Olham

Yeah, collision would suit there - they were long time in the thick of it, up north. As for the officers who joined the Nazis, it is always difficult to imagine the situation and the feelings of that time, BEFORE everyone would have known, what we know today about the regime. As for Udet - I think he was just too weak there, to stay distant from Göring, who must have been a charming manipulator. I mean, imagine: Josef Jacobs was hiding from Göring, so he didn't have to meet him... I am so very glad, that I never got into such situations.

I never had a close look at the engine of the Fee before, but I'm damn sure, it was far from this detail. This new one is stunning - even the cables seem to be modelled! (Makes me hope for a better Mercedes D.III engine in front of me soon. Wasn't there shots with the valves already? Must check again!) Through all the fine detail of model and skin, the Fee looks larger now, like the real bus. Very fine work, gents!

Yes, definitely. And he also didn't seem to like "Herr Meier".

Townsend's Squadron Locations Revisited After some time has passed, I want to show again to our newbies this interactive site with the WW1 Squadron and Jasta locations. You may find it useful for your choice, where you want to fly. HOW TO USE IT You click away the national insignia you don't want to find; they will fade to grey. Then select the Display Type at the left. You can select: - By Aerodrome - By Date - By Squadron If you select "By Aerodrome", you can select a specific airfield in the second top frame. Among the many little crosses on the map, the chosen one will now be highlighted. (Hard to see). If you choose "By Squadron" and then select a specific Squadron in the second frame, you will receive a more or less zigzagging line on the map - the course of the squadron from it's introduction to the end of the war. Although some fields remained unknown to the author, and some others are wrongly placed, this may still be of some assistance and info. http://patriot.net/~townsend/WW1AirMap2/

Ah, I see - that's what I use anyway, so I didn't know.

You can only change the numbers by hand so far, if you want a new face - as I described above.

This graphic was put together, because I wanted to know the proportion between the victories/kills and the losses of the top scoring Jastas. I knew from several books, that this proportion is getting much distorted in air combat sims (not only in OFF, but in all sims I know - it must be extremely difficult, or even impossible, to simulate the scraps as they were: rather short; then one or both groups withdrew instead of eliminating each other almost completely). Before anyone says now, that this chart is a proof of the efficiency of German Jastas or their pilot training: I do not think that it is so simple. The better early pilot training of the Germans, and the fact that it was far from that on the British side, at least in the early months of the air war, was surely one reason for the high kill numbers. But why do the Germans have so few losses compared to their victories? I guess some reasons are these: a) The German fighters operated almost only over German held terrain. That results in very few losses by forced landings; German pilots could put their aircraft down anywhere, and would find help, instead of being arrested and becoming prisoners of war (POW). b) Their major task was to intercept intruding reconnaissance and bomber aircraft; while these had special tasks to fullfill, with a fixed flight path. British fighters did not have these duties, but they had to fly into German held terrain and had to search for the enemy there; while the Jastas often enough avoided scraps with them. It was just not their task to have duells with other fighters. c) The British fighters were exposed to German Flak most of the time. The German fighters only were, when they made a balloon attack, or when they had to fly escort. As far as I know, escorts were not made very often; the German two-seaters could fly at very high altitude, and seem to have operated without escort mostly. Perhaps you have good additional reasons to add here?

I think I'm a bamboo rather - I must have grown so quick, that I'm hollow inside.

Yeah, I guess they had to learn it the hard way, Mighty, that such a modern war between highly industrialised opponents could not be won without terrible losses. Generals are not made to see such facts. Hauksbee, the map goes even as far as northern Italy (which keeps another front available for P5, perhaps? Hint, hint, devs!) RAF_Louvert has been flying through the Alpes as far as I know - try it out! Guys, we have made four pages, and remained civilised about the topic, despite Shredward's worst fears. So, let me bring out a toast to the fine gentlemen on this forum - which must be the best forum in the world! Cheers, gents!

Indeed, Hauksbee, indeed! It get's only nasty when these idiots tear families apart on their Darwinism course.

For various reasons I thought that. Firstly from my experiences in various sims (so much for the historian in me!). Then because of their technical situation - sitting in open cockpits, no radios, flying kites no insurance would easily insure anymore, and then flying against so overwhelming superior forces. I had just thought that all would take a bigger toll, actually. But you are surely right - the way they organised their operations, was keeping them relatively safe. There were often wide spaces with no Jasta pilots seen anywhere - but where they appeared, they did in strong enough formations to defend each other. And their tactical cooperation was well thought out and trained surely.

