Waldemar Kurtz

I've always found the use of "the Dark Side" to be generally good-natured here. but on places like theaerodrome.com I sometimes find that there is this believe that the Germans were decidedly more wicked and cruel than the rest of the world on some fundamental level. this seems to ignore the fact that England and France had some of the largest colonial empires in the world! did they treat their colonial subjects well? by the standards of the day they certainly did-- but it's still not very good by today's standards. the Germans did bomb civilians with the Zeppelin and Gotha raids-- but this seems to overlook that the British and the French pursued night bombardment raids with even greater zeal than the Germans-- but little or no mention is made of the collateral damage and civilian deaths attributed to these raids. the winners write history is definitely true. how many history books will mention Hitler's bombing strikes against civilians in London and neglect to mention Curtis LeMay's indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Japan? the zeppelins were the beginning--but certainly not the last word. yeah, the German nation was definitely 'the bad guys' in World War One. but on closer inspection everybody ends up looking pretty bad by the end-- well, maybe not the Belgians-- but maybe that's because I haven't read up on them as much as England, France, or Germany! it always annoys me when people act as if the righteousness of the Allied nations can't be questioned... because it was always a relative measure against the Centra/Axis nations.

but think of all the fun you could have changing serial numbers! :p to be fair, the early machines didn't have a lot of colorful paint schemes. most aces could only be "identified" by the serial number on their aircraft-- which is something we'd only have the luxury of doing now! I don't think people would be going "on no! it's E.I 13/15! I'd better run for the hills lest I become another unhappy victim of..." the Voisin served in some for or another for almost the entire war-- even if by the war's end they were only flying night-bombing raids. some of those Farmans actually had really interesting paint schemes-- like that famous Belgian "Death's Head" Farmans... those things looked awesome!

the in cockpit visibility is astonishingly bad. with that top wing set so low, you have to "stand up" in the cockpit and move your position up vertically over the top wing to see much of anything. you've got a decent view then. of course, you can't really look for enemy machines in this way and shoot at your intended target. it's not really a dogfight plane for me-- not with the upper wing making it so hard to see. but it's worth remembering that the most successful French SPAD pilots were stalkers OR they worked in large formations of 60 aircraft or so. long before the Jagdgeschwader existed the French were employing the exact same concept of massed fighters to sweep the sky of enemy machines--but they don't get much credit or respect for it. on the bright side the airplane is pretty fast and solid. and, compared to the Nieuport 11's paltry ammunition load the SPAD VII is a veritable killing machine!

that's cool-- information on French aerodromes has been hard to find.... although some of the pictures look kinda... heavily edited!

got a CD in the mail this afternoon: "Hoch Deutschlands Flotte!" which is basically an album full of music from the Imperial German Navy from 1907 until 1917. I thought it would be fun to play the music while flying sorties for a German career. so I started off with MFFA 1 and tried out my luck. the first mission was pretty low-key, just an arty-spot. but then I got the idea that since I'm flying over the target for so long, I could pretend to take 'pictures'-- especially since that's a prime 'target' for photographic work. I used the DFW C.V's bomb-sight and took a 'picture'. which I've turned into a gray-scale image and 'annotated' it. this is the 'picture' taken from 13,000 ft over the lines

I kept getting assigned scrambles ad nauseum-- something like six times in a row. I'd use the 'Time Advance' feature to try and bypass it. but the very next mission would always be a scramble! so by that point I got pretty annoyed. it just seems unlikely that I'd get assigned 6 scramble missions in a row for a two-seater unit at Mariakerke-- that's pretty far behind the lines. so, I manually altered the mission file allocations for 1917 bombers and replaced 'Scramble' with 'Ground Forces Attack' (which makes a lot more sense to me). and I have never seen another scramble for two-seaters since. I'm tempted to do this for all of the bomber mission assignments... because scrambling in two-seaters doesn't make a whole lot of sense! I've enjoyed the change immensely, and it was surprisingly easy to do

the music was fun. although it didn't really "help" in any sort of practical sense ISBN # 0854424001026 for some reason the music of the Imperial German Navy was more dynamic and interesting than that used by the army. ISBN # 854424001002 one of these days, when I'm not so ludicrously busy I think I'll try to write something in that old military style. not something that would come naturally to me though-- I'm so accustomed to writing in the post WWII style of music it would be an interesting challenge. both of these CDs are quite interesting-- the sound quality is exactly as bad as you'd expect period music to be-- but I'm not exepcting 21rst century sound quality!

oh, and as I was taking off I saw something very odd in one of the hangars at Mariakerke! it looked like a rotary engine (which our squadron doesn't use!) AND there were some aircraft parts that looked like they came from a 1915 Bristol Scout D.3! fancy that, huh?

