Waldemar Kurtz

roger that, I've been trying that... but I usually get bounced by 3 to 6 British airplanes before I can even cross the lines... so usually I just have to ditch my bombs and fight for my life!

expect to die-- A LOT. there's no way around it. you can change the outcomes, so that you never die, but I wouldn't advise doing that unless you're working with Quick Combat pilots (which I always keep seperate from campaigns) there are a couple of solutions: 1. create some "Quick Combat" pilots. literally first name is "Quick" and the second name is "Combat". change the realism settings before playing this pilot--change the outcome to "Easiest-- Pilot Never Dies". this way you can get killed over and over again until the end of time and you won't have to create another Quick Combat player. I usually have my "Quick Combat" players first--just to get them out of the way and make room for the campaigns. fly all of the aircraft for each side so that you get a good feel for them. there are machines that seem unbeatable in campaigns until you actually fly them. in the way each side had "Aircraft Parks" where pilots could actually fly enemy machines and figure out what they could do. since there is no way of doing that in a campaign--this is the best solution. 2. regarding campaigns: SHORT ANSWER: every claim should have the aircraft type, altitude, place, time, witnesses. always try to include some sort of descriptive detail--even if it's something simple like "there was a red nose" or "I saw a big number '1' on the upper wing". if you already know the squadron (cuz you've shot down 5 or 6 planes from them before) then include the squadron number or the name of the AI pilot if you recognize their paint-scheme. if your wingies are dead--then they'll ignore your claim. LONG ANSWER Before every mission take a piece of paper and write down the names of your wingmen (all of them, from Flight 1 and Flight 2--if this is applicable. early in the war you may be providing escort for other members of your flight if your in a bomber squadron-- so even if Boelcke, Immelmann, and Parschau aren't assigned to your actual flight, write down their names anyway! these AI aces are generally immortal. so if you include them as witnesses in your claim it helps. I haven't had a chance to prove this yet, but even if all of my fellow Fokker pilots were shot down-- if I'm close enough that one of these AI aces saw me, it might tip a victory claim in my favor) write down the major waypoints and landmarks that you'll be flying over. so if you know that you have to fly over Monthussart Ferme aerodrome on the way to military defense 413 keep that in mind. you'll usually have combat within close range of some landmarks. I usually note them ahead of time OR as soon as I see blips on the horizon I'll take a quick look at the map and highlight the nearest aerodrome and write that down. include the altitude, location, and time for the battle. sometimes a battle will start in one place and move somewhere else. the place where you started shooting is very seldom the place where the enemy falls--and THAT is the primary concern of getting claims confirmed. the Home Office wants to know where the wreckage is. they don't care too much if you chased a two-seater 25 miles from Arras before getting them. if you can't keep track of everything--then by all means pause the game for a second to make a quick note of what's going on. it's JUST A GAME. as you get better and more experienced then you can try to play everything in real-time (if that's within your abilities and inclinations). besides, as a newbie, pausing the game to write down notes will help you become a better sim-pilot. more to the point, it allows you to notice those important details which are required to get claims confirmed. take a look around, figure out where your wingmen are. it's better to get one victory and have everybody home--get things confirmed--and everybody wins. if you keep shooting at stuff just because you can--and you lose sight of your wingmen--then ultimately that's going to prove fatal in the long run. case in point, I went through a LOT of trouble to rescue my fellow AI wingmen with FA62 (with a campaign called "Albert Beuhlighen" and that definitely payed off. I rescued my flight leader once on a mission--and then the VERY next mission (on the same day) he saved my life THREE TIMES! I was dead to rights on a couple of battles--so it's definitely worth it to keep your wingmen alive. don't wander off after enemy machines unless your behind friendly lines. even then, you can't really expect to get any kills confirmed. however, I think it's worth the trouble of shooting down enemy planes even if you can't get them confirmed. this will give you practice, build up your confidence, and it helps by destroying another enemy machine. WHEN YOU FILL OUT CLAIMS START WITH THE UNDENIABLE VICTORY. start off with the victory where you KNOW somebody saw it. I had one victory where I'm positive that there was a witness--but unfortunately that witness actually crashed later in the battle--so I had to assume that he was dead--but, in fact, he was merely wounded. even if your witness crashes, writing down their name will help get your victory confirmed. I always include the names of just about every member of my flight as a precaution-- because I can't always tell who's nearby. if you want to be absolutely certain, then turn on the lables immediately after you kill--so you can write down the name. cuz, one of the problems of CFS3 is that every machine in a flight looks exactly the same. I know some people frown upon the use of labels, but when it comes to confirming victories--it just makes sense. find your nearest wingmen, turn the labels on, and write down their name. AFTER THE DEFINITE KILLS start writing down the ones that "you know" you got... sure, you think you got them, but they might have been destroyed by ground fire. if you don't have the information display on then you've got absolutely no way of telling if you destroyed something or not. so, it's better to write everything out in "reverse order". it has nothing to do with chronology. I've found it's better to start with my third claim, if it's undeniable, then work my way down the other claims that are less solid. this way when you get the dreaded "claims erroneous" rather than having to rewrite EVERYTHING from scratch, you can simply change the number "4" or "3" to "0" and settle for a mere two victory claims. the first 'kill' of the day might be the most easily contested and should therefore be LAST on the list of claims submissions. AVOID combat if you don't have several advantages. (superior numbers, height, speed, home-court advantage, etc) if you're flying a Fokker E.III (or a Halberstadt D.II) all by yourself and you see a flight of FE2b approaching you--don't even THINK about attacking them if your behind enemy lines. even if you're behind friendly lines it's not generally worth the risk. on the other hand, if you encounter six FE2b behind your lines and your flying a Roland C.II or a DFW C.V then it MIGHT be worth the trouble. both of these machines are faster than the 'Fee' and have a fixed forward-firing machine gun that can give them a real advantage in attacks. avoid flying low--the main reason I get SO MANY of my pilots killed is that I like to fly for bomber pukes--AND I like to get down in the weeds when I drop my bombs. this is a really, REALLY good way to get killed. if you see that a dogfight is getting down in the weeds and it's not over friendly territory--or you THINK you might get taken under fire from enemy anti-aircraft positions just let the enemy run away. preserve your altitude, maybe you'll find another enemy plane to shoot down-- getting down low and slow is how Manfred von Richthofen and Edward Mannock got themselves killed. I think both of them were killed by ground fire. there's very little evasive manuevering you can do to offset the impact of dozens of machine gun nests opening fire on you!

