Bullethead

Wecome aboard, Bruce. New guy buys the drinks Don't expect to live very long, at least at high realism settings. There's a reason why just making it to 17 hours of flying time is quite an achievement ;). The main way to survive is to limit the chances you take, such as not flying off on your own, only fight when you have the advantage of energy and/or numbers, and don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. On the claim confirmation thing, there have been several threads on that subject already. On the hardest setting for confirmations, you pretty much have to have a witness from your squadron and also write something closely resembling the actual reports filed by WW1 pilots, with as much detail as you can remember. These threads usually have several examples.

That's what I meant when I said simmers would soon be the only real fighterpilots left. Sure, guys today get shot at, and the stuff that shoots at them is every bit as scary as the powers they command themselves. But even WW2 vets don't consider today's guys as actually doing "real" fighterpilot stuff, which has traditionally been defined as dogfighting. ACM is a dying art, becoming less and less important every day. All these off-boresight weapons and missiles that can do U-turns to clear your 6 have seen to that. As this video says, "maneuverability is irrelevant". Today's air combat seems more like a naval battle than what we traditionally recognize as a dogfight. And in the not-too-distant future, there won't even be pilots in the cockpits, so then there really won't be any fighterpilots, "real" or otherwise. It'll just be us. Hell, maybe we'll get drafted to fly UAVs, given our decades of experience with that already I'm still trying to come to grips with that. It's hard to accept that flintknapping and being able to do ACM, skills about as far apart on the technology spectrum as it's possible to get, will soon be of equal practical value.

I find this very cool, but also sad at the same time. Soon us simmers will be the only real fighter pilots left. http://www.es.northropgrumman.com/solution...eodasvideo.html

That's what I'm thinking. I think that if the XIII really had to be landed at 90 knots, it would be common knowledge to anybody familiar with WW1 airplanes as some sort of freak of nature compared to its comptemporaries. I don't have force feedback so I don't know if you get stick-shaking when a plane is about to stall. However, almost all planes in OFF give clear warning of impending stall in the form of getting wobbly, the controls getting mushy, etc. Not so in the XIII. One second it's perfectly responsive and stable, the next it's in a spin at a surprisingly high speed. Get out of the spin and it's back to normal. If kept above that lethal stall speed, the XIII in OFF is very easy to fly, stable, responsive, and generally well-behaved. I haven't had a need to give it any trim in flight, and feel perfectly safe in leaving it climbing hands off while I go downstairs to get another beer. But if you cross that line, it just doesn't fly. That seems rather odd to me, but I'm not a Spad expert so have no idea how the thing really flew.

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?

Well, that's more wall-worthy than my impressionist watercolor ;).

The Spad XIII has an interesting quirk. You can stand on the rudder and yaw up to about 45^ off your course without affecting your vector that much. This is quite useful at times, mostly for balloon strafing, but occasionally in dogfights. OTOH, I find that any use of aileron below about 75 knots results in an accelerated stall. This includes landing approaches, so come in low, hot, and straight, lined up well in advance to pass between the trees on the threshold. Try to be about 80knots and 2 feet off the ground, level, then chop throttle and let the pig settle in. You might bounce a bit, but no harm done. In dogfights, try to stay above 100 knots or you'll run into real problems. I find the Spad XIII's works best if kept between 150-200 knots when making passes and 100 coming over the top. Don't be afraid to get over 250 and push 300 if need be. Needless to say, to be effective in the Spad XIII, you have to be quite a good shot, because you're going so much faster than the enemy that usually your firing opportunities are going to be very fleeting.