Sortie No.3 (05.02.1917) it was one of those despicable scramble missions. the first mission of a new day. as soon as I looked out and saw a dozen machines swarming our field I felt like "wow, this is gonna be a short career!" it got worse when I saw that it was nothing less than the full strength of 56 Squadron RFC! I tried flying away, sneaking off before they could notice, but I had two SE5s right on my tail. there was no running from these guys: they were way too fast. so when they were still about 600 ft away I turned and flew straight between them. my observer opened fire on one of them. then they went into a climbing turn and I broke hard and tried to get a high-degree deflection shot on them at the top of their climb. (I didn't get any good caps of that, I was too busy fighting). I lucked out, because I'd built up enough speed diving through the pair that I was able to snap up and catch one of the SE5s at the top of their turn. I fired about 100 rounds before I stalled out and had to bring my nose down. the shots hit home, because the SE5a began to level out. I figured I was already good as dead, so I didn't even bother to check my six, with 11 other British machines roaring all over the place I just assumed somebody was waiting to kill me. so I opened fire on this SE5a, who was easily pulling away from me. I fired another 50 rounds at him and he zoom-climbed. I couldn't keep up and stalled out. but then I got the notion-- let's dive and get out in front! he's climbing, and I might be able to put him in range of my observer. sure enough, he was barely 50 feet away when I leveled out about 100 ft below him. my observer fired a quick burstt of some 30-40 rounds and the SE5 burst into flames.

Sortie No.2 was a bombing mission against St. Pol sur Mer. we approached at a height of 17,000 ft and our bombs exploded uselessly on the eastern edge of the field. still, I felt pretty good that at least I got part of the airfield damage. we also lucked out because there were three Sopwith Triplanes below us (I could see them below and in front on my left side) that milled about. they were so far below us that they either took no notice of us at all--or simply couldn't reach us in time.

transfering illegally? what does that mean. if one desires to have a pilot transfer from one squadron to another? the campaign manager locks you in with one squadron for the entire war. this is, of course, historically inaccurate--but you're stuck with the limitations of CFS3. I would suspect that if one were very careful they might be able to successfully transfer a pilot by manually editing the pilot dossier text file. but I wouldn't recommend that to the average end-user. I didn't even know that Over Flanders Fields had a warranty!

well, they seem to make more claims than bomber squadrons--but apart from that I haven't seen a real difference. I'm guessing that they're like the FE2b-- all bark and no bite. if you don't make your attacks carefully they'll shoot you up in a heart-beat... but otherwise, they'll probably mind their own business. I haven't seen enough of them in my Allied careers to know if they're abject and acquiescing cannon-fodder like the FE2b or the BE2c yet.

hahaha, I don't know yet. whenever I fly with FA62 I usually start as early as possible (in Fokkers). but I'll try a campaign with it in the future as a fighter-pilot and see what happens. I would suspect that the BIG difference is whether your squadron is designated as a fighter or bomber type. I'll find out! ;)

the author explains that the German could fly circles around any one of them, and in fact did just that. in spite of all of his tremendous efforts, he was unable to shake the pursuing German. by this time he had only been flying for several months--and it's quite possible that whomever his adversary was, was a far more experienced pilot in a categorically superior aircraft. "Notes of a Lost Pilot" by Jean Beraud Villars, as translated by Stanley J. Pincetl Jr and Ernest Marchand, illustrations by Charles Faust ISBN 0-208-01437-3 pages 88-89 this battle transpired when three Farmans were attempting to photograph an artillery battery near Verdun in August of 1916. he was a member of Escadrille 44 at the time the excerpt was written. the second half of the book is devoted to his time spent with Escadrille 102. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I've never finished the entire book-- but the first half, devoted to Farmans, is really fascinating.