yeah, but one faces forward while the other faces aft. truth to tell, I don't REALLY know why the BE2c/12 is modelled the way that it is-- I can only guess.

whoops! lost my post... but perhaps like the following BE2b have one machine gun mounted on the right side of the fuselage on a candle-stick mount prominent feature would be wing-warping, as this machine did not have ailerons BE2c have one variant with machine gun mounted on right side of fuselage on a candle-stick mount one variant with an off-set forward firing Lewis AND a candle-stick mount. one would be operated by the pilot, and the other by observer have one variant with one (or two) Lewis guns fixed to fire up at a 45 degree angle through upper wing (this was apparently a very common anti-zeppelin configuration) (while we're on that, perhaps including the Rankin darts, which came in 'boxes' of 25-50 darts which were dropped either on zeppelins, balloons, or infantry positions) and, towards that end, maybe the night-fighter version could have a search-light mounted on it as well. some night-fighting variants were armed with up to 6 Le Prieur rockets (3 on each wing) there is a version of the BE2c I've seen pictures of which featured a single Lewis gun on a Strange-mount which could be animated for OFF purposes, but it would have a greatly reduced field of fire compared to the improvised candle-stick mounts. it's also worth noting that the BE2c was under-powered and generally could not take-off with a full load of ammunition for self-defense/escort duties and bombs. they might be able to carry 6 bombs and no machine gun, or a machine gun and 3 bombs. for escort duties, they generally carried no bombs and lots of ammunition drums. so that's something to consider. BE2d basically the same, but with update engines and a gravity tank. very seldom used on the Western Front, more as a trainer BE2e again, various engine improvements, change to the tail section, but one big difference is that this machine had dual-controls, so that the observer could take over the machine if the pilot were killed in action. it also served the benefit of making every macine equally combat-worthy or being useful as a training machine. the BE12 is actually armed with a Vickers gun--so in this respect, the only accurate in-campaign representation of the machine is if you start a career with No.19 Squadron RFC--otherwise, this machine is anachronistic in all other forms. there was also the BE12a and b versions-- the "a" had a 125 hp engine, while the "b' had a 200 hp version--they also seem to have abandoned the Vickers firing through the prop and elected to use a Lewis gun on the top wing. but yeah... now that I've gone through all of this... I'd definitely pay for a BE2 add-on pack that gets all of the subtleties and differences of each major sub-division down correctly. it feels jarring to know that the current "BE2b" can out pace the Fokker Eindecker! come to think of it, if they could bundle all of the E.I-IV and BE2b-e variants into one package I'd buy that in a heart-beat.

