Olham

Just found this document from Jasta 15, Habsheim, at the "Bundesarchiv": This document from December 1916 shown here is the declaration of consent of the officer corps of the Jasta 15 in Habsheim regarding the election of the Vizefeldwebel and officer candidate, Ernst Udet, for a Reserveoffizier (reserve officer?). On 21 December 1916, Udet declared in written form, that he agrees on this election, and to remain in service three more years after the nomination. At the Aerodrome website, someone posted this typed chronicle from Jasta 15. Another poster wrote some info about the source of these two pages: "The manuscript was written by Dr. Gustav Bock, based on the material of Erich Tornuß. ... The collection of Dr. Bock is the most complete collection on German World War I documents, based on original German sources. ... The collection of around 120 folders of Jasta diarys and official reports still exist in Germany. A good number of material published today is based on his fundametal work, unfortunately often not credited to him." I always feel a kind of thrill through the spine; I'm really touched, seeing such documents. .

Damn! I have been waiting for something that will never be released! Okay- from now on I'll wait for OFF2. Seriously now: sounds like great news, Winder!

You want to know, where your current airfield is in France? Or want to see some photographs of the town or village? You can find it all here: http://www.map-france.com/ Type the name into the search frame and see what you get. .

Haha, yeah - now who's the person sitting next to you?! It's among the list. If you see the Emoticons at the right, click on "Show all" at the bottom and see them through.

PS: how thrilling historical research can often be, can be read under "Produktbeschreibung" here - it is the introduction by Michael Schmeelke to his book about Jasta 12, and it tells, how Schmeelke found Viktor Schobinger with immense luck! http://www.amazon.de/Deutsche-Luftkriegsgeschichte-1914-Kriegstagebuch-Jagdstaffel/dp/3925480951/ref=pd_sim_b_3

Just type "Jasta 15" in the search frame; you'll see it among the first results. Tornuss seems to have collected everything he could find about the Jastas after WW1. Dr. Georg Bock seems to have taken that collection over. But I don't know, if it still exists. Perhaps JFM can tell more. At the BUNDESARCHIV they have some documents for MvR and Ernst Udet. Didn't search any further there for others. As for Jasta and FA(A) diaries, I recommend these DIN A 4 booklets: - Deutsche Luftkriegsgeschichte 1914-1918 "Das Kriegstagebuch der Jasta 12" by Michael Schmeelke (assisted by Jasta 12 ace Viktor Schobinger) - Deutsche Luftkriegsgeschichte 1914-1918 "Aus der Chronik der Jagdstaffel 32" by Jörg Mückler - Deutsche Luftkriegsgeschichte 1914-1918 "KagOHL 4 Staffel 23 1916-1917: Die Kampfstaffel 23 (Kasta) des Kampfgeschwaders 4 der Obersten Heeresleitung (KagOHL)" by Michael Schmeelke All three books are still available (see AMAZON). They contain lots of photographs. .

Of course you can also go to Google Maps, and see if the area was already photographed for "StreetView". If so, you can grip and move that yellow mannikin from the left corner into a street, if it is blue highlighted, and you will "be there". Like I did with La Gorgue here. This is the river Lys, where Arthur and his comrades went bathing. The meadow at the right might habe been the former airfield. In the distance La Gorgue.

Thank you, BBeard. Well, when it comes to idioms, it gets difficult. I only know a few. Like "there's a fly in the ointment" - in German we say (translated): "There is a hook attached to that thing". Tricky! Thank you guys, but as for skinning, Gous and several others have done so much more over at the skinning site, where I never am. I make skins for the community, but those guys really wrote tutorials. .

Yes, a kind of Jasta diary - not daily written, but whenever there was an event. I don't have the time to translate it all, but I'm sure you can get the meaning of some of the stuff.

Well, it is of course essential to know the correct writing, Duke. I have tried here the airfield, where Arthur Gould Lee was based with the Sopwith Pups - La Gorgue. That field was named after a little town by the river Lys. Here it is: http://www.map-franc...a%20Gorgue.html What I like about this site, is that there are most often photos for the place. .

I think I have read some time ago, that they would make more hit-boxes for P4 planes? Or was it that the hit boxes would be made smaller? Something like that, which should result in more variety.

How do you mean?

Well, I think someone wrote a tutorial for that in the skinning section, Carrick - you should have a look there. http://combatace.com/forum/212-off-photoshop-and-paint-shop-help-for-skinning-and-3d-modeling/ To get to the skins and for browsing through them, I recommend IRFANVIEW, a free download program. You can go through all the ace skins as well as the default basic squadron skins. If you found one you like to use, save it to Desktop as a bmp file. Now you can open this with any graphic program. When you have finished your work, you need to save it as a .dds file. For that, I use the free program "DXTBmp". Install that, and then open your skin BMP file, and save as DDS-format DXT1. Now you can throw it back into the big pot here: CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields > campaigns > CampaignData > skins Good luck!