there IS a single unit of "Fighter" Roland C.IIs -- that of FA62. they were most certainly used in the role of fighter over Verdun. they had the best performance of any German machine at that time-- and since Verdun had only a handful of Fokkers (some 50 or less) nearly all escort duties were performed by two-seaters. this would allow the handful of Fokkers to intercept enemy machines. in "Notes from a Lost pilot" Jean Beraud-Villars (a French two-seater pilot, at that time) records a fascinating episode where a German two-seater single-handedly attacks a flight of three Farmans "with both guns". there's only one German two-seater during this period of the war that could make a head-on pass and attack with both the fixed-forward firing machine gun and the observer's machine gun effectively. this lone German pilot harrassed them for about 15 minutes--although he failed to shoot down a single one of them, he so utterly terrified them that none of them took so much as a single picture or ever reached the German balloon that they were hoping to destroy. granted, there aren't a lot of French two-seaters in the game yet-- but you could still make something like that happen on your own. ;)

I'm starting up a Roland C.II career with FA3b. I was flying an artillery spotting mission where absolutely nothing happened. no artillery barrages or anything in the area-- so, I went down into the weeds and started looking for something. as it turned out, the white chalky roads of French mining country (I love this detail). even at a height of 5,000 ft I could make out the faintest traces of movement on the ground: little black specks on the grey chalky roads. (this is a great detail because during the war, the pale chalky roads were clearly visible from enormous distances. often strips of cloth and netting were spread out across stretches of the road to obscure road-traffic from observation. this was especially the case with tethered observation balloons. the cloth would be offset at angles so that from the shallow fields-of-view afforded balloons, that it would be harder for them to see troop and supply convoys. there was no hope of concealing road traffic from fixed wing aircraft, hence the need for fighters to keep intruders away). sorry, but I just love how I was able to spot troop movements on the chalky roads. at any rate, it didn't seem like the artillery guns were ever going to do anything. so I got down low and slow and started strafing British troops. I was barely 100 ft off the ground and I had to be careful. for 1916 the Roland is a fast plane--but it's really mushy on the controls, and it doesn't roll very well (historically accurate). so if I didn't watch my energy management at such a low altitude, I could easily wind up dead. even so, I pressed my attacks as close as 100 ft away before I pulled up. I got so close I could see piles of dead bodies as I flew past them. (by the way, I paused the game to get cockpit snap-- I don't have Track-IR, so I can't just glance down through the wing cut-outs like I could in real-life. heh, if I get good at this, I want to put some sort of ominous symbol on the belly of my Roland C.II. let the Tommies know who's coming back for another helping of English blood!

the first German squadrons don't start getting really active until June of 1915. actually, now that I think of it... enlisting before June 1915 is probably ideal for those ambitious BE2c pilots! you'll have a few months to build up a great reputation for yourself before the Fokker apocalypse overtakes you! ;)

is this in quick combat? if so, I guess I should have mentioned that sometimes it's easier to climb and wait for them to come back and try to attack you... as they inevitably seem to do in QC,

is this in quick combat? if so, I guess I should have mentioned that sometimes it's easier to climb and wait for them to come back and try to attack you... as they inevitably seem to do in QC, by which time you can gain a bit of alt and then attack them as they come rushing at you. I honestly haven't seen too many Bristol Fighters in my careers unless I'm flying IN them. maybe somebody should resurrect the thread, or keep it going with some in-campaign kills to help clarify things.