this was a big annoyance for me at first. but then I remembered that OFF animates the observer's position on nearly every other machine. so now imagine this: the BE2 and all of its variants generally used numerous "candle-stick" mounts and the machine gun was moved (by the observer) from one mount to another! I'm sure that the animator/modeler(s) who worked on the BE2 figured out that this was either impossible (or not worth the trouble). it might have severely interfered with the player's ability to 'see' and fly the machine. I can't remember if it was Cecil Lewis or Alan Duncan Grinnell-Milne who reported the story--but either one of those fellows used the BE2c with the observer firing forward (past the prop) to attack enemy machines and balloons. it wasn't the commonly used form of attack, but it's not without precedent. then again, since CFS3 is the basis for the game engine--we can't reload guns either. which is kinda too bad. just think about ANIMATING that observer moving that machine gun around--and it becomes fairly clear why they opted to make the BE2c the way that they did. some BE2 carried a pair of Lewis guns on either side with stick mounts, but I'm not sure that this would work either--because CFS3 is a WWII based game--it might have one fellow UNREALISTICALLY operating both machine guns at the same time! so, this might be the best arrangement. the only other thing I could think of, would be to have the gun posted on one side of the machine (which would leave a huge blind spot on the other half of the machine-- since OFF has apparently decided to move into the payware/add-on patch approach--this might be something to solicit them about: a complete BE2

well, apparently it was very easy to have the SPAD XIII end up on its nose. unfortunately, since OFF uses CFS3 as the basis for game-play, it's probably nearly impossible to simulate some of the crash-landings that were typical of the First World War and have pilots walk away from it alive.

I dunno, I haven't even finished the 2nd day of my newest pilot with FA.62 and I've already flown four sorties and found enemy machines every single time. I've already been shot down once, and submitted two claims. at this rate I'd be surprised if this guy lives to see July 1915!

it probably WAS heavier--since it looks as though it may have been modifed since it was going to be mounted INSIDE of an inline engine. on the notes here it literally says "weight of the gun (plus feed): 198.5 pounds" this also appears to have been the improved semi-automatic version as it uses a 5 round magazine. the original hand-held weapon was neither automatic or semi-automatic. so the mechanism may have been changed (at Guynemer's request--although Nungesser appears to have expressed interest in the idea as well) to be more practical in aerial combat. sorry for not including that important distinction earlier. I imagine that the Puteaux gun in it's original form was much lighter than the semi-automatic magazine-fed weapon that Guynmer used in combat. but, yeah, I haven't had much luck finding more info on this gun in my other sources (aka the class Ian V Hogg encyclopedias on machine guns and small-arms)