Very romantic, to kiss the Sergeant Major! The "Bordeauxred Baron" would probably say: "Ze Englanders have a senze for ze bizarre surely!" Here is how the Great War almost ended in 1917:

Well, that's what they call intelligence, I guess - you don't only fight with guns in a war, and the British radar system plus the decoding may be two good examples for that. Whatever wrong tactical decisions "Herr Meier" made - it is again part of a war, to make better or bad decisions. Let's not make "Herr Meier" the secret winner of the Battle of Britain - for the British.

Correct, Stickshaker. The Germans didn't have such high resources of aircraft and pilots as the Entente had. That's why von Richthofen's "Circus", and also many other Jastas, travelled quite a lot during the war - the best were always needed at the hot spots. But again: this graphic was not made as a competition between Jastas and Entente fighter squads - it was made solely to demonstrate, that the fifteen top-ranking Jastas had only about 12 % losses compared to their victories. Not more - without any valuation. I had always guessed they should have had much higher losses.

Wayfarer, I tried but couldn't really find the size to change for the gauges. Hellshade and all - here are two screenshots of the Labels.

I don't know; must check it again. But you know that you can switch the gauges and the blue text off by pressing F5 (I think it was?) Also note, that you can switch off each gauge seperately. You need to press Ctrl. + Shift plus the numbers 1 - 4. So, if you press Ctrl. + Shift + 1 repeatedly, you should be switching through the gauges, until it disappears completely. Now you would want to keep the Compass; but then do it with the numbers 2, 3 and 4, to get rid of the other gauges. Thank you, HW! Hellshade, I had added a picture in the upload, but for some reason it doesn't appear. Just backup your ViewUI.xml and try it out.

No offense taken, Widow; and yes, I know your "Lord Flashheart" impersonations - and "ooops!" - I really always thought, half the Luftwaffe was already standing in the East. You see, I actually know little about WW2 in detail - sorry, my fault. Thank you, Grinseed - I hope you will be able to fly OFF some day - maybe when P4 comes out?

Widowmaker, the "Battle of Britain" was again a fight of only half of the Luftwaffe against the RAF. The other half (or actually even more than half) was fighting at the Eastern front. I would like to add a "woof, woof" here, but this is again drifting far off into the emotional areas. Lets not get this into an emotional debate (although I realise for myself, that it is quite impossible to keep any emotions out of it). It is surely hard to do, to look at just the historical facts, when your ancestors were involved in a war. I guess that is still making us to sympathize with one or another side of the trenches. Only natural, but not useful in historical research, I guess. Good points, Grinseed! Are you a new OFF flyer? In that case I'd like to receive a PM with your town and country, so I could add you to our OFF Pilots Maps.

But that would leave all the British and French fighter units out completely? I doubt, that the author of "No Parachute", Arthur Gould Lee, would agree with you here.

Just found this video - a report about giant landmines, which were left unexploded in the ground at Vimy Ridge. One went up in the 1950s; at least 5 others are still sleeping there... Royal Engineers went to search for one huge missing mine in the 90s - here's the thrilling film about it: http://www.youtube.c...s4hvws3XEU&NR=1 .

Those miners were sometimes buried alive, when artillery shells or bombs went up overground, and made their tunnel ceilings collapse. With my tendency to claustrophobia, neither submarines nor this tunneling work would have been something for me. I'd much rather fly a fighter.

Sounds to me like flying in late 1918. Thank you, Hellshade!

Yeah, they made the most of their hopeless case, so to say. Somewhere I read, that early on in the war, one German General would have had the chance to get through to Paris - but he stopped. After that, such a chance never came again. I'd like to state here, that I am glad it turned out that way. Paris is only Paris, when it is the capital of France; when it is ruled by the French, and by nobody else. Neither the German nor the British way is like the French way - and that's good that way. Vive la diversité!

If anyone has reliable numbers / data for the French or the British flyers, I am more than willing to make a graphic for them, too. Me, I just did this one because I wanted to see the relations in an illustrating way (instead of just numbers). What got me started was, that I realised, that my Jasta 2 pilot sees far too many falling craft in his fights. On both sides that is, by the way - I am absolutely certain, that neither the British nor the French lost so many aircraft in their scraps with the Jastas. That is, as I said in the beginning, a very difficult problem for each air combat sim - possibly unsolveable. OFF takes care for that at least so far, that it doesn't count all these fallen craft as losses.