Just my $0.02, but IMHO, from comparing label range numbers with tac range circles, and the ranges reported in mission replays, I'm pretty sure label ranges are in yards. Replay ranges are in feet, and they seem to correspond to the yard ranges I see on labels (as in 3x), and the mile ranges on the TAC circles. Well, you can read Keith Rennles' Independent Force, which gives a day-by-day breakdown of what the IAF was up to in the 2nd 1/2 of 1918. This often includes total ammo expenditure for all the observers on a squadron's mission. They always tried to have 12 planes in a squadron formation, but engine trouble usually limited this to an apparent average of 10 or so crossing the lines. The squadrons frequently encountered 2-4 Huns who stayed at 300-400m range and traded sniping with the observers for long periods of time. During missions like this, the observers usually fired about 2000 rounds between them, so say 200 each. The vast majority appear to have had single Lewis guns, so this appears to represent fairly prolonged periods of long-range fire by both sides. Note, however, that when the IAF encountered whole front-line Jastas instead of scattered Kests, the results were rather different. The Jasta pilots usually pressed the attack to close range and many bombers went down, usually only a few buffs surviving. In these cases, ammo expenditure figures are lacking due to not enough survivors to get a good figure.

With as many skins as you've made, haven't you wished for the same thing? To me, QC is primarily a skin viewer. Because I'm not interested at all in actually playing the game, but just want to see what my latest skin tweak looks like, and don't have that much time available for such trivial pursuits anyway, I begrudge every moment wasted in QC waiting for spawns to be disabled, reading about squaddies I don't even know I have, etc. But I guess, really, in the big picture, it's no biggie

Just to add my $0.02.... From what I've read, shooting at 300-400 yards was actually fairly common in WW1. Not, I hasten to add, in dogfights, but in other situations. Such as, sniping at a large, intimidating formation of 2-seaters that outnumbered the attacking scouts. Also, late in the war, when huge formations met, often nobdoy was unwilling to turn it into a brawl, so they circled around making obscene gestures and taking long-range potshots "into the brown". I shoot from 300-400 yards (I guess--no way to tell) but don't expect to hit. I'm shooting for psyche. Sometimes I shotgun a few bullets into somebody that way, and that appears to be what mostly happens to me. Since the last gunnery tweaks, I don't get really drilled from 300-400 yards unless I'm holding still too long.

Congrats, Fubar! That skin definitely ain't fubar :)

I still think we should get something for wounds and combat-related injuries

Whoever smelt it, dealt it. Nice Jenny, BTW. When can the rest of us get our hands on your marvelous creations?

Pretty models, but I was hoping for beer wagons. After all, the thread title says "pinted", which is what I am after a pub crawl :yes:

Thanks for the update :).

Oh schweet! Thanks for the tips. I'll have to get that a try. When I made my watercolor, I was just applying things at random because I didn't know what any of them did, which is why I was doing them all on 1 layer, too.

That's difficult to say. The Gothas usually lost 1 or 2 planes per daylight raid on England from flak, but that was probably the most heavily defended spot in the world at the time. In the 2nd half of 1918, the DH4s and DH9s of Independent Force were doing deep daylight raids. They would get archied at the lines and then over every town they used as a waypoint in and out, plus over the target area itself, but had gaps in between such defended areas. It's safe to say they were under fire for 1-2 hours at least on most occasions (missions usually lasted 4-5 hours in total). The flak was quite often (until the last month of the war) described as "heavy and accurate", even at their usual altitude of 15-16000 feet, and many or even all planes were hit by fragments every raid. Only occasionally, however, did this cause any important damage. From what I can tell, they never lost a plane to immediately fatal flak damage (direct hit, dead pilot, flaming engine, etc.). The planes downed by flak mostly lost power due to engine or fuel tank hits, or sometimes went down due to a pilot wound. They'd be seen to go down under control, and quite a few managed to glide back across the lines. When they didn't, the crews often survived as POWs. However, crews of a number of planes last seen under control ended up dead, usually from being finished off by a fighter once they left formation. It's hard to quantify without rereading the entire book and keeping score, but the vast majority of IAF's combat losses were from fighters. Serious fighter attacks weren't that common, however. Mostly, they'd meet a couple of Huns who were intimidated by the IAF's large formations, and who only sniped from long range. But every few weeks, they'd meet a large number of Huns who attacked with gusto and would knock down many bombers. Hardly ever do you come across a definite flak victim, even when the archie was "heavy and accurate" for an hour or more. However, quite frequently you read that planes were so badly shot up by flak as to be written off upon their safe return. Occasionally, a squadron would be out of action for a day while most of its planes were under repair from flak damage. Thus, even though the flak didn't get many kills, it was still doing frequent non-fatal damage.