aha, checked another source. the Incindiary ammunition used was for the short-barrel version (1902) which was reported to have weighed 700 grams (instead of the 500 for the APHE) and had a muzzle velocity of 600 meters per second as opposed to 830 for the armour-pierceing high explosive. (Williams and Gustin 2003) I suspect those were the types which had been attributed the handful of balloon victories. might be fun to strafe a munitions train with that stuff too! :D oops, I was wrong about the Hotchkiss--the cannon used for the SPAD XII was actually the Puteaux gun, which has a significantly different arrangement from the Hotchkiss--and since only EIGHT SPAD XII are definitely known to have seen action--it might not be worth the trouble. 198.5 pounds muzzle velocity 1,250 fps rate of fire 60 rounds/min magazine fed (5 round magazine capacity) long recoil operation. (by contrast the Hotchkiss could only be fired one shell at a time most of this information (except where noted otherwise) is from ... Harry Woodman's excellent "Early Aircraft Armament: the Aeroplane and the gun up to 1918" ISBN 0-87474-994-8 (1989) Flying Guns World War One Anthony G Williams and Dr. Emmanuel Gustin is where I found the data for the incindiary ammunition for the 1902 Hotchkiss both books are good, but the Woodman is VERY out of print, hard to find, and usually VERY expensive. it IS worth the investment for the serious scholar/historical enthusiast. the Woodman is more commendable because of the wealth of pictures, design schematics, and it's chapter on gun-sights, mountings, and gun synchronization.

apparently in the autumn of 1915 it was common for the French to employ 37 mm cannon armed Voisins (GB1, 2, and 4) as escorts for bombers. presumably they wouldn't carry bombs themselves. the first recorded battle took place on May 20th, 1915 (indecisive) although I have no solid evidence that the entire flight was armed with the cannon, it seems that V101 and V110 were armed with 37 mm cannons. the guns were most successful in shooting down balloons and causing mayhem against troops on the ground. on March 18th, 1916 a French Breguet 5Ca2 apparently scored a direct hit against a German LVG which caused it to break up in the air (Marinkovich and Pertraud) the short barrel version had a carefully specified field of fire (45 above and 60 degrees below the horizontal line of flight). it was to have a 45 degree radius on either side of the line of flight. 60 rounds were carried the long barrel version could fire 30 degrees upward and 60 degrees downward, and also had 45 degrees to either side of the line of flight. in this case 50 rounds were carried. the numbers were never especially large--and it seems that at any give time the numbers varied from 6 (August 1915) ro 15 (February 1916). (long) weight 325 pounds muzzle velocity 2850 fps recoil 1.5 tons length of recoil 24 inches shell weight 1.5 pounds (short) weight 103 pounds muzzle velocity 1200 fps recoil 1.5 tons length of recoil 5 inches shell weight 1 pound they were used in at least small and regular numbers until mid-1917 so, if people want to render the SPAD XII or the cannon-armed Voisins there's some figures for y'all

I was just thinking about the fact that this was more or less a German copy of the Nieuport 11. apart from the rudder, adding a spinner, and being armed with a Spandau rather than a Lewis gun--it's pretty much a dead-to-rights rip-off of the Nieuport 11. the down-side, of course, is that this was only used in piece-meal numbers by a number of Jastas and KEKs-- but it'd be kinda cool if you could see Otto Parschau or Gustav Leffers in their captured "Nieuports" another consideration is that the Morane Parasol was copied by Pfalz in the from of the A.1-- so that on advantage/disadvantage of including the Parasol in the next batch of aircraft is that it actually served (in one form or another) in every major airforce in the early stages of the war. I'd forgotten all about the Pfalz copy--which was actually built under license from the French! I'd still love to see the Voisin(s) , but now that I remember just how prominent the Parasol and it's various copies were, it'd be nice to include in the game--and it would finally give the Fokker Eindecker pilots something to feel good about. ;)

heh, and the REALLY scary thing is... that the outside of the plane is probably the easiest thing to get done. getting a three-dimensional slewable cockpit is probably even MORE difficult! I mean how many thousands of CFS1 and 2 add-on planes have we seen where they didn't even TRY to make a cockpit!

it's not really about the internet connection, it's about Windows SCHEDULING update checks and THEN not finding anything. I'm never online when I play OFF--but that didn't stop Windows or Norton Anti-virus from performing their scheduled check-ups! solution-- I just got rid of all of those scheduled check-ups and updates. I just wasn't very clear in my first post, I guess-- I whole-heartedly agree with the advice you've posted here. that was the ONLY time I ever had problems with OFF (Phase I and II) even though my computer is actually pretty old.

