Bullethead

It goes best with either Shiner Bock or Lone Star beer :yes:

On the way home from another useless recon hop due to horrific weather, the 2 survivors of my 6 Jasta 13 escorts met 3 more Camels (I think we met about 15 total on this trip, plus some SPADs). Considering 4 of them had already died to save my flight, and being utterly bored with being just passive bait, I ordered my flight to attack. My last 2 escorts, however, were pretty good pilots and killed 2 of the Camels before my slow Hannover could arrive. And just as I was opening fire on the last one, a Jasta 13 pilot shot its wings off. I got a few hits but no credit. Pitty--it looks in this pic like I got him :yes:

It usually takes around 10-14 days, I think. Back on the old forum, when OFF 1st came out, there was a big thread of folks saying how long it took, and I think that was the average. IIRC, OBD doesn't ship the package itself but notifies some 3rd party outfit to put your game in the mail. Sometimes they don't seem to act as quickly on that as customers would like, but they do seem always to get around to it eventually. So just hang in their a bit longer. BTW, welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks :drinks_drunk:

I said "no" just because I want you spending your time making me new stuff I can pay you for, not rehashing old stuff for free (unless there are real bugs with it, of course) :yes:

I agree with MvR completely. I have absolutely no problem in watching the show from a trench. And if you're on automatic time advance, you can still just hit ESC as soon as you're in the cockpit and end the flight. However, doing it that way usually means a few of your suicidal squaddies will die.

Breaking him in on the Camel? He'll be dangerous when his permanent teeth come in

While I agree completely that the D.II is the easier opponent to face, it's still superior to the Pup in many important ways. It's faster on the level and in a dive, can zoom higher from the same starting speed, is much tougher, and has 2 guns that each fire faster than the Pup's 1. Plus, it doens't turn that much worse than the Pup. When I fly the D.II, I have no problem laying waste to Pups. Therefore, I think it's a matter of AI squadron/pilot quality. I find some D.II Jastas/flights to be much better than others. The good ones can kick your butt, the bad ones are cannonfodder even for Fees. I always pray to meet D.IIs instead of D.IIIs, but there are precious few D.IIs still around in Bloody April. IIRC, only Jasta 12 is fully equipped with them, and only a couple of others still have a flight with them. So I'm somewhat conflicted. While I prefer to flight D.IIs, I consider them an endangered species and don't want to push them into extinction . It's a light plane with a big wing, but it's got very little power, and its power goes away fairly quickly with altitude. So you'd expect its ROC to begin to suck at relatively low altitudes, and it does. Still, having been flying the Pup since the get-go of P3, it does seem to have less climb now than it did in the beginning.

Once again, outstanding service OBD!

When I've become squadron commander, I've tried to order the ground crew to cut them down, but that doesn't work either

