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Yes, very good points Bullet head. One thing that I think makes up for the "Gained experience with every flight" advantage we have is the "Not really being there as much as we may try" factor that we are fighting. I mean after all, we dont go on extensive training flights to learn our new machines every day. Eat at a mess of all flyers discussing the very craft we are in and its plusses and minusses, idiosyncrasies...etc.. etc. Go to bed bunking with comrades who's daily exploits with the enemy and tactics learned can be shared and raked over again and again to constantly glean you the best chance of survival possible. The closest thing we have to THAT immersion is this site. But when you come home from the drive from work and sit down at that console and fire up OFF with a head full of other things......well, its often at this point I'll lose a pilot. After I've gotten my "head back in time" though, its a great deal better. I guess we need some pre-play immersion drills!! Anyway....that is a testimonial in and of itself as to the realism of this game. ZZ. Tony.......whatever floats yer boat. All some folks here are saying is that due to thier historical research, DiD is pretty darned close to as realistic as you can get, and I agree with em. If you don't....ok.

Excellent work Olham!! Thats how its done. Quite a few of my kills with my current Did Pfalz pilot were gotten in the way you describe. We seem to be in an area where quite a few of these groups pass over, so between these and picking off strays, you can amass quite a few kills. Just watch out for the six and eight plane camel murder squads, they are a no-no. Avoid at all costs. Its funny, but when I attack a group of these two seaters I do the same as you, wound as many as possible so they drop altitude and are eaten alive by my squad mates below. I call it "feeding the flock"....hehe. And by the time I hit the last guy, if I have enough ammo left, he's all mine. ZZ.

Hehe, its so nice when they actually escape isn't it Dej? It's like you want to have a little celebration cause you thought they were loooooong gone! Doesn't happen too often though!! ZZ. (I think my wife thought I was gone off the deep end when it happened to my Pfalz pilot. I was thinking, well he's done for, time to start anew, and then WoooHoo....he made it!!!! I yelled. She was like, What!! who made what!!??? where?)

No....your no loser. The fact he was captured was a result of being shot down behind enemy lines. And I mean shot up bad by three camels. It was only by luck that they decided to "give him back to me." If not, he would've been done for right there.....over. I play the Pfalz like Siggi mentioned.....i run if outnumbered and avoid ANY fight I don't have a real advantage in. You HAVE to in a Pfalz late in the war....or you will die. ZZ.

I have a couple of dandies. But I can't fly with clouds on cause my FPS bog down. So until I get some more RAM....which is not real soon, they aren't valid. Thats ok cause I love flying Did even without reporting. My current pilot in a Pfalz has over 20 hours, 15-kills 22-claims, and was captured once and escaped after 20 days. He has finally been promoted to Vizefeldwebel, and has recieved 2 iron crosses, and the Order of the House of Hohenzollern. He's got a great story....and career so far. If he can only survive till better AC arrive.!!! : ) He's also been shot up and forced landed three times. ZZ.

Yeah, get it if you can find it, its BIIIIIG, and the pictures are fabulous. It even has some "naked" shots of some of the AC before covering. Very nice. I even took a pic of some of the shots in this with my cell phone, and rotate them as the background wallpaper in my phone......very nice. ZZ.

Yeah, you must have had some good die rolls there. Luck is smiling on your pilot, enjoy it while it lasts!! I've had this happen only once. My Pfalz got shot up bad and I was nose diving as fast as possible towards earth to try and land before the flames pouring out of the nose of the AC reached me and started to hurt my pilot. Within about 1000 feet of the ground, all went black and resolved to the campaign room, and claims board. I guess they said, "its ok, you crash landed safely and survived." This run of luck didn't last long though, this same pilot was killed by HIS OWN FLAK CREWS about two missions later. Like I said.....enjoy it while it lasts. ZZ.

What you say? Strutters and Re8's a problem. You must be flying one of those crepe paper and bamboo AC! Bristols on the other hand......give pause before rushing into a brace of those chappies. ZZ.

Yeah, it does seem the Archie set to realistic is a bit too accurate. Perhaps in the future "normal" will be allowed in general. I've seen waaay too many AC downed by Realistic setting to make it line up with the first hand accounts. Its great to see so many newly turned on to the graces of the DID standard. I currently aspire to it, but with a few minor exceptions. My machine is extremely limited, so I have all sliders basically set to "1" ,and have to fly without clouds on just to keep the "framerate hangups" from ruining the game. So, this being the case and with out Trakir, I have a few workarounds. The no clouds is one, the other is, since the sky is usually cloudless and hard to get a bearing on from the cockpit at times in a swirling fight, I sometimes pop to external view for a moment to get my bearings and plane orientation, because it all looks the same from the cockpit, and I cant turn my head with the hat switch pan very fast, so a quick pop out and back gets me reoriented, what with zero peripherial vision and all. I wont turn these pilots into the scoreboard...will have to wait for better hardware for that, but at least I'm close! ZZ.

