Hasse Wind

Wouldn't it be cruel of the devs to announce that P4 will come with one new Sopwith fighter, Widowmaker gets his hopes up, and then finds out that the Sopwith is not a Snipe but a Dolphin.

I did some digging through my books and finally found something about the introduction of tracer and incendiary bullets. This comes from Flying Guns: World War 1 by Anthony G. Williams and Emmanuel Gustin, page 14. "The first rifle-calibre incendiary bullets - actually explosive/incendiary which detonated on impact - were introduced into Austro-Hungarian service 1914 for ground-based anti-balloon guns. The Pomeroy, Brock and Buckingham entered British service in .303 in (7.7 x 56R) calibre during 1916, the RTS the following year. Germany followed suit in 1916/1917 with 7.92 x 57 Phosphor-F bullets apparently based on the Buckingham, and Austro-Hungary produced improved ammunition in 1917. Tracer bullets in rifle calibres were also fielded; the first British attempt being the SPK of 1916, developed by Aerators Ltd of Edmonton. This was a solid copper bullet, bored out to accept a filling of 1.17 g barium peroxide (with 12% magnesium). The involvement of Aerators led to SPK being dubbed 'Sparklet', the name of the mineral water sold by this company, although the official designation was the somewhat less handy 'Cartridge SA Tracer SPK, .303 in Mark VII.T.' This was soon replaced by the SPG (adopted as the 'SPG .303 in (VII.G) Mark I.z') which used a bullet of more conventional design, somewhat easier to make, and carrying slightly more tracer compound. This could trace over to 700 m." So in OFF for the British and also for the French, as they used the same Lewis and Vickers guns in their aircraft, tracers and incendiaries should become common in 1916, and for the Germans in very late 1916 or early 1917. The Americans come in 1918, when everybody is already using those bullets.

Yeah, I've read about such technology being used at least in some rotaries. For example in a 9 cylinder engine, the pilot could choose to keep 1, 3, 6 or all 9 cylinders in action. One very important and useful method of controlling RPM in rotaries was adjusting fuel mixture, and it was common practice with many aircraft to cut off fuel completely when landing. As far as I know, rotary technology progressed through the war so that by 1918 throttles were the norm in rotary engined aircraft, but blip switches were of course still used.

Who cares about Snipes? We need more two-seaters!

Good to hear nothing too serious happened to anybody. Poison gas is a vile invention for use in warfare. And to think some of the guys who were spending all their time developing such gases during WW1 received Nobel prizes after the war...

No, they cannot be toggled off, as far as I know. But don't let that prevent you from getting OFF. I know RoF is steadily being improved (I have it myself and fly occasionally), but if you're looking for a truly great single player experience, there's no better WW1 sim than OFF. The career mode is infinitely better than what RoF currently offers; the historical accuracy and immersion in OFF is really incredible, with all the historical units, ground operations, aces etc. etc. included. I've had OFF P3 for about 18 months now, and in addition to RB3D, I think it was probably the best money I ever invested in a flight sim. There are just so many different aircraft, squadrons, areas of operation and tactics to try that you won't run out of things to do anytime soon.

Of the three countries, Norway has the most of such landscape, but there is also pretty high ground in northern Sweden and Finland. I don't know the correct word in English for such high ground, but in Swedish such mountains or hills are called fjäll and in Finnish tunturi. Here's a pic (not mine) of Yllästunturi in Finland:

Well, that land in the lower pic is definitely better for agriculture. As my knowledge about immigration and the US is clearly outdated, can you recommend me any good books on the subject? I love books of all kind and am always looking for new ones (and I'm also running out of room with all my books, but they are too dear for me to sell or give away). PS. Skol should be skål. Or you could also say kippis for the Finns.

It's quite possible some incendiaries were also blunt-nosed, which would of course create even more horrible wounds in human beings (burning phosphorus etc). The permission was definitely meant to protect pilots flying balloon busting missions. Though I wonder how much protection a piece of paper gives you when a horde of angry enemy troops examine your aircraft and point their guns at you...