I'd say so.... AFAIK, the official swine flu bodycount in the US, as of this morning, is exactly 2 (two) people, 1 of whom wasn't even a citizen. As I understand things, swine flu is no more likely to kill you than regular flu. It's just that, because it's out of season, can't be vaccinated against, and apparently most folks are more vulnerable to this strain than others, more people are probably going to get swine flu than the regular kind, eventually. So even if lethality is the same for both, more cases means more deaths in the long run. It's amazing to me to see the panic over this. You might have heard that Texas stopped all school sporting events and such, which to me is a sure sign of the apochalypse. Those of you who don't live there might not understand, but in Texas, high school sports are an obsession bordering on mania. They've even made TV shows ("Friday Night Lights") about that obsession. Sure, it's not football season right now, but it's still Texas school sports! Ordinarily, I doubt they'd cancel a game for the 2nd Coming. But the panic is subsiding I guess. The CDC today reversed itself and told schools to stay open, whereas before they were closing them indefinitely. Kind of a bummer. I was hoping the panic would, at long last, drive us to impose truly effective border security. All the attention so far has been on the few kids who brought it back from recent trips to Mexico, but how many illegal aliens are bringing it with them and not reporting it for fear of deportation? Thus, we'll no doubt end up with uncontrolled reservoirs of the disease wherever they congregate. Unfortunately, it's not PC to complain about that sort of thing......

That looks a lot better than my impressionist water color screenshot. Sabash!

To actually end a mission, you have to hit ESC to bring up the menu, then click on END FLIGHT, which is the top option. Obviously, this assumes you didn't crash or get shot down along the way.... If you don't do this, but just go back to the main menu, then it's like that mission never happened, and you have to repeat it. Don't feel bad--I did the same myself early on. You can do this proceedure any time you want. However, unless you're on the ground, this might result in you crashing, becoming a POW, etc. So for best results, only do this when you've landed on an active friendly airfield. But this is really a small risk, and if you do it any time you're well your side of the lines, you should be OK. But be advised that if you do this anywhere from over enemy territory to just barely your side of the lines, you'll likely become a POW.

Only 1 day? Geez, that sort of coup should net you a 96-hour pass in Paris, PLUS the hangover

Thanks for the work, Pol. I'll have to try that F7 thing. I wonder what planes it works for. The Fee is my favorite plane in the game, and used correctly it can put up a good fight. It's main advantage over the others is that because the front gun is a pivot, you don't have to wrestle the beast directly onto a target. This helps you maintain E in the fight. However, you have no gun of your own, so have to rely on whatever effectiveness gunners have in your game. Otherwise, I'd take a Strutter over an RE8. In a Strutter, you can at least defend yourself. In the RE8, while you perhaps can get on a Hun's tail, it's practically impossible to shoot him because you can see neither him nor your tracer at the moment of truth. That's my wish, too. We've got plenty of scouts, but we're short on 2-seaters. None for the French at all.

Hadn't thought of hiding the cockpit. In fact, I think I even disabled that option in the workshops :) WW1 level bombers did have bombsights, however, at least in the latter part of the war. I'd rather bomb from 10-15k to avoid the groundfire, so I wish we had such sights in OFF :).