Geeeeesh. Thought I'd start a campaign in a squad that was still using the pretty little Pfalz DIII at the end of 1917...start of 1918. Lets just say....it IS a challenge. Perhaps the little bird was good against the Pups and previous Nieuports, but by this stage in the war, it can't well handle the new Camels and SE5's. In fact, they are down-right impossible unless you outnumber them. Time for some new tactics till we get Albitri and Fokkers! To quote Monty Python...."Run Awaaaaaaaay!" Maybe some others here have similar anecdotes. Gives you sympathy for the guys who had no choice in thier AC at that point. If they lived long enough to get a better plane and a bit more experience they may have had a chance. As an aside....what the heck is with the Bristols!?, those things are nasty enough in thier agility, but the rear gunners have to be some super accurate circus performers and trick shooters to do what I've seen them do in the last two missions I met them. An Example, we meet a squad of Bristols and attack, in the melee we are constantly trying to stay clear of the tail gunner, so I dive away at an angle underneath the enemy machines. Ok...so this Bristol chappie zooms down after me, I see it and that he's almost above me so I dive away again at an angle and with great speed, also a pretty fair distance away....I'm thinkin, ok, at this range and angle, even a fighter whos on my six trying to sight me in is gonna have trouble getting a shot...so I'm good. But no!! This Bristol does a barrel roll upside down, and as I speed like a maniac at an opposite direction far beneath him, his rear gunner, while hanging upside down and backwards, pours a stream of constant lead right into the engine and center of the plane. C'mon!! Are they trainin uber Annie Oakley tail gunners that can pull this shot off!...and without a single miss. Perhaps some tweaking of the Bristol tail gunners may be in order. Anyone else have any similar experiences? (disclaimer:this last comment is intended for potential improvement of the game, and in no way represents any dissatisfaction on the part of the poster...who is thoroughly satisfied with the product, and plays it too much now as it is. Ask his wife) :yes: ZZ.

It's interesting you mention being able to dive away from Camels with the Pfalz. I have not seen this to be the case, as I have tried three times to do this, (diving from a fight at the same altitude as the camel I was turning with) and the Flaming camel kept pace with me every time, even closed with me in the dive! ....and riddled me all the way down! Am I missing something? Perhaps you may dive through them from a higher altitude,with already built up inertia?...but I have yet to be able to escape them in this fashion from a level fight. This is unlike flying the Spad of course which will leavebehind anything when you put that nose down and firewall the throttle. ZZ.

Thanks Sig, I'll try it. Shred...that sounds like what my new tactic will be for the Pfalz. I have a turn-fake maneuver that in a pinch will shake somebody off my tail, but for the main strategic overview of this AC in this period, your rule of thumb seems to be most accurate. And Yes Olham, I too almost had some OFF inspired holes in my walls! Your advice is good.....jog it off!! Come back smarter. Hey if it wasn't challenging it wouldn't be fun. ZZ.

I'll check Siggi, thanks.....ummm, where do I look for that in Workshops?....what general area I mean? upper lower/left right? I've never messed with that particular tick box. Or is this the "rear gun" tick box? ZZ. So are you saying they should be on Hard to be realistic? If so they currently should be set to superhuman.

Wow, pity it wasn't of a "blowback or semi-auto" type, or it might have worked with far less recoil, just like the one in the nose of the ME-109 ala-WWII. Being apparently a simple breechloader with fixed block type breech, (very similar to a breech-break shotgun) the recoil I'm sure was much-much more than was desirable! ZZ.

I have 4 main Pilot careers (and a couple extra fun ones for other nationalities) and they are in AlbatrosDV,Albatros DVa200, HalberstadtDII, and PfalzDIII. I believe they are all DiD but should check the finer details to be sure. I forgot the stats on my oldest pilot, but I've been using him through a number of the patches, so he's the "survivor" of the group so far and in the DVa. I'll have to recheck his stats but I believe he has over 30 hours, and 89 claims with only 42 confirmed (this was before the patches came that fixed the claim game). Unfortunately I don't consider him 100% accurate because I revived him once after, inexplicably, coming out of a warp his AC nosed up severely and for no real reason, trashed the plane and killed him. I've heard others speak of this glitch, but it got him....so I revived him. Ah well, perhaps the others will be more fortunate. :yes: ZZ. Oops, I guess I should say DiD-W, cause I do use warp......am going to get around to setting up a campaign to do non-warp and give it a try since Siggi thinks highly of it. I do think I will wait though till I get a bit more RAM for my machine, so there will actually be a bit more scenery to look at when I do that though! Right now its a bit tedious with all sliders set to 1! and no clouds!!