Incendiary rounds produce more smoke as they go than tracer rounds. Tracers are meant to burn brightly and are particularly useful when it's dark. Of course they also produce a smoke trail, but it isn't visible as clearly as the trail left by WW1 incendiary bullets. I imagine many WW1 pilots often confused the smoke trails of tracer bullets and incendiary bullets and also many other types of other ammunition, especially when fired by the enemy, whose weapon technology they didn't know as well as their own. And how many of them really had enough time to ponder all this in the heat of battle? A smoke trail is a smoke trail, and you know you're in trouble when those trails start getting close to you. All kinds of bullets were used in WW1, not just regular, tracer and incendiary. There were also explosive bullets and armor-piercing bullets in use by the air forces, not to mention all the differences in the shapes of the bullets, the sizes of the cartridges etc. etc. It was not unheard of to mix various types of rounds together when going for a balloon busting mission, for example. Carl Degelow, a German ace with 30 kills, mentions in his book that he used a combination of regular, tracer, incendiary and armor-piercing ammunition to produce the best results when going to attack balloons . We can't (yet) have all this in OFF, but with mods such as Creaghorn's it's possible at least to try to simulate the various types of ammunition in use, even though only one effect file can be in use at a time.

The early war fighters are mostly crap. The Eindecker is horrible: underpowered, quite clumsy, loses energy easily - it really is meant to hunt only helpless Entente two-seaters and not enter into fights with other fighters. The problem is that almost none of these weak two-seaters are currently included in OFF. We have the BE2c, but it's currently used for all the various models of BE2, so it performs much better than the actual early BE2's did. The DH2 is much better and can easily beat the Eindecker when you know what you are doing. But when the Nieuport 11 arrives in early 1916, you'd better watch out as an Eindecker pilot - the Nupes are better at everything, and will eat you for breakfast, if you stay around too long to provoke them. The only thing the Eindecker had to help it become successful was it's forward firing synchronized machine gun. This gave the Eindecker an advantage over enemy bomber and recon planes. But when the first true Entente fighters joined the battle, and even though they didn't have such synchronized guns at first, the were so much better performance-wise than Eindeckers that Germans were in trouble and anxious to get better plane types in service. For a newbie OFF pilot, the early fighters can be a pain to learn. Of them, the Nupe 11 is actually the easiest to fly and behaves very nicely, but you have to be careful with its weak lower wings. And it really kills Eindeckers, give it a try!

Lou, that's why so many Scandinavians, Finns included, chose Minnesota when they emigrated to the United States. Reminds them of home.

Thanks for the pics. Not too many forests there, it seems. I like forests.

I can also recommend these, like all of Creaghorn's stuff. Especially valuable for us DiD people, or other masochists.

Always use your flight map when warping, so that you can see where the warp is taking you. If something goes wrong, you'll see it immediately and can stop warping. I learned this the hard way after losing a French pilot when warping went wrong. I was leading a flight of 4 N.17 in southern Flanders and pressed warp. I didn't immediately notice something was wrong, but when I found my flight over sea, I realized I'm not in Flanders anymore. Turned out the warp took over the North Sea, and I didn't have enough fuel left to get back over land. So there we ditched in the icy waters of North Sea, with no hope of rescue. It reminded me of the Bermuda Triangle and Flight 19. Since this little incident, I've always had my map ready when warping. But I haven't had any problems with warping after this, and I've warped a lot.

The method Olham described has worked well for me for a long time, and also for Creaghorn. I haven't experienced any strange behaviour and everything has worked fine. I usually start my careers as a 2-seater pilot, and if the guy stays alive, maybe transfer him to a fighter squadron at some point. Adds greatly to realism and immersion, IMO. It's VERY important that you write the name of the squadron you are transferring in to EXACTLY as it is used by the OFF manager, otherwise it won't work, ie. the system won't recognize it. The emblem of the squadron you see in the pilot book won't change immediately, but only after you've activated the pilot and flown with him, so don't be alarmed if you transferred from squadron X to squadron Y and you still see the former's emblem. The devs have said that transfers will be included in P4, so in the future we can do all this "officially" in-game without having to manually edit anything. Have fun in your new squadron!