30-40 percent. (aka the first three or four times!) I got my engine hit while flying above their tail in a straight line nearly every time. (it didn't matter if they turned or not, they usually got me) moreover, if I ever bothered to turn with them while in their rear quarter, they could get me there too. so I settled on "turn against them until they're dead" which is why I advocate turning after the merge. once I stopped flying straight-away after crossing paths with them, the engine damage stopped being so lethal. high-G turns (over 2 or 3) are really the only solution I've found. and more specifically low yo-yos after crossing behind them. (turn, push the nose down, and then come back to your original alt to complete the turn). after I adjusted my tactics I got a LOT more hits on my wings and fuselage. with all the tactics I've described on this post I've found that the only time they get hits on my engine is when they manage to get on my tail. most of these tactics were tested in quick-combat in one-vs-two situations at 160% -- but the principles were devised back when I played RB1. again, flat S-turns work well. if you have the opportunity to perform a rolling scissors, there's no way the Bristol will keep up with you. it's STILL a two-seater-- use that to get out of the way and come back for a better attack. descending spirals, if you can lure them in, can help get them below you. break out first and start a climbing turn-- this is probably most useful in the Dr.I or the D.VII which can outclimb the Bristol Fighter easily. once you get above them you can extend away and come back for an overhead pass when you get the chance. or just keep climbing away and ignore them. I've been using over-head deflection shots on the Bristol Fighter since RB1-- those aircraft never showed up in campaigns, so I always made customized missions where I put 'ace' fighters like Mick Mannock or Rene Fonck in them -- and they were every bit as deadly, by comparison, as the deadliest two-seaters in OFF. if I didn't put the AI aces in two-seaters for custom-made RB1 missions they generally sat their like a target-drone getting pulled through the air. (granted, the RB3d two-seaters weren't that great-- but these tactics worked well enough online against Bristol Fighters when I got involved in "Flanders in Flames"-- which, all things being said, is very similar to the OFF flight-model in general feel: OFF has less energy bleed and a more sophisticated damage model) finally, I'd advise flying a few careers in the Bristol Fighter. I actually have more flight-time in the Bristol Fighter than all the non Fokker E.III scouts put together. it's certainly helped reinforce and shape my tactics.

regarding force feedback, I'm not sure--but the Albatros was legendarily "heavy" on the controls. many a British pilot was astonished that the Germans did so well with them. compared to most British aircraft the stick-forces on the Albatros would be much stronger-- you feel like you're doing a lot of work. although it must be said that the Bristol Fighter F2b was considered "very heavy" on the controls--there was even the joke that you could tell which fellow flew the Brisfit because of his over-developed arm muscles! most Sopwith machines were famous for having very light and responsive controls. so naturally, if you've been flying the Albatros for a bit, the other machines might feel as though they're "non-existent" in the force feedback department.

yes, I've noticed the engine gets hit even when I'm flying away from the Bristol Fighter--but I've found a solution. I always perform some S-curves after crossing behind the Bristol Fighter, making sure that I dip just below his line of flight and put his tail above me. it means that I'm not exposed to continuous fire-- about half the time my wings and fuselage get shot up instead of my engine. hope this helps, at least a little.

I know--that's why I didn't quote you. they're deadly--and if you put the highest levels of difficulty on it's really HARD to shoot one down without getting shot down or killed in the process. all tactics rely on firepower. you have two guns firing through the prop for their one. always prefer nose-to-nose gunnery passes. don't turn with them, turn against them. go for high-deflection shots. don't 'pursue' the enemy unless you know he's mortally wounded. and if you chase him, don't get closer than 500 ft. when you perform a head-on pass put him at your 11 or 1 o'clock position before you attempt to shoot him. you want some slight deflection before you start going nose-to-nose. this makes it a tiny bit more difficult for the AI to get you in their sights. it adds an extra second or so of unmolested firing time. I start opening fire at about 1,000 ft. I know that the closing speed will only give me a second or two of firing time before I cross pathes. after the merge if he turns towards you, turn towards him and KEEP turning. if you turn away, you'll be exposing yourself to his observer. if, after merging, he turns away from you, then turn away from him as well. put some distance between you and the observer. if you fly straight away while your on his 6, he'll just rattle your plane with bullets. so turn off at a 20 or 30 degree angle and at LEAST make it harder for the observer to kill you. basically, if you're pulling less than 2 G and you try to turn with him then that observer is going to light you up like a Christmas tree. if you're in the middle of 2 or 3 G turns then you might not have to worry about the observer QUITE so much. this is usually in the middle of a steep climbing or diving turn. I only attack Bristol Fighters in a climbing turn by using low yo-yos. this means that I put my nose down, dive a little bit, then pull up sharply. I never try to pursue the enemy in his turn, I always try to anticipate where he's going to be and blast him at the top of his turn. the Bristol Fighter loves to perform the split-S. one the best time to actually pursue him and open fire is in the middle of a roll. while he's rolling towards you or away from you, there's no way that observer can kill you. he's also flying a predictable path (he has to fly more-or-less in a straight line in order to do the half-roll and bring his nose down). so this is really the only time it's worth 'chasing' a Bristol Fighter. and even then, I'd let him do the split-S and fly away. I'll turn slightly away, climb, and then watch where he goes. if he's turning, I'll do a high yo-yo and try to get him with a diving over-head pass again. these tricks will work for the Albatros and D.VII variants. if you're flying the Pfalz D.III, God help you, your only hope is to flame them in one quick-and-dirty overhead pass. or, if you have superior numbers. otherwise, you are utterly helpless to do anything against them. haven't had the chance to really try flying the Dr.I against the Bristol Fighter. so somebody else will have to come up with ideas for that. I tried all of these tricks with the difficulty levels at 160% the ONLY way I could shoot down a Bristol Fighter with the Pfalz D.IIIa was with a high-speed over-head pass. I picked one, after he'd just performed a split-S a half-mile away. dove in on him with 40 degrees deflection from 2,000 feet above him. aimed 200 feet or so ahead of where he was headed, opened fire, waited for him to cross my line of fire, and after 250 rounds and about a 1/2 second of turning into him. he tried turning away, and the combined stress of his air-combat manuever with my continuous fire killed him. his upper wing exploded into hundreds of little pieces and his engine burst into flames. and that, my friends, is probably the only sort of situation where I'll ever shoot down a Bristol Fighter F2b with the Pfalz D.IIIa: a high-speed, overhead deflection shot on a diving adversary. wish I had a picture of it, lol!