Vooops!......sorry. Fvailed to mention ze lazt Englander I shot down had ze little bullzeye painted on ze back uf hiz flight helmet. Das is gooood ya!? ZZ.

Zey dooooo maaaaaake it eaaasy for us, don't zey Olham? Wit ze little ready made bullzzz-eyes already painted all over Zee Vings-n-such ya? ZZ.

Wow, Siggi, you got me beat! and your landing gear didnt fold on landing either.....well done. Red Dog.......ummmm......yeah...not quite the same. But good try just the same. Guess we need a "creative kills" ranking. ZZ.

Truly amazing account. You have every right to be proud. :yes: ZZ.

In the spirit of "unusual fighting techniques" rock throwing for instance, have any of you brought down an enemy via ramming/collision and survived to tell the tale? I did, but through no intent or skill of my own. Was doing head on passes firing, me in a Tross and the foe in a Camel. On one pass we obviously got a little too close as we impacted and he tore away my left lower wing tip. From the struts on out to the end of where the wing used to be was just exposed spars, some ribs, a bit of shredded cloth...and nothing! I was quite shocked as I struggled to regain control of my ship from the immediate spin it was thrown into, and did so successfully, and as this brief moment passed, I looked down to see the Camel that struck me spinning into the ground. I got the kill when he hit because I had put rounds into him during our combat. The damage did make landing a bit dicey, but I tested the bird up to the stall plenty high up for recovery if it behaved unusually nastily, (and sometimes when damaged they do!) and it was good. So with a bit of finesse at landing, my pilot got to write a very interesting and memorable logbook entry. ZZ.

Ohhhhh, yes. I have experienced this, and didn't even ask for help. Was hammering a camel from only about 100 yards away and all of a sudden a bullet stream goes between my upper and lower wings and into the target, AND THEN ME as well. My own squad mate, slamming rounds into us both!! So I pull away and let him have this camel, there are others in the sky...I shoot up another camel, he is in his death throes and descending to within feet of the ground. As his final slide into oblivion begins, and right before impact, the same blighter swoops in and with a single shot ( I kid you not....a single "TAT" of his Spandaus) steals my kill!!! At this point my Ire was quite raised, I turned on another camel, was taking him out and then guess who appears between my victim and I, rising into my sights between me and my prey, Yup, same Jasta mate!! He starts firing into my quarry........its time for some squad discipline.....I unload two good bursts into the unruly friendly, he begins to smoke a little and pull away....I finish off the camel unmolested. Amusingly enough....I never had another issue with this happening again after this. Wasn't reprimanded either. ZZ. Olham, keep those overeager little squadmates in thier place!!

Scrambles are my favorite missions. The key for me is to stay really low, just above the tent/hangar tops. Keep an eye skyward so nobody dives directly on you on the first attack, if they do, jink or quickly turn under them to prevent them having a direct shot at you. Once they are on the deck with you its simple. Keep turning and flying as low as possible and repeatedly drag them over your fields machine gun nests. Simply circling the perimiter or even in the vicinity of the hangars will do this nicely. Its ok if they are tailing you, just keep as low as you can and stay ahead of them. The ground fire will eventually down them, or, damage them sobadly you can then turn and finish them of one by one. I usually get 3-5 kills on scrambles as 120% realism. ZZ. PS. Winston, that is an impressive accomplishment on your Scramble mission....congrats. You really did pull off a feat there, because everytime I've ever tried to gain altitude while being bounced from above on a Scramble takeoff, we got badly mauled.

I can't fly anything but Realistic, its against my principles...., but Like Groucho Marks once said, "Those are my principles, if you don't like them, I have others!" Seriously though, my intent is not to gripe, just bring up a possible item for a future upgrade of some kind. I am fully thrilled with OFF and have 0 complaints.....other than the fact my computer SUCKS and I can't amp up the details much. Gotta buy some RAM. Thats my problem...not the sim. All I'm saying is it would be neat if possible to tweak the DR1 to handle more like this. The dev's may not have time, or due to constraints in the game engine it may not be possible....thats cool. ZZ.

Speaking of that show Hellshade, they mentioned the DR1's ability to whip around and reverse itself "rather disconcertingly" to quote one of the pilots. Anybody been able to do this with the DR1? I'm guessing with full left rudder and full right aileron to keep her level? In the show, and the first hand descriptions, it indicates a level flying "swapping of ends" with the DR1 that you were once chasing now suddenly facing you in an instant and spewing lead. Perhaps we need a bit more rudder authority onthe DR1 to make this maneuver possible, as it was clearly factual, and I can't seem to perform it as the Flight Model currently stands. I can get it about half way there, but thats it. Any ideas? ZZ.

Tactically, well done! I love when things go like that. Usually, when they don't go well, I'm being flippant and not paying attention.....or playing things like a game, not immersing myself in the proper mindframe beforehand. Well done Olham. ZZ.