actually, I meant THIS one... http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/1m/ima...Wdi.3506.16.jpg however, they all look similar enough that you could arguably use the same model for... A. captured French and British Nieuport 11s in German service B. the Siemens Schuckhert D.I C. the Euler D.I but, yeah the Euler model looks much closer to the actual Nieuport design then the Siemens-- but it's HARD to remember the subtle differences between various copies of the Nieuport! I didn't think of the Euler because it seems to have ONLY been used for training purposes--whereas the SS D.I at least saw a small amount of combat. this is all rather beside the point if CFS3 doesn't allow for formations of mixed aircraft! then it's not worth the trouble of using the SS D.I or any other German D.I save the Albatros!

nearly every single time I've EVER had a problem with OFF it's usually because of a background program "checking for updates". it's usually right in the middle of a great shooting opportunity too. usually it's Windows looking for an update or the anti-virus program. OFF uses up a pretty good chunk of memory on my computer--and since I don't have this particular computer accessing the internet--it usually crunches things up quite badly. if you know you're safe from virus attacks--you could consider turning off updates and internet access for any program updates you might have.

y'know, it's NOT just from holding down on the trigger too long. I was flying my second mission in a Fokker E.III campaign (never fired a shot until I dove at that balloon)--so here I am diving at about 120 mph and I press the firing button and.... nothing. absolutely nothing. I come back around for another pass and.... absolutely nothing. I can't figure it out. then I put on the HUD display and see that I fired all of maybe a bullet and that the gun jammed up. by this time I'm literally blown into a million pieces by a direct hit from flak and tumble down in a swirling cloud of flame, metal, and linen. sometimes you just get VERY unlucky!

nah, I just looked up all of the stats of the E.III and the BE2 and the use the late-war versions of the BE2e and g models for the flight parameters--so Fokker Eindecker pilots are simply screwed. for the early war period Red Baron 3d with the Western Front Patch is still superior to Over Flanders Fields in terms of aircraft match-ups and flight model specifications. I do hope that in the future that OFF will actually modify the Fokker Eindecker and BE2 aircraft series to reflect the performance they had relative to any specific historical period in which they flew. so, this is me eating crow. everybody spoke about how OFF is so historically accurate I assumed (wrongly) that this would apply to the flight models of the E.III and the BE2c.

well, the difference between the Fokker E.I and the E.III was pretty noticeable! also, the BE2 seems to be the same throughout the entire war--so they might have juiced up the performance of the BE2 to match mid-war performance levels. I'm not sure. but the BE2c was supposed to have a max speed of 72 mph whereas the BE2e had a top speed of 90 mph! the Fokker E.I could only fly 82 mph as well--which meant that it's hardly surprising that it took Max Immelmann the better part of 45 minutes to shoot down a single unarmed BE2! the E.III's posted speed was something like 88 to 90 mph... so even if the BE2c is slower, it's not by so much you're gonna overtake it quickly. and if the BE2 performance is from the later marks then you'll NEVER catch it with a Fokker without an altitude advantage and lots of diving! you just gotta have patience. and I always use the time-speed increase to help "shorten" the real-time pursuit cuz I frankly don't have enough spare time in the day to play it at "full realism" like some other folks do.

the problem with flying the Fokker E.III in OFF is that there's only one thing you can reliably shoot down with it: the BE2c. another problem with THAT is that the BE2c isn't modelled in OFF the way it actually operated. you can't actually animate some poor bloke picking up the Lewis gun and moving it from one candle-stick mount to another! likewise, most players would be appalled at flying a two-seater that can't fire forward. sure, there WERE instances where people mounted a machine gun to fire forward on the BE2c, but this was far from standard. you can sit on the tail of a BE2c with impugnity--when, in reality, that rarely happened for Fokker pilots (or anybody else, for that matter) the most common "prey" of the Fokker Eindecker historically would be the Farman pusher-types (another reason I've been advocating that they get modelled in the game). the other big option would be the Caudron G.III or the Voisin. neither of these nearly ubiquitous French pushers is currently in the game. the Morane Parasol (in either it's single-seater or two-seater form) could work. additionally, the Nieuport 10 and 12 (the '10' is simply a Nieuport 12 with a faired over cockpit that was converted to pursuit duties) where shot down frequently by the E.III. the Fokker should easily be able to overtake the BE2c... it just realistically took a long time for that to happen! the difference in speed isn't as great as a Fokker pilot might hope for.

