or more on the approach dive. But while you can easily reach 300 if you want to, this is so much faster than the enemy that it's next to impossible to get a shot at anything as you scream by. So I don't recommend making passes at much more than 170, and even then getting more than a snapshot is difficult except on enemies fixated on chasing somebody else. To compensate for this somewhat, you can make radical use of your rudder to yaw your sights like 30^ or more off your flightpath. This slows you down somewhat, but isn't a problem if you're going fast enough to start with. This trick is the best way of keeping sights on a target during one of your passes. You're basically on a ballistic trajectory that the extreme yaw doesn't alter much. Always keep an eye on your speed. If you ever find yourself getting below 150 knots when near your target at his altitude, it's time to call it quits and extend away. Just be aware that AI planes can dive after you for quite a way without apparently suffering structural problems, so it sometimes takes a while to get away. And that means you'll burn lots of altitude diving for speed. As a result, I don't recommend engaging the enemy below about 5000'. Any lower and you might not have enough altitude to escape if need be. You'll almost certainly get into a spin at some point. The XIII's spin rather slow and deliberate, but strangely nose-high. It's easy to get out of, provided you can get the nose down, because otherwise you don't build up any speed. I find that leaving the power full on gets the nose down quicker. Once the nose gets a hair below the horizon, the XIII quickly builds up speed, and as soon as you're above 80 knots, the spin stops like magic and away you go like it never happened. Landing Landings are tricky because the XIII stalls and spins at about 80 knots. Unfortunately, the XIII doesn't lose altitude except below 100 knots. Thus, landing approaches have to be low, flat, and hot, carefully maintaining about 90 knots all the way in and over the threshold. You really should only land at fields that have miles of flat ground under the glide path, long runways, and few trees on the threshold (why to we have ANY trees there at any field?). If your home drome isn't like this, I recommend always landing elsewhere. I aim to come in between the threshold trees at about 1/2 their height at 90 knots. You can, at this point, slow down to about 85 if you want, but be careful doing that. Because you're going so fast when you touch down, you'll bounce if you have too high a rate of descent, and bouncing can put you up again too slow to fly. I've made a few smoking holes that way. So, I usually maintain about 90 knots all the way down, make a very gentle 2-pointer about 1/2way down the runway, then chop throttle. Be prepared for a repetition of the crankiness of take-off as you slow down. Summary The XIII is a very strange beast. Fairly stable and easy to fly, wicked fast, powerfully armed, and tough. But, it's like the lower part of her flight envelope got cut off abruptly. I find it hard to believe that any real WW1 fighter had to be landed at 90 knots, and the transition from everything being fine to spinning is sharp. There's no warning of impending stall, it just suddenly happens. And as soon as you're out of it, the plane's back to behaving itself perfectly. Seems strange to me. Anybody else seeing similar things?

Being in the software industry, I can't bring myself to use cracked versions :). And BTW, you just have to restart the mission if you forget to put in the CD, you don't have to restart OFF from scratch.

The relative performance of the planes is very important to me, too, but I've never seen an N24 out-turn a DrI in OFF :). I perhaps give the planes a bit more leeway than you do. After all, I've never flown any of them myself, so have only the subjective anecdotal evidence of WW1 pilot memoirs to go on. I trust the OFF team to be way more knowledgeable than I am in this matter, so I trust their judgment. One thing to remember, however, is that I doubt very much that all real WW1 planes of the same type flew the same, or that the same plane flew the same way 2 days in a row. I can think of many reasons for this, ranging from as-built weight variations in the wooden structure, to daily weight changes due to local humidity, to differences in "tuning" the bracing wires. And then you've got the potential for battle damage before you even meet the enemy--maybe hit took an Archie fragment on the way over. Finally, it takes a good pilot to get the most out of his plane, and pilot quality varies considerably. Thus, the same plane in the hands of an ace will turn much tighter than when flown by a noob. As a result, it seems to me that just getting the relative performances within the right ballpark is quite good enough. That would seem to be within the margin of error produced by all the above factors, especially the pilot quality thing. Thus, if on one day I'm able to out-turn a given type of enemy plane, but not on the next, I'm not going to complain. I figure the 2nd guy was just a better pilot :yes:

Welcome aboard, Wolfje! Yes, you've come to the right place for "Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven and Hell" (OFF:BHAH or just OFF for short). As Ohlam says, OFF is a total conversion mod for Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 3 (CFS3), not the civilian flight simulator they make. If you don't already have it, you can probably find it somewhere on the web for about $5 US. There are 2 different versions available, on a DVD and on CD. The advantage of the DVD vesion is that you don't need to keep the disc in the drive while playing OFF. The problem is, this is very hard to find. I myself could only find the CD version for a reasonable price. This works just as well, except I have to keep the CD in the drive. I'm sure you will enjoy OFF. It's the best stand-alone flightsim I've ever played.