Nobody seems to talk much about flying the Pup and I'd like to change that. So here's what I've got to get the ball rolling. Strengths No vices whatsoever Practically impossible to stall, doesn't spin unless forced, recovers from stalls very easily Very good forward-up visibility due to "tinted sun roof" in upper wing Can turn on a dime without losing that much altitude Excellent control authority even at very low speeds Weaknesses Can't take much damage Only 1 gun Slow Loses speed rapidly in zooms Low rate of climb Poor downwards visibility General Flying Characteristics For ease of use, it's hard to beat the Pup. It rolls nearly straight down the runway, with only a slight tendency to pull a little left. It comes off the ground by itself and keeps its wings level pretty much automatically. IOW, getting the thing trimmed out is very easy. The sustained climb, however, isn't very good. Right off the runway, the ROC is close to 1000fpm, but it quickly decreases with altitude, so that by about 5000 feet you'll be down to about 500fpm. From here on up, however, the ROC decreases much less rapidly, so you can eventually reach about 15-16000 feet if you have the patience and opportunity. But for the most part, the Pup's sustained ROC isn't much better than a Fee's; it just takes longer to completely disappear. OTOH, because the Pup can still fly and maneuver quite well at extremely low speeds, you can "climb the stairs" by doing a series of zooms separated by stretches of level flight. You can go up right to a stall and level off without losing much, if any, of the altitude you just gained, and can repeat it quickly because it doesn't take long to get back up to about 70 knots. The Pup can never quite make 100 knots on the level even at low altitude. As with ROC, level speed also decreases with altitude in pretty much the same manner. That is, from 90 knots or so near the ground, you're stuck with about 75 above about 5000 feet, but it doesn't decrease much below that the rest of the way up. In general, therefore, the Pup is unlikely to catch any undamaged enemy plane, not even a 2-seater, unless it can dive on it from a fairly high initial altitude advantage. Diving isn't the Pup's strong point. It's too light to accelerate quickly and too flimsy to survive much speed. You can hear the airframe starting to creak at about 110 knots. It also creaks if you do a hard turn at 100 knots or so. I take this as a warning and don't push the thing any harder than that, and haven't yet had a wing come off. However, I have damaged the plane from overstress that didn't result in total structural failure. IIRC, this happened pulling hard out of a steep dive at about 120 knots. This is why it's hard to catch anything even if you're diving toward it; you really can't achieve a very high speed. So, either dive with power on at a shallow angle, or dive steeply with the power off. The Pup's wings-level stall speed is somewhere down about 40 knots, perhaps even less. The accelerated stall speed in even a hard turn is also quite low, about 50 knots. It's therefore possible to wring the Pup out, rapidly changing directions with radical turns, without any real fears about stalling. You can also hang on your prop fairly well. I have never had an undamaged Pup go into a spin. All that happens in a stall, even while turning hard, is that the nose drops. Once that happens, you're immediately above stall speed and away you go again. Landing the Pup is about as easy as it gets. Just throttle back and float on it. Because the controls still retain most of their authority right down to stall speed, you can really make precision landings. Plus, the roll-out after touchdown is very short. This is quite handy when you have to force-land in tiny fields studded with obstructions. Combat I suppose in that 1916, the Pup would be quite formidable against Eindeckers and Halberstadts. I've never flown it then, however, only from Bloody April on. Thus, I only meet Albatros D.IIIs with a few D.IIs thrown in, both of which have the Pup outclassed in all areas except low-speed turning, and usually have numbers on their side, too. So all that follows assumes the enemy is the Albatros D.III, my most common foe. Due to the low rate of climb, enemies will start out above you nearly all the time. There's no point in trying to climb to them, because long before you can do that, they will either have swooped you or run away. Pup combat therefore almost always goes in 3 phases. First, you're totally on the defensive playing dodgeball with much faster enemies. Then, once the enemy bleeds down closer to co-E with you, you can start fighting on more or less even terms. Finally, if the enemy completely blows his energy, you can have your way with him. Due to the Pup's extremely good turning qualities, it's pretty easy to avoid getting hit in the 1st "dodgeball" phase. The Albatros, when fresh from a good dive, is well above its corner speed so the agile Pup can sidestep its charges quite easily. I usually go 5 or 6 sorties without taking a bullet from an enemy scout in this phase. However, when they do hit me, it's usually a fight-ending thing, because the Pup has a glass jaw when exposed to twin MGs. Either I'm shot down directly or so crippled I have to disengage (if over friendly territory) or have to fight on hopelessly to the bitter end (if over enemy territory--They'll never take me alive! ). In the 2nd phase, things are rather more challenging. By this point, the Albatros is at its corner speed so is turning at its best, which is pretty damn good. OTOH, if the Pup has any offensive desires at all, it has to be going fast enough to stay within or close to guns range, which puts it above its own corner speed where it can't turn at its best. As a result, turning in this phase is approximately even, although the Pup has a slight edge. This edge is enough to gain angles on the attack, but not enough to avoid a 2-gun broadside if you lose SA enough to get an Albatros on your 6, so do NOT get fixated on your target and check the booty frequently :yes: . Meanwhile, however, the Albatros is still somewhat faster than the Pup, and zooms better for a given speed anyway. Thus, the Albatros will still be doing wingover turns and low high yoyos which the Pup can't quite follow. When your target starts up, you have to know when to break off and follow below him more or less on the level, waiting for him to come back down to you. If you try to follow him up, you usually won't get a shot at him before you stall, you hang there as a perfect target for one of his buddies, and you slow down so much that he gains enough separate to reverse and thus take away most or all of the angles you've gained on him so far. All that said, however, this is when I get most of my kills. Most Bloody April Albatros pilots are smart enough not to blow their E any more than this before extending to catch their breath. I tend to get them with short bursts into the cockpit at 90^ deflection at VERY short range, about as close to colliding as you can get. Either that or I hit their radiator and slow them down a lot, after which I can mop them up with relative ease. The 3rd phase is thus more about bayonetting the wounded than it is true ACM. You've got Albatri who can't do more than about 60 knots due to damage. They can't zoom to speak of, they can't turn worth a damn, and they can't outrun the Pup. At this point, the Pup is close to its corner speed, turning at its best, and is capable of following the lamed Albatri through any zoom they try. If you've survived to this point, you can throttle back, saddle up, and dispatch them without fear of being shot in the back, unless you forget to tell your wingmen to quit shooting. The biggest challenges in combat, therefore, are hitting the target, and getting enough lead into him to bring him down. Despite, or perhaps because of, the Pup's admirable handling qualities, it does have 1 problem when it comes to hitting a target: it's VERY sensitive to rudder inputs. This means using rudder to bring the sights on isn't as useful as it is on other planes. Quite often, you'll overshoot your mark significantly. It's very easy to completely waste otherwise good firing opportunities sawing back and forth rapidly across the target without ever getting the sights to settle where you want them. Therefore, you should do all you can do get on target with aileron and elevator. However, the Pup's roll rate, while pretty good, isn't enough to make make quick, small corrections to aim, so you need to know how to get right on the 1st time. On top of this, the Pup only has 1 gun, and this single gun seems to have a very low ROF. This seems quite realistic, given the memoirs of Pup pilots complaining about this very thing. Short bursts usually number less than 10 bullets in total. Albatri are rather tough targets apart from their vulnerable radiators, so putting only a couple of bullets into them per burst usually isn't going to do much to them. You have to really drill them with long bursts, but as mentioned above, this is difficult to do unless you find yourself righ ton target without needing the rudder. As a result, I often find it easier to maim Albatri with high-deflection snapshots into their plan views than I do trying to saddle up on them when they can still fly well. If you can only fire a few bullets at a time, it's best to put them where they do the most good, and the top view exposes most of the vitals: engine, radiator, and cockpit. Besides, doing things this keeps you and your wingmen safer. You're not fixated on 1 target so can check your own 6 and keep an eye on your wingmen in case they get in trouble. You should expect wingman casualties, however. Quite frequently, 1 of your guys will hold still just a second too long, and that's all it takes from twin Spandaus. Conclusion The Pup is very forgiving and easy to fly. Fighting in it is challenging in some ways but easy in others, and overall quite fun. I recommend it.

