Hasse Wind

Kenneth Munson writes in his book Bombers - Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft 1914 - 1919: Most nacelle-and-tailboom aeroplanes of 1914-1919 were pusher biplanes; the Caudron G.III differed in having its engine at the front. It was developed from, and was similar to, the single-seat G.II which in 1913-14 was a familiar sight at many European air meetings. In its initial military form the G.IIIA.2 was a 2-seat corps reconnaissance and artillery observation aircraft used widely throughout the first half of World War I by the French, British, Belgian, Russian and Italian air forces. Most of the many hundreds of G.IIIs built were manufactured in France, but small quantities were built in the United Kingdom by the British Caudron Co. and in Italy A.E.R. built one hundred and seventy G.IIIs in 1915-16. The G.III was originally powered by an 80 h.p. engine, of Gnome, Le Rhône or Clerget manufacture, but a common installation in later machines was the 100 h.p. Anzani 10 C radial. The G.III had a useful endurance (4 hours), but was generally too slow and too vulnerable to be retained for long on observation duties. The French machines were withdrawn from the Front in mid-1916, but Italian G.IIIs continued to serve until March 1917 and the British models were not withdrawn until August 1917. As late as 1 January 1917 the R.F.C. was using Caudron G.III's, armed with small bombs and carrying a machine-gun in the front cockpit, for ground-strafing missions. The R.N.A.S. used a few of its G.IIIs for coastal patrol. One hundred and twenty-four G.IIIs were supplied to the R.N.A.S., and one hundred and nine to the R.F.C., and they served on every major front. Their withdrawal from front-line duty did not, however, mark the end of their career, for they became one of the most popular and familiar types of training aircraft to be used in the Allied air forces. In this role, the aircraft was designated G.IIIE.2; one hundred and ninety-two E.2s were purchased by the A.E.F. in 1918. Most Caudron G.IIIs had warp-controlled wings, but ailerons were fitted to the top wings of some later aircraft.

It's a Caudron G.3. One of the new additions to P4, right?

The second pic is famous, and shows perfectly well why many people thought those guys were crazy. I'd probably feel dizzy standing up like that when the Fee is on the ground, but imagine doing it at 6000 feet, while somebody is shooting at you!

Nice spreadsheet! For people who want a peaceful career, Alsace is an excellent choice. Beautiful forests and mountains, and not too much flying to do.

Sounds like an interesting mod. I'll give it a try soon. I'm already using a whole bunch of your mods, HPW. And Bletchley's mods are great too.

I don't consider myself to be a particularly adventurous person, so it's quite possible that I'd have belonged to the majority of people suspicious of flying contraptions, and even more suspicious of the men willing to fly in them. I'd probably have gone to artillery like I did in real life. Big guns, lots of firepower, a relatively safe location behind the front, and a truck, or in WW1, most likely a horse-drawn carriage for movement. Just perfect.

These days, aircraft are extremely advanced and accidents are rare, especially in the more developed countries. But in the early years of the 20th century, things were different and it seems that most people had a very suspicious attitude towards flying. It was thought you had to be more than a little crazy to want to fly in those early aeroplanes. Curiosity towards aircraft and aviators was common, but actually wanting and choosing to become one of those daredevils was uncommon.

Wow! I really like the new detailed aircraft and terrain textures. Much more realistic than P3.

Looks great. Almost like a Soviet decoration, actually.

Did you know that Göring had a brother, Albert, who helped Jews and dissidents during the Third Reich period? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring He died as a forgotten man, loathed because of his brother. His actions have been given the respect they deserve only quite recently. Loerzer and Hermann Göring became friends already during WW1. Göring started his aviator career flying as Loerzer's observer. Later Loerzer became the commander of Jasta 26, while Göring got Jasta 27. When Göring became the Luftwaffe boss in the 1930s, he helped Loerzer to advance quickly through the ranks.

I'm not a member of the discussion list, but the document archive is useful for anybody interested in the history of WW1.

We'll just have to trust the devs to work their magic, I guess. I'm sure we won't be disappointed, whatever they decide to do.

Good points Creaghorn. The elections that lead to Hitler's rise to power were held in November 1932. The NSDAP got 33.1 per cent of the votes. It proves well that not everybody was a Nazi. Those were the last free elections in Germany until the end of WW2. There were elections also in March 1933, but by then the Nazis were already influencing the results through various illegal means, by controlling the police and things like that. Source for the election results: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSDAP#Wahlerfolge_seit_1930 By the way, wouldn't it be nice to have a personal aircraft in OFF when you achieve ace status and sufficient rank? That would make it possible to imitate Jacobs and keep flying your favourite crate even when others have become available. This was possible in Red Baron, if I'm not mistaken. Just a thought.

Well, these certainly are proper aircraft. Can't get more proper than that!

I know all that, but still it's difficult for me to understand. Always has, and probably always will be. I mean, just listen to one of Adolf's speeches. Not a short extract from a speech, but a whole speech. It's mostly sick and awful. It was often sick and awful even by the standards of the day. But I guess most people, even Nazi supporters, thought it was just rhethorics. Well, it wasn't. He meant every word he wrote and spoke. But one thing is often forgotten too - the majority of Germans never voted for the Nazis. In free elections, that is. Elections ceased to be free in 1933. After that you can't trust the numbers any more. Jacobs certainly wasn't alone with his attitude.

What a tragedy such people where in the minority. For every Jacobs, there were many former Luftstreitkräfte men who either saw nothing wrong with the Hitler regime, or came to their senses much too late, like Udet. I once had a very successful career in Jasta 7. But I lost that pilot in a collision during air combat.