I hope WF2 sees this. It's the 1st spotting of a D.VIII in OFF

All synchronization/interruptor systems slowed the rate of fire, but the difference this made varied considerably. IIRC, the German system of WW1 was more efficient than at least the initial system in widespread use by the Entente, although I think they became more equal in late 1917 or early 1918. Thus, for example, the Pup has rather less than 1/2 the firepower of an Albatros D.III.

If that's the same show that's been running in the US the last year or so, it's pretty good.

I concur. A single synchronized gun, at least on the Entente side, is pretty pathetic. You hold down the trigger for about 2 seconds and only fire 6 rounds or so. I understand this is entirely accurate, so I'm not complaining. I'm just saying that going from a wing gun to a synchronized gun on the Entente side is really a significant loss in firepower for the amount of time the trigger is pressed. The advantage is, you usually have more ammo in total, and it's easier to aim. But if you've gotten good with aiming the wing-mounted gun, you really notice the difference.

Never take the trouble and stife anywhere, but most especially never to the rubber dub dub, unless you can go up the apples and be with Vera Lynn in the bush, or perhaps the other way around . But mind you, I said I was TRYING to learn Cockney rhyming slang. The above sallies have pretty much expended my ammo, and some shots were no doubt far wide of the mark. I haven't practiced it in years, and it goes away like any foreign language you don't use. I must admit, however, that while I enjoy busting out with some exotic turn of phrase, my main reason for trying to learn local slang wherever I go is economical drinking, especially where the USD is worth less than the local currency. I've found that if I put a valiant effort into learning a couple of phrases, the natives will buy me drinks the rest of the night in exchange for me trying to teach them my own local slang. Thus, maybe they can impress some girl from a different village, and I drink mostly for free, so everybody goes away happy .

I have to agree with that. I've probably spent a total of 2 months in the UK (spread over several trips), and I can count on 1 hand the number of nights I spent in towns of more than 1000 people. The vast majority of the cool stuff to see is out in the countryside, and at the top of the list of "cool things to see" are the local people of the out-of-the-way places. Especially the women when you tell them you're from Texas and have the accent to back that claim up. Besides all that babe-magnet badboy cachet that Texas has, women know everything's bigger in Texas . But seriously, I'm no fan of any city, US or otherwise. I realize that my redneck perspective is very much the minority view of the geographically huge but relatively unpopulated "fly-over territory" of the US, but no matter where in the civilized world you live, you can see a big, dirty, crime-infested, but somehow nevertheless snobbish and self-righteous city within a few miles of your home. So why pay big money to cross an ocean to see another? I went into London to see the IWM (to pay an artilleryman's respects to the Nery Gun) and the incredible collections in the Tower, plus HMS Belfast adjacent. But what I remember most fondly of that trip is trying to learn a few bits of Cockney rhyming slang in a pub nearby. I've seen the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids from 30,000' feet and have never felt the need to get any closer. But trying to learn how to curse in local Welsh slang in the only pub for miles, or in local Mexican slang in a brothel in Acuna, or in local Arabic slang in the only coffeehouse for dozens of miles, is to me much more of an attraction. Plus, all the cool ruins are in those distant neighborhoods.

I should have mentioned above that squadron quality also varies over time. I've seen squadrons that are rated as "poor" and "elite" and everything in betweeen a different times in the same year. Not that I've ever lived long enough to see that happen in the game--I just see this while scrolling the date around. So that's another thing to keep in mind when picking your squadron.... You might want to scroll the date to keep an eye on the squadron quality, besides checking where it's based and what it's flying.