However many layouts there are, why do so many of them have a wall of trees right at the end of the runway?

It definitely can be. We have places like your airport, too, where local law doesn't allow true bars (usually defined as places that get most of their income from selling booze), but does allow restaurants to sell drinks. In such places, however, you'd have to buy the sandwich to get the beer, and the sandwich would natually have to cost more than the beer. All this nonsense goes the fact that the US is a new country so the attitudes of the original settlers are still much in evidence. Most of the restrictive US liquor laws were passed long ago by local governments dominated by rather devout members of non-drinking religions like the Baptists, who made vast regions of the country effectively dry even before Prohibition. Those laws that are still in force are mostly in what is called the "Bible Belt", where attitudes haven't changed enough yet to cause a major change in the laws. Today's current patchwork of confusing local laws is the result of attitudes changing in some small areas faster than in others, usually due to development bringing in lots of less-zealous newcomers.

In the US, liquor laws are at the whim of local jurisdictions from state down to town and all points in between. It's quite possible to have a bewildering array of different laws on liquor availability within a 20-mile radius. Probably the best example of this is the Dallas-Fort Worth "Metroplex", which has 2 huge cities separated and surrounded by a couple dozen small towns spread over 2 counties. All these entities are contiguous so you can't tell where one ends and the next begins except by road signs. Pretty much all of them have different liquor laws. The only constant in this patchwork is that both counties (Dallas and Tarrant) have ordained that bottles of hard liquor have to be sold in separate liquor/package/whiskey stores. Thus, no whiskey at any supermarket (unlike Lousy Anna). However, few of the small towns allow liquor stores within them. Thus, for example, if you live in Arlington, you have to go to Fort Worth (adjacent to the west) to buy a bottle of whiskey. You can tell where the boundary is because there's a large cluster of liquor stores just on the Fort Worth side . However, Arlington allows bars to sell liquor buy the glass without special restrictions, plus you can buy (but not drink) beer and wine in convenience and grocery stores. Adjacent to Arlington on the east is Grand Prairie, which also has unrestricted bars, but no other place AT ALL to buy any form of alcohol, not even beer and wine. I say "unrestricted" bars because most of the small towns north of I-30 don't even allow bars. Some are completely dry, but most allow "private clubs" to sell alcohol to their "members". This probably came about so that VFW halls and such could have beer busts, but has been exploited by restaurants that want to serve alcohol. You pay a couple of dollars and you're a "member" of the "club", with a card to prove it. In fact, huge numbers of restaurants in the DFW area have banded together to for 1 big "club" with a common "membership" card called a "Unicard". Pay for 1 Unicard and drink in any restaurant in DFW. And believe it or not, the waitresses actually ask to see your Unicard when you order a drink. Acquiring such a card should be the 1st priority of any tourist to the DFW area :yes: . However, if the "club" is actually a bar, with most of its income derived from selling booze by the glass, then it has to have its own separate card, assuming it's even allowed to exist in a given town. It's thus quite possible for a DFW native to need a separate billfold full of bar "membership" cards. I had one when I lived there.

Up at the top of this forum's browser window, in the main Combat Ace logo, is the word "Download". Hit that and look for OFF mods. There's also a whole forum here devoted to it. Go up 1 level to the overall OFF forum, and then look at the huge list of forums for 3rd Part Mods.