the English title is called "Ace of the Iron Cross", or some such thing. the biography of Oswald Boelcke by Johannes Werner is the best book on this pioneering ace-- who debatebly may be called the grandfather of fighter doctrine. (it's also the only one in English) "The Stand: the last flight of Frank Luke" is not exactly a straight biography--but it's a great book. "Wind in the Wires" by Grinnell-Milne is good ANYTHING by Cecil Lewis is generally worth reading. "Farewell to Wings" gives you a great idea of what it was like to fly the early planes. "Sagitarius Rising" chronicles his career as an aviator in the First World War. "No Parachute" by Arthur Gould Lee is supposed to be pretty good--but it's out of print and SO expensive I never picked it up. the parts of it I've read in other books and anthologies was great--so I'll probably save up for that one. the James McCudden auto-biography is fantastic. definitely worth reading-- he goes into great detail about tactics and why the worst thing a two-seater can do is dive away from an attacker! (I'll let you guess why ;) "Horses Don't Fly" by Frederick Libby (one of the earliest American aces) is a fun book. "Notes from a Lost Pilot" by Jean Berraud-Villars is a great French book about a guy who starts off in "miserable Farmans" and eventually gets his way into flying Nieuports and SPADs. this under-rated and comparatively unknown book is probably one of THE BEST auto-biographies of an aviator from the First World War. (it's called more or less the same thing in English, which is the version I read) "the Red Baron Combat Wing" by Kilduff is excellent-- it's basically a squadron biography of Richthofen's career and aftermath. definitely one of my all-time faves. "Sharks Among Minnows" is not the easiest read--but it's a marvelous compilation of the earliest Fokker pilots and their exploits. one of my favorites. "Shooting the Front" was an expensive and fairly hard to read book which details the evolution of aerial recon-work for the Allied air forces from day one until the end of the war--and beyond. grab yourself a good used copy because this thing will probably be worth hundreds of dollars 20 years from now. even if you don't like it, it'll be worth saving so you can sell it to somebody else. one of the finest bits of scholarship on aviation in the Great War that I've ever read. "French Strategic Tactical Bombing" by Rene Martel isn't technically a biography--but it has a lot of biographical passages. this chronicles the efforts of French bomber flights throughout the war. very good stuff. "the Eagle of Lille" has a few facts wrong here and there--but overall is a great read. it was written by Max Immelmann's brother--and is one of the early standards of the subject. pretty much the only good book on Immelmann that's found its way into English. I might be able to come up with more later-- but that's a lot of suggestions right there. I want to save some suggestions for other people! :o

nice screen capture-- but if THAT'S how you attack two seaters most of the time... well, JUST losing your engine doesn't seem so bad! ;)