Could you PLEEEEEZE avoid posting such titles- this might give the devs the feeling, they could carry on developing P4 until next Christmas!!!

That's the point - you could always wait for them to get cheaper, but then again they won't be the actual top notch card. Or: you buy a card from a year ago. That's the same thing like waitng for it to get cheaper - but you have one immediately. This card did cost 235,- € a year ago, and if you get it for 180,- € now, you saved 55,- €. And if you buy the next card in 2 years time, which is now 300,- €; you may get it for 180,- € again. That's 360,- spent, instead of 750,- €; and I can assure you, you will have superb gaming results that way, and save a lot of money. But if you don't know what else to do with it...

CW3SF, shouting with 4 exclamation marks - after just 1 hour wait? A bit unpatient, eyh? Or was that combined with a touch of humour, which was unaudiable for us? Without trying to interfere with the devs advice, I can say that I had occasional errors in OFF, and they have mostly been solved by performing one, or even both steps of this: 1. "Reset OFF Manager" in "Workshops" and if that didn't help 2. "Reset CFS3" in "Workshops" These steps helped me, so I didn't have to make a de- and re-install. But you must know: you will lose your campaign pilots that way - it's back to square 1. .

Well, he isn't old yet? But definitely a romantic through and through!

Creaghorn, spending 750 € on a top notch graphic card is - sorry, Sir - sheer madness, when you mostly fly OFF. OFF is not so demanding on that sector. A fast CPU (which you have) and good memory (which you also have) are important. And even if you play other games, you can have excellent results for less than 200,- Euro. Here is a comparing site by the gamer magazine PC-GAMES, section "PC-Harware" - perhaps you look through that. I also have a link to the GTX 560, which seems to be a very good card, which you can get for ca. 180,- Euro. Anything more would be sheer overkill IMHO. http://www.pcgamesha...afikkarte/Test/ http://www.pcgamesha...afikkarte/Test/ Hier ist das Fazit des Tests der GTX 560 TI (wenn Du nicht alles durchlesen willst) - Stand Anfang 2011: Geforce GTX 560 Ti im Test: FazitFür einen von Nvidia vorgesehenen Verkaufspreis von 239 Euro macht die Geforce GTX 560 Ti nichts wirklich falsch, aber dafür viel richtig: Die Leistungsaufnahme bewegt sich im Leerlauf auf einem sehr geringem Niveau, das Übertaktungspotenzial ist hoch und die Lautheit unter Last ist mit nur 1,1 Sone aus 50 Zentimetern exzellent für eine derart flotte Karte - kein anderer Pixelbeschleuniger dieser Klasse erreicht im Referenzdesign eine solche Laufruhe. In unseren Benchmarks sortiert sich die Geforce GTX 560 Ti im Mittel zwischen der Radeon HD 6870 und der Radeon HD 6950 mit 2 GiByte ein (selbst wenn Tessellation im Spiel ist und auch mit Q-Filterung seit dem Catalyst 11.1a). Erst GTX-560-OC-Versionen der Nvidia-Partner werden zur HD 6950 aufschließen können - die ersten 900-MHz-Karten von Palit und Gainward sind bereits im PCGH-Testlabor eingetroffen. Folgerichtig sieht AMD die bald startende Radeon HD 6950 mit 1 GiByte für rund 230 Euro UVP sowie stark übertaktete Karten des Typs HD 6870 als Gegner vor. Das Referenzdesign der Radeon HD 6950/2G allerdings ist unter Last klar lauter (2,6 Sone), auch hinkt sie hinsichtlich des ausgereiften Feature-Sets (u.a. GPU-Physx vs. Bullet, 3D-Vision vs. HD3D) und der Bildqualität (u.a. HQ-AF, SSAA in allen APIs) der Geforce GTX 560 Ti hinterher. Die Fermi-Karte kann allerdings maximal zwei Bildschirme parallel ansteuern (Radeon: drei oder mehr), beherrscht SGSSAA nur inoffiziell und ohne automatische Textur-LOD-Anpassung. Die Radeon-Riege bietet Supersampling-AA offiziell (nur unter DX9) im Treiber an, justiert das LOD auf einen perfekten Wert und garniert dieses Schmankerl mit einer hohen Ausführungsgeschwindigkeit - mit aktivem SGSSAA ist selbst die HD 6870 meist schneller als Nvidias GTX 560 Ti. Eyefinity außen vor, bietet jedoch die Geforce GTX 560 Ti das derzeit beste Komplettpaket am Markt. Der im Text erwähnte Preis von 235,- Euro ist inzwischen heruntergegangen - einfach mal AMAZON durchsuchen.