Amen to that. A good beer should be a meal in itself, and be chewable. That said, I will drink an authentic 1790-1810ish IPA. You can see through those, but they're every bit as macho as a contemporary porter.

Hell, when the current war started, they wouldn't take me back even though I begged. They said they could send at least 2 hard-chargin' PFCs for the price of my gimpy butt, given time in service. I couldn't argue with that, so I content myself with watching airplanes I built bomb the snot outta the badguys . So to you young Devil Dogs who are on the firing line these days. Sorry you all have to clean up the mess I left over there. BTW, ever notice how it's field-grade ossifers and regimental sergeants major who have the figure for Evening Dress?

You got a good one. Tall chicks, especially with Oriental ink, turn me on. Does she have an older sister? Semper erectus . BTW, didn't they tell you Marines aren't supposed to smile for photos? Below is me at the 1991 Ball, practically the newest buck sergeant then in the USMC.

It's the uniform shown on USMC recruiting commercials and posters. Light blue trousers with red stripe down the seam, navy blue tunic with red piping, brass buttons, etc, and white cover and gloves. In the USMC and USN, you have to buy your uniforms. In the US army and USAF, they issue them to you. Hence, "GI" (government issue) only applies to the latter, not the former.

I don't drink much wine because I like sweet ones and today's so-called wine snobs mostly drink stuff that is not only sour, but makes me thirstier than I was before I drank any. But when I can find them, I like them like this: Port: My main table wine (I mostly eat red meat). Serving it as an after-diner wine in tiny classes is a complete waste. Sherry: My main pre-dinner wine, if I can't have whiskey or whisky instead, prior to a red meat supper. Otherwise, my "white" table wine with chicken, fish, and ham. Homebrew mead: Made from home-grown honey, it's always sweet. Homebrew metheglin: Very sweet mead made with apple juice instead of water, seasoned with cloves, cinammon, etc. Served in small glasses heated 15 seconds in the microwave, sipped in front of the fire on a cold winter night while snuggling up to your female of the moment. Feliciana Cellars Galvez: A sweet white muscadine wine. Muscadines are a wild grape native to Lousy Anna. NOTE: This winery makes some nasty, dry muscadine wines, too, but thank the Dark Gods they make sweet stuff . Feliciana Cellares Tunica: A sweet red muscadine wine. Tokaij Marsalla Sautern Pulque: A wine made out of agave nectar, what you then run through the still to make tequila. I make mine sweet. Liebfraumilche Mogen David Schwartze Katz Kalte Ente

Thanks for the link!

Yeah, what a let-down reading this thread to the end, after being out of town all weekend at a funer--I mean wedding

Back in my day, dress blues were optional up until you became a corporal. When I finally became a boot corporal (I'd made lance 2 or 3 times before then , so this was like 4 years into my career) and finally had to buy (and could finally afford) a set of dress blues, it was hammered (literally) into me by all the older NCOs that a Marine NEVER took his dress blues off while still sober. You only wore blues at Marine funerals (including weddings) and Birthday Balls, and you were required (or so I was told) by the UCMJ to get plastered on such occasions. And let me tell you, you've never had a good time until you've done a saber arch for some idiot who got married, and then gone with the rest of that detail to a strip club with everybody still wearing dress blues .

That's CLASSIC!!! I had a different "motivational" poster entitled "Reality". Wish I could find it now, haven't seen it in years, but it's easy to describe: Picture = Hot, scantily clad babe in suggestive pose. Title = Reality Subtitle = No matter how fine she is, somebody, somewhere, is sick of her s**t!

Funny. Most wheat beers to me taste just like bubblegum, which I normally don't want in a beer but it's funny and not unpleasant once in a while. HOWEVER, those opaque, cloudy, white types of wheat beer are just NASTY. I figure the folks who make them are laughing up their sleeves all the way to the bank, in the same way as Cajun cooks laugh over "Cajun blackened" seafood. Folks who think it faddish and chic will consume HORRIFIC stuff, just to be seen as part of the "in" crowd. Hence, today's massive sales of such utter horsepiss as merlot and chardonnay, or such abortions as "Cajun blackened" seafood. IOW, as we say around here, it's "stuff you sell to the yankee tourists", meaning stuff that was supposed to have been way better but you somehow ruined in preparation. But because your "exotic" quisine/beverages/whatever is temporarily in vogue where they live, and they don't know diddley about your quisine/beverages/whatever because they're just doing it to be hip, you can dump all your garbage on them for totally immoral profits, AND THEY'LL ORDER SECONDS!! . Despite the immoratily, I somehow fail to lose any sleep over such things .

Thank you for flagellating yourself for our benefit instead of actually playing the game