I consider the Brisfit more of a 2-seat fighter so I won't discuss that one :). In any buff campaign, you'll just have to accept several facts of life: 1) your plane is pretty much going to be a pig compared to the scouts you'll be running into; 2) your wingmen aren't likely to give you much help in a fight; and 3) you're going to eat a lot of groundfire. So just accept that as part of the job, and you'll have fun. You might even get a bomb hit once in a while . The 1st thing you notice about all 2-seaters is that the visibility is very bad in at least 1 direction, usually in several. This not only handicaps carrying out your bombing missions, but also your ability to defend yourself and even land. This IMHO is the worst part of being a buffer. And if you don't have TIR4, you're just going to have a completely miserable time in most of them, because you can't see anything you need to. Here's my thoughts on 2-seater pilot visibility: FE2: Excellent in front hemishere, bad to the sides, but not bad to the rear IF you can turn your head around and look over the engine. There's no fuselage to block your view. Plus the cockpit has a racy pin-up girl and a pack of smokes that can be used as a slip indicator. No problems seeing to land. Strutter: As good as a rotary scout to the front and front-down. Bad to the sides, limited to the rear due to the gunner's body, but not as bad as some 2-seaters. But you sit under the wing so can't see up very well at all, although the wing is high enough, and you sit far enough forward, that you can see up and forwards quite well, which is what you need to follow a turning target. No problems landing. BE2: View ahead is blocked by your useless observer and a forest of struts. Upwards, downwards, sideways, and to the rear, however, it's like a scout because you're behind the wing and no gunner behind you. You have to lean over sideways to see to land, or sideslip a lot. RE8: Lower part of front view blocked by air scoop which completely hides your target and your tracers. Up and forward isn't good, either, due to the upper wing, but you can see up very well. Can't see backwards due to the observer, and view downwards is blocked by lower wing. You have to lean sideways while landing, or sideslip a lot. 2nd worst visibility of all 2-seaters. Roland: Picture yourself buried in the ground with only your head exposed, unable to turn around. You can see very well from your eye level upwards in all directions except to the rear (due to the gunner), but nothing at all downwards (due to the wings). This makes it practically impossible to see the ground at all during flight, let alone spot your target, so this machine is essentially useless as a bomber. It also makes landing the beast extremely difficult. When you slow down, of course the nose rises, and it and the leading edge of the upper wing completely block your view ahead and of the horizon. You can only see the ground at all through a tiny gap in the upper wing, and this isn't really enough to be helpful. Not to mention the difficulty of staying level when you can't see the horizon, or dodging those trees right at the threshold. Plus, if you're more than a few hundred feet up, you can't see the horizon even in level flight, and I find this makes me a bit queasy when using TIR. So despite the excellent upward views, I consider this plane to have the worst visibility in the game. DFW: Forward view almost completely blocked by large engine, and you can't see much up or down due to sitting between the wings. The gunner blocks most of the rear view. However, you can at least see down and forward, so can spot targets and land by sideslipping. Hannover: Due to the low upper wing, the views ahead, upwards, sideways, and down, are pretty much like in a Spad. The gunner also isn't as much of a barrier as in most other 2-seaters. I'd rate this the best of the bombers for visibility. So now, having picked your ride, you'll have to get ready to meet scouts. Most 2-seaters actually turn quite well, due to their large wing area. They can often turn tighter than most scouts when in vertical banks. The problem is, it takes a while for them to get started, because they have such low roll rates. This not only means they're slow to react to threats, but makes it difficult to get the front gun on a scout (assuming you can see one to try for). I find, however, that it's best to let your observer cover the tail while you flop around as best you can. You're going to get shot up nearly every fight, so your only hope is to limit the number of bullets you take, and the only reliable way to do that is to dodge as best you can, constantly. If you jump to the gunner's seat, at best your plane will go straight and therefore take more hits. As for bombing, your guess is as good as mine. I've never had any success, although I've come close a few times. If there's a bombsight view, I have yet to discover how to use it, so all my attacks are glide-bombing passes. And because you can't see ahead very well in most 2-seaters, it's rather difficult to line up on the target and drop the bomb at the right moment. In fact, it's nearly impossible even to strafe effectively in some 2-seaters.

"In hatred of the despoiler/evil-doer, all is presumed." It's one of those old legal maxims that, sadly, lawyers rarely say anymore, even though they still operate under them. At 1st glance might seem to mean something like "guilty until proven innocent", which is how I was using it. However, it actually has to do with the destruction (spoliation) of evidence. For example, if there was some piece of paper that Party A wanted to use as evidence to prove his case, but Party B destroyed it, then the court presumes as a matter of law that the paper was absolutely damning to Party B.