I have just returned from a 50 minute Lone Wolf patrol, on which I caught a lonesome BE2c low. Almost back at La Selve, I was just passing the lakes near Marchais airfield, when I spotted Flak, and then 3 R.E.8 bombers. They were pretty low, and I approached them. They came even lower, and then I saw them dropping their bombs on an army camp. They were now below 1000 feet. One fell behind, and I crept up below him. I was in the gunner's dead angle, and slowly but surely worked my way up. Now I saw the other two bombers veering off to the left and to the right. I thought, they were going to attack the target again, while my feller seemed a bit hampered. I got higher and higher, until I suddenly saw tracer fingers close above my wings! From the left side, one of the R.E.8 had approached me, and the gunner took me under fire! I dived steeply, and pulling up, fired into my prey. I really hit the engine, but in the next moment, my Albatros D.III received several hits from the two bombers left and right, and I had to quit. I saw, that my victim was slowly going down, but I also had an engine failure, and put my kite down beside a road; next to a column of German tanks. I was very impressed by this attack - I can't remember any similar so determined counter- attack by any two-seaters before! OFF still surprises me!

Tch! Rotaries are phase-out models. In WW2 you'll find that the inlines are the most successful engines. A mix of the Albatros' beauty and the Pfalz D.IIIa's sturdyness would be my perfect fighter.

Since Siggi's "Full DiD Campaign", I had flown with a kind of "semi-DiD" setup and handling: - TAC fully unabled - LABELS put on a joystick button - curiosity kills the victor: I sometimes want to know, if my opponent is an ace - occasional outside views, when I couldn't find anyone But only recently, I had the urge again to fly "Full DiD" - the whole immersion (white-knuckle-flying and ham-fisted reactions included) is just so much greater. So now I fly like this: - TAC fully unabled - LABELS fully unabled - NO outside views (except when paused for a screenshot) - no use of WARP on short enough mission routes (except for getting past the circling of the field, or for longer mission paths; or to recollect my men, when I ..have left a fight - thanks Creaghorn for that idea; it's the only way to draw your men out of a fight) - only my direct wingman as witness in Claims report (or, if around, a friendly ace, who's craft I can identify by his markings) Now some may perhaps have one or more of the following questions: Q: How do you identify your opponents now? A: Only after the mission and claim is done. I make notes for all squadron emblems I encountered, so I can name them next time, .....if I should meet them again. For squadrons I can't identify yet, I only mention their markings in my claims report. .....Aces I only name, when I know their personal design (which is, of course, rare). .....But for my own satisfaction I look for all special markings after the Claims report is done and I'm out of the sim. .....(I use the free IRFANVIEW for browsing through the skins). Q: Won't you get far less claims confirmed this way? A: Yes, I hope so. The numbers of kills was still ridiculously high. I am beyond the crave for high victory numbers; I want to earn them a bit harder now Q: How do you follow your waypoints without TAC? A: I look at the inflight map, where a symbol of my craft and the course lines are shown. That's more like they had to do it. ....Often I may fly my own course, following real paper maps, and distinct landmarks (mostly lakes, rivers and railways). Q: How do you advise your wingmen attacks without being able to mark targets on the TAC? A: The TAC is not necessary for fighters. A bomber flight leader may need to assign the targets, but as a fighter wing leader, I only just press "A" for attack. ....For each "A", one wingman seems to peel off to attack the closest air target. If I have 5 wingmen, I press "A" four times. So my wingman will stay with me. Q: How will you find camouflaged enemy aircraft flying lower than you? A: Either I find them by looking around - or I don't find them. That's the reason for camouflage colours. Sometimes they help. Q: What if you miss entire enemy flights, and come home without any fight nor claim? A: Well, it happened so often for the real pilots. Flights may sometimes pass each other at distances, where you should be able to see them - but for some ....reason you don't. Well, why not? After such a mission, my own men, as well as all my opponents, will be having the next meal together without a man missing. Q: What if you want your wingman to attack a specific enemy fighter, but can't assign him without the TAC? A: That's never necessary. What I need him for most is, to keep my six clear. If an opponent is close behind me, I press "H" (Help!), and he will come to do so, .....if he can. If I want him to help me with a specific enemy aircraft (for example, when I'm out of ammo), I fly close to that craft and stick with it; and press"H". .....He will usually attack the craft then, if there are not other aircraft in the same close distance to us. If you find it too easy to make lots of kills, or if you just want to feel free from any distractions (which is what TAC and LABELS also are), then you should try this out. You might be amazed, how relaxed it can be! Or also, if it gets tight: how thrilling it will be! You will feel less superiour, and you will concentrate more on getting out of all the turmoil alive. .

Sorry, Mighty - I can't remember everything that was exchanged. You're right, you want a decent chance - at least as close as possible to the real pilot's sight.

I think I've seen this drawing posted before, but years ago - so here it is again: Jasta 11 aces, portraied by artist Arnold Busch. The artist made many other drawings in the Great War - see here: http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/German_Artists/Busch_01.htm