Wonderful aircraft, wonderful clouds, wonderful terrain. Simply amazing.

That is something that is not easy to admit to yourself. No matter how bad the situation, you don't want to give up hope. But the situation for Germany at the end of 1917 didn't actually look bad. They were on the brink of kicking Russia out of the war - the Czar had lost power and Lenin's Bolsheviks were doing their best to destroy the old system in Russia. The Germans knew that they could move a huge number of divisions from the Eastern front to the West and use them in a final attempt to win the war, before the American contribution to the Entente war effort became too decisive. Desperation came only in the late summer of 1918, when it became obvious that the big offensives had failed and German armies were on the retreat. But still they kept fighting, because it's so hard to admit that there's no hope. It's human nature.

Yeah, that's the impression one gets from playing flight sims. Air combat is almost always much deadlier in the virtual skies. In OFF and other sims every battle causes much heavier casualties than in reality. It's a combination of Terminator AI and similar Terminator human player behaviour. Man, it's easy to go off-topic.

Pilots have a tendency to die easily in OFF. And no restart button like in RB3D!

At easy level, the Archie isn't very useful with pointing out targets. But especially for early war careers, I use it. AA fire wasn't the great killer during WW1. You should think about that bank robbery for getting the money for TrackIR. Makes the life of a virtual pilot a lot easier. Olham, I've said it many times before, but these TAC and label improvements are great.

Olham, the Battle of Britain was fought before Operation Barbarossa. And as always, everything wasn't quite as simple as taking a look at the numbers of both sides. Anyway, now we're getting off-topic.

This is from the developers of Wings of Prey? Looks pretty, just like Wings of Prey does. However, I quickly got bored with its actual gameplay. It was fun for a few hours though.

In a war that was unprecedentedly bloody and brutal, the lot of the pilots and observers wasn't particularly bad compared to the men in the trenches. At least they had a comfortable place to return to after patrols. The same cannot be said of the poor bloody infantry living in the mud. The Germans did try both methods during the war, ie. dispersal of fighters along the front to cover every area (the so called barrage patrols) and then later the concentration of fighter units into bigger tactical formations (Gruppen and Geschwhadern). The latter system produced dramatically better results, though at the price of being very weak in certain sectors of the front. There was considerable debate over these tactics between the Jasta commanders, their superiors at Korps and Armee headquarters, and the high command of the Luftstreitkräfte. Richthofen strongly supported the Geschwader tactics, but not everybody was convinced of their effectiveness, until the use of the big formations started to produce excellent results. In the end, the Germans simply had too many enemies to fight against. They didn't have the resources to maintain all the branches of their armed forces so strong as to be able to defeat everybody. The German army (Heer) was arguably the best in the world, but maintaining it was extremely costly, and even its considerable efforts were inadequate to win the war in 1918, when Britain and France were getting more and more support from the United States. I'm getting off-topic now, but the main reason why Germany lost both world wars was the lack of decent strategy. They always excelled at the tactical and operational levels, but were unable to create adequate strategies.

It's surprisingly difficult to find anything on this subject, but my understanding is that they were quite successful at it most of the time. They used a lot of high flying recon aircraft, which were often capable of completely avoiding the Entente fighters and very useful in gathering information from behind the enemy lines. This was particularly true in the final year of the war when Entente air forces became even more powerful and yet it was necessary for the Germans to see behind the lines in preparation of and during the final offensives of the war. One must remember that for the most part, the German army was on the defensive in the West, while the British and the French were constantly planning and executing offensives. The Germans didn't need such massive numbers of artillery direction aircraft to support their defensive positions which were well fortified and where everything was carefully planned ahead. Ground observers and balloons could do excellent work at spotting the advancing Entente troops and directing the fire of the German artillery upon them. It was of course different for the Entente troops, who had to leave their familiar fortified positions and lines of communication behind when they went on the offensive. They needed more support from the air, and when aircraft were found to be extremely useful for directing artillery fire, especially when equipped with wireless sets, it became crucial for the Entente offensives to get that support. That (and the recon and contact patrols) is why the Entente air forces tried to protect their two-seaters so aggressively. I think it isn't totally wrong to say that it was more important for them to guarantee that their own two-seaters got through than to prevent every German two-seater from doing its job. Regarding German bombers, the strategic bombing done by the Gothas and other heavies had an impact in forcing the British to create an air defense system for their homeland. All the guns and aircraft that were needed to fight against the German bombers over Britain could have been used on the Western front for other purposes. In creating this situation the German strategic bombing campaign certainly succeeded to some extent. But of course it wasn't enough to change the course of the war. The close air support role of the German bombers became evident in late 1917 with the introduction of Schlasta tactics. During the battle of Cambrai, the ground attack aircraft used in large formations were very good at harassing the British troops and in supporting German counterattacks. The massive use of such aircraft continued during the big offensives of the next year, but the Entente quickly adapted and thanks to their huge numbers of fighters and anti-aircraft weapons were able to cause heavy casualties to the ground attack aircraft and limit their effectiveness. When the Germans were on the offensive, and in particular during the final months of the war, their two-seaters had to behave more aggressively. Consequently they suffered heavier casualties and they really weren't numerous enough to have a serious impact on the war at any time. It wasn't decisive, but the relative weakness of the Luftstreitkräfte certainly made the job of the powerful German army more difficult during those final months. But I don't think anybody could have done any better under such circumstances, suffering from such serious limitations.