A few more things about starting a campaign.... The choices of squadron and date are extremely important for your overall enjoyment of your career. These determine what sort of plane you'll fly and how much opposition you'll face. Early in the war, there's not much doing anywhere, but after that enemy planes are usually concentrated in the areas of the major ground battles going on at the time, and are rather thin elsewhere. So, you pick a squadron that has the type of plane you want, then run the date back and forth to see where it's based in relation to the battles of that date, to set the level of challenge you want to face, at least to start with. If you live long enough, the local battle might end and if your squadron doesn't move to the new hotspot, you'll experience a lull. Another VERY important thing when picking your squadron is its quality. This has a huge effect on your personal survival, because it largely determines how effective your wingmen are. In "poor" squadrons, your wingmen won't last long at all in a fight, either dying on the 1st pass or running away immediately, leaving you to face all the enemy alone. OTOH, in "elite" squadrons, your wingmen are so effective that you'll have trouble getting a shot off, and your main threat is being rammed by one of them who's trying to steal your kill. Of course, this varies with the difference in quality between your lot and the enemy. The bottom line is, when picking your squadron and your date, don't forget to check the quality, and if it's not what you want, find a different squadron. Also, before going to the Briefing Room for your 1st mission, you should go to the Duty Room to meet your buddies. This is the only place where you can learn their ranks, with is important in several things, such as who ends up being the leader if it's not you. Plus, you might find it fun to keep track of how they fare throughout the war.

Interesting. Too bad there's more about peace symbols than the history :).

I saw a show on the History Channel a few months ago about how they'd finally located the battlefield begun to dig up some of the bodies and artifacts. Folks have been looking for it for at least the last couple of centuries. That battle was one of the most significant events in European history, because of its long-term cultural effects. It set an early and long-term boundary on the Roman Empire, drawing a sharp line through Europe between those who got thoroughly romanized and those who didn't, between Romance and Germanic languages, and all sorts of other things. The effects of this are divide are still felt today, rather like how Hadrian's Wall was largely responsible for the continuing differences between England and Scotland. Unfortunately, there hasn't been that much info on the ongoing results of the excavation. I was under the impression from some old Roman historian (I forget which) that a few years later, the Romans went back, gathered up all the identifiably Roman bones they could find scattered about the ground, and burned them. Thus, I've been curious as to whether the excavations verified this somehow.

Well, I've give it a go, too ;). I found a copy of the 1st volume at B&N.

Like it or hate it, the superstitious keeping of a memento from a notable dead person, even an enemy, is very, very deeply rooted in the human mind. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me to see many instances of it today, not just in museums and cathedrals, but on TV like at Arafat's funeral. So I don't think the practice will ever disappear. Give that it's part of life, you just have to deal with it some way when you meet an example. You can put it in the respectful but very superstitious category with venerated saintly relics, or you can put it in the degrading and oppressive category of gibbetting a hanged thief at the crossroads. I prefer to put museum collections in the former category, if for no other reason than to keep them from spoiling my enjoyment of the rest of the museum. And honestly, while my rational side scoffs at the superstitions surrounding relics, I have to admit that when I view a museum collection of some notable man's effects, I myself feel a touch of that superstitious awe creeping up my spine from its paleolithic roots. Thus, I can understand why people make such displays.

I kinda feel the opposite. Taking trophies in war has a long and, for the most part, honorable history. OT1H, you knew your defeated foe was a bad-ass in life, so you needed some way to placate his ghost, which would be even harder to defeat. OTOH, you knew your foe had been favored by the gods and you wanted some of that mojo to rub off on you. This latter feeling was transported in later days into the veneration of saints. Thus, the various things in museums are affording MvR the same reverence that attracts pilgrims to cathedrals housing some fragment of a saint. However, IMHO, showing a photo of the bloody corpse, untouched by morticians, smacks of crass commercialism and propaganda, in a heavy-handed modern effort to counter the above superstitions. He was just a man and now he's dead, see? Others who oppose us can expect the same treatment. I personally prefer the old superstitions in this case. EDIT: MvR himself kept a famous trophy collection. I wonder what his reasons were.

If I was doing a WW1 movie, it would be on the Brusilov Offensive, which IMHO is one of the most interesting and least-studied things that happened.

Here are the Verdun forts, for them as are interested and use Google Earth.

31 May - 1 June 1916, the Battle of Jutland, one of my favorite subjects.

to you as well. @Widowmaker, on this day, 31 May - 1 June 1916, the Battle of Jutland was fought. (Topic save for WW1 stuff )