I've read that blunt-nosed bullets were used when attacking balloons, the reason being that such bullets cause bigger holes in the fabric, lead to more gas coming out and thus make the balloon easier to burn. Such blunt-nosed bullets would also cause horrible wounds to humans, so at least initially it was common to carry an official permission, which said that the bullets were meant only for use against balloons, not humans.

It would make hits to the gas tank much more dangerous than when using regular bullets, and generally increase the danger of fires and explosions. But of course incendiaries are most effective against airships and balloons that are filled with highly flammable gas. Incendiary rounds could also occasionally cause problems for the pilots that carried them in their planes. The Fokker D.VII had a problem with its engine that caused incendiary rounds to fire off on their own because of the heat, which must have been a nasty surprise for the pilot.

I don't know if somebody has already mentioned this in some thread, but would it be possible to have different kinds of ammunition included in OFF P4? If nothing else, incendiary bullets would make a nice addition for those balloon busting missions, and if we get an airship or two some day in OFF, the incendiaries would be useful for lighting some fires there, too.

Maybe archaeology is just a scientific way of robbing graves? These can be difficult questions both ethically and morally, that's absolutely true. For example, the Iron Age: without digging through such remains, opening tombs and all that, we'd know lot less about the history of humankind. But would those people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago, who buried their dead and honored them, appreciate the fact the somebody is opening their graves in the future? Most likely not. I wonder whether the archaelogists and people studying to become archaeologists, give thought to these matters? Do any of them have any doubts about their work? Or are they just dealing with the nameless remains of long-dead peoples, and it doesn't really matter one way or the other? Any archaelogists here?

But not when you fly a Roland yourself. That's probably what Creaghorn meant. But yeah, it's kinda weird if the AI Rolands you are ordered to escort do bombing missions without bombs. Maybe that kind of escort mission type should be removed for Rolands and replace it with escorting them on recon or something, unless in P4 the Rolands get bombs?

Not knowing the fate of a family member, no matter how long ago he died in a war, may be problematic for relatives even though no one of the deceased person's generation is still alive to remember him. Such things often leave a mark for generations - not always and for everybody, but it can happen. So that's the reason why I think it's a good thing when people finally get some closure. It may be difficult to understand if nothing like that has every happened to a person's family though. And I do believe that the men who died on countless battlefields and were buried in mass graves, or not buried at all and left for the beasts, would appreciate getting a decent burial and the fact that they are not forgotten, even though none of their friends and loved ones may still be alive. I also believe that the men who fought and died in the Great War wouldn't want us to believe that they fought and died for nothing. They most certainly did believe in something, otherwise they wouldn't have endured such terrible things for years. I feel our modern society has become so cynical and sceptical that we are almost afraid to believe in anything, to have any higher values, and much less to die, or think of dying, for anything.

I can only wonder how many such graves are discovered in the areas that used to be the Eastern Front during WW1, and also during WW2. Battlefields of the west are much better documented, and also covered by the media. I always think about the other, forgotten fronts of the war when reading these news. It's great that they were able to find some relatives of the men, so that they may finally know what happened to the soldiers who went missing in action during the battle. RIP

It should be. I've sometimes seen similar posts from other gentlemen, but I don't exactly know what's causing the difference. I've never experienced it myself - the time the manager logs corresponds to the time I actually flew quite accurately.

They do. But the Rolands in OFF don't carry any bombs, so that's why you didn't see anything. If you some day happen to fly a bomber yourself, your wingmen will drop their bombs at the same time as you, so remember to aim carefully.