I always start with the two-seaters. that's one of the many things that makes Over Flander's Fields so rewarding. although I recommend that with two little caveats. the observer's position on the aircraft (especially German) don't seem to engage any of the attacking scouts unless you activate the tactical display and select an adversary. this seems to be required to "wake up" the machine-gunner in the back seat. unless something has changed dramatically--the observer in the Hannover will not so much as lift a finger to defend your tail unless you point out the enemy! the Bristol Fighter is a lot of fun. (and it carries up to a dozen 25 pound Cooper's bombs, gotta love that!) I would LOVE the Roland C.II if it were actually able to carry bombs as it was historically capable of doing--but as it stands I simply like it. naw, the two most enjoyable machines in the game for me are the FE2b and the Bristol Fighter. start with No.20 Squadron with the FE2b, and any Bristol Fighter squadron is fun-- Jasta 15 is the only scout squadron I can remember where (as a German) you'll be able to fly through the entire war. (well, at last in Phase 2 it was)

first thing I noticed is that "claims submitted" were lodged for a mission in which you were taken prisoner. also, carefully note the words that are used for each claim: "Claims submitted" "Claim accepted" or "confirmed" were you given any sort of "claim is erroneous" message after some of your claim report submissions?

awesome, definitely gonna look for that one!

I'm gonna guess that since the game was designed by/for a primarily American audience that using 'feet' for altitude is probably just fine. but, I could be wrong, I've never had a claim verified cuz I always get killed before that happens.

speaking of German guns-- I guess if you wanted some variety you could throw in the German GAST gun (which had a firing rate of 1600 rounds per minute from a double-barrelled gun arrangement). although it wasn't used in very large numbers, IIRC several aces in Jasta 5 experimented with them.

they're both very good for what they are. if you get RB3D and use the Western Front Patch (in it's latest incarnation) it's still a fantastic game. however, the ONLY reason I don't play RB3D right now is because I just spent $60 on Over Flanders Fields. sure, as a basic game design and the overall level of immersion, OFF beats RB3D handily in nearly every major category. however, you can't ignore the fact that the Western Front Patch has historically accurate plane match-ups (something OFF is still a little fishy on in spots). it could allocate multiple types of aircraft to a single squadron (and for guys who like to fly German) that's an important detail--as MOST German squadrons had at least two or three types of aircraft on hand for the entirety of the war. I don't know if this is a hard-coded CFS3 issue--but the fact that the OFF squads are so homogenous was a bit of a disappointment for me. when KEK Vaux (Jasta 4) was established it actually had four different types of aircraft (one of which was a Pfalz E.I--read a German copy of the Morane Parasol!) well, that and your personal skin was PERSONAL! I must admit, that half the time when I play RB3d I use a specially altered home-brew patch that allows me to fly such things as the Rumpler C.I, AEG G.II, and the Farman F40. all of this is to say that if you're comparing RB3D out of the box to OFF(v3) that it's absolutely NO CONTEST at all! OFF is better in every way. however, don't sell RB3D short, cuz the WFP is still a great game. I've played it for years, and will keep playing WFP2 in the future. however, I believe that if OFF continues to be developed (and I'm positive that some of the guys who made the WFP are actually working for OFF now) that it will be much better than WFP too. basically, OFF3 has the power to grow even more. RB3D does not. for me this is a bit unfair, however, cuz over a decade has elapsed since RB3D was created-- it's like expecting a P51 Mustang to compete evenly with an F86 Sabre. they were both great planes for their time--and the timeless attributes that made them both great airplanes continues to endure. ah, nevermind me, I guess I just don't want people to dismiss RB3D for the simple reason of making OFF3 look better.