Waldemar Kurtz

after reading about the night victories of several Jasta 73 pilots I decided it would be fun to create a fictional ace skin for aspiring German night fighters. Jasta 73 had 7 confirmed night victories between June and October of 1918. Fritz Anders scored 5 of these.
 
the original skins for the Albatros D.Va were by Paarma. I just cut and pasted a few skins together and added some personal markings.

this was scanned from Baedeker's Northern France as published in 1909. I've tried locating the local aerodromes as much as possible. but there aren't all that many there. I've used Hugh Wynne's aerodrome research to help me plant the aerodromes there. there is an aerodrome on Wynne's map north and south of Colmar. I've included both of these fields. if there are any aerodromes that I've missed feel free to point them out. it's a bit tricky finding some of the right places on these old maps.

volume 6, map supplement, from the 1921 edition of "the Times History of the War"

this is scanned from the Times History of the War 1921 edition, volume 6, map supplement.

the original Albatros D.Va skin was created by Paarma.
 
I thought it would be cool to have an Albatros covered in letters. although I had tried using text overlays I didn't like the way it looked.
 
last year I hand-stamped a white coat with black letters as part of a Halloween costume-- and it occurred to me that I could photograph this coat for more satisfying results. the hand-stamped inconsistencies feel more 'believable' on the curving surfaces of the Albatros.

the original Nieuport 17 skin was made by Rabu. it's the Escadrille 65 stock skin.
 
the heart was borrowed from OBD skin for Werner Voss (D.III), which I believe was done by Paarma. I had to distort it quite a bit to get the face to fit over it.
 
the face was rendered free hand on a piece of paper and then scanned.
 
I made up a new bogus serial number to replace the original.
 
finally, I picked the name "Mathilde" because it's based on an old Germanic name that means "mighty in battle", or some such thing.

this is the standard in-flight map from the game. I've taken two maps and overlayed them transparently to help with navigation. rather than try to get the entire nation to line up, I've only selected the areas which seem to get action in the game. you'll need to change the name from "alt_low 1917" to "alt_low" to get it to work.

with the pending "Hat in the Ring" add-on I thought it might be nice to have a new map to cover some of the American operations.
 
this is taken from a 1937 U.S. official volume: as such several war memorials are included on the map. while anachronistic for the purposes of OFF, I felt that having at least some sort of map to cover American operations would be nice to have. this is my first experiment with this sort of project. I had to photo-copy the stuff in the libary before I could scan and composite any of the images. sorry about how primitive it is. but I hope it helps out with game play!
 
the thick black lines and gray patches indicate the progress of the Allied attacks. the time covered is from Septeber 26th until the end of the war.
 
taken from the 1937 revision of "A Guide to the American Battle Fields in Europe".
 
 

this skin is an attempt to depict FE2b 6994. it was while flying this machine that Captain Stephen Price (pilot) and 2nd Lt Frederick Libby (observer) made 5 (possibly 6) claims during August and September of 1916. this rendering is based on a photograph dated September 23rd (possibly the day after their final victory in this machine. although it's questionable whether that photo depicts this specific machine, there is "wiggle room" enough that I think this skin might be feasible. Frederick Libby became the first American ace in history while serving as an observer in this machine.
 
this skin is based on the stock FE2b skin with extensive (albeit poor) retouching that was done with Paint and the basic Microsoft Photo Editor bundled with Windows. if somebody else wants to improve the skin and post a better version later-- be my guest. this is as good as I'll probably get with the resources I have.

this is a fictitious camouflage for the Fokker E.III that was created through cut-and-pasting and altering the stock Fokker skins from the game.

Charles Gordon Bell of No. 10 Squadron RFC was the only pilot to make 5 victory claims while flying the Bristol Scout D. Four claims were made on this machine during October and November of 1915. this is a basic skin with an altered serial number to represent a historical ace.

this is the basic RFC 23 skin with the squadron motto "Semper Aggressus" on the fuselage.