Hasse Wind

The Albatros is a real SPAD killer - the S.VII in particular usually has no chance against me when I fight them with my D.II or D.III. The S.XIII is more of a challenge because of its great speed, but I'd rather meet a flight of S.XIII any day with my D.Va than a flight of Camels.

I've lost wings from Nupes a couple of times in combat, but it can be easily avoided when you know what you're doing. With the other planes (including the Alb D.III and D.V), you have to be really hard on your crate to make their wings go kaputt.

Turning off wind effects is fortunately possible in the workshop, so at least this is one of the AI advantages that we players can also have.

Bullethead, I consider the DH2 and Fee to be more like early war planes, which were kept in service for far longer than was wise in any sense of the word - okay, the Fee was very successful in her role, but using the DH2 in mid 1917 was pure madness. And it's replacement, the DH5, wasn't a huge success either. Getting kills in any typical Entente mid-war turn fighter is really easy compared to trying to shoot anybody down with the S.VII's single gun. I had a Pup pilot with almost 20 claims and about 10 confirmed kills, most of them Alb D.II's. Then the bloody Archie blew his Pup to smithereens. I've noticed everything is a lot easier with the S.XIII - that one extra gun can make a huge difference! But I like challenges, and becoming a succesful ace with the S.VII is an enjoyable challenge. And I promise to give the Fee fighters a try some day... So much to try, so little time.

For some intense D.VII action in 1918, I recommend Jasta 5. They are an elite squadron and are situated right in the midst of the great offensives. Though not quite in the frontline trenches, like some other Jastas seem to be.

I wonder how far from the real thing our SPAD VII in OFF is. René Fonck, who shot down a huge number of planes flying SPADs, said the SPAD was a revolutionary fighter (or something like that) when it came into service. Fonck excelled at getting kills at point-blank range, and I guess that's how it should be done with the S.VII in OFF. But the AI pilots are probably better at making evasive actions than the average German Albatros jockeys were during the war, so that probably explains some of the great difficulty of shooting down anything with the S.VII's single Vickers. I find it's very easy to get kills with any Entente turn fighter with one MG, because you can safely go chasing after the enemy, quite unlike when flying the SPAD. Those Focke-Wulfs with their multiple MK's have it so easy in WW2!

We all know that feeling, Olham. And it really is unwise to fly your best DiD pilots when you're not in the best possible mood and condition - a single mistake is all it takes to become yet another casualty of war.

Couldn't you get those old colour charts from art museums or archives or something? (I know nothing about such colour things, just a thought that came to my mind...) It sure would be easier to distinguish those paints if colour photographs had been more common in WW1. The French were the pioneers of colour photography and most of WW1 colour photos are of French origin. But I haven't seen many such pictures taken of aircraft. I imagine it can often be practically impossible to see accurately what kind of paint was in use when you look at old black and white photos.

Looks very good, Widowmaker! Never get tired of the SE5a, eh? Maybe some day you can make those pics with a Snipe in them!

Interesting reading, this thread. About Jeschonnek: He probably killed himself because he was receiving more and more criticism from his superiors (especially Hitler - Jeschonnek seems to have been a great admirer of the Führer and so his criticism hurt him very much) as the war was starting to go badly for Germany and the Luftwaffe was shown to be completely inadequate to the tasks required of it. Jeschonnek was partly responsible for the logistics, and he apparently did as well as it was humanly possible to do in those difficult conditions (Luftwaffe was simply too weak to survive against all the opponents on different fronts). The final straw was during the first Peenemünde raid, when Jeschonnek made the serious mistake of ordering the Berlin air defenses to fire at German interceptor fighters which had gathered near Berlin - there was some kind of a miscommunication and the fighters weren't where they were supposed to be.

And when you get one of them to live really long (dozens of hours), you'll start thinking that "maybe this guy is different from the others, maybe this time I can actually make this pilot last through the war", and then you make one mistake, no matter how small, and your pilot dies - then you really feel it. I almost wanted to throw my monitor out the window when I lost my best pilot ever in a couple of seconds and had to helplessly watch as his Alb D.II spiralled out of control over the front.

Great photos! Thanks for sharing them with us. (I really hope some day we'll be able to take recon photos in OFF too, and not just fly through waypoints pretending to do so.)

Once again your support is brilliant. Thanks!

Excellent improvements! Keep up the good work, it really is appreciated.

Well, I'm using 1.32f, which should be the latest patch.

I'm experiencing similar behaviour. In my current campaign, the aces of A flight always abandon my small flight of usually three Halberstadts. While I can bring my scattered flight quickly back together by using warp, the A guys are nowhere to be found. They don't seem to be doing the same mission in the end.

Alsace is great for its different terrain - there are even mountains there and not just flat fields like in Flanders. There are a couple of decent Alb Jastas there, though the quality of the squadrons is generally bad compared to northern sectors. Same can be said of the French escadrilles. Most of the time life is more peaceful there, though in 1918 even Alsace can be busy (and deadly!). I've started a new Halb career in Jasta 1 and am using your great Burgundy skin on my flight. I had a pilot in Jasta 2, but then I noticed they have the Halb only for a couple of weeks, while Jasta 1 has the D.II and D.III for several months. I've found the Halb to be quite the killer if given enough altitude against the Nupes. Visibility is not so great compared to the Albs, and the lack of firepower feels like I'm flying some silly Entente butterfly, but otherwise I've had a great time with the Halbs.

I'm by no means an expert on Imperial German military ranks, but isn't Rittmeister basically the same rank as Hauptmann? They are both captains, Rittmeister in the cavalry and Hauptmann in the infantry and artillery. For example MvR was a cavalry officer, so he was a Rittmeister instead of Hauptmann.

Well, if Chuck Norris is the guy who keeps killing the claims, we have no chance against him.

A great story, Widowmaker. I'm sure such things happened many times during the war, we just don't know about most of them. Not all people like to talk about what they did or didn't do in the war.

The title of this thread is like the name of some bad action movie, possibly starring Jean-Claude Van Damme or some other such superstar. I've seen those abruptly cut claims occasionally and always wondered what was causing them. It seems the culprit has been found now! Olham, if you won't get better success with the claims in the future, then they really hate you in the headquarters. Start a bomber career with the DFW and bomb them to hell with the help of that great bombsight.

I seem to get balloon busting missions much less frequently than some people, so I don't have too much experience with perforating the pesky gas bags, but I'm sure the last balloon I shot down required more than one bullet to make it burn. Usually I just let the wingmen deliver the killing blow while I circle above and cover their backs. No, I'm not trying to avoid the ground fire, I'm only being a good and caring leader.

Heh, I once had an even worse navigation problem. At least you ended up in Holland - when the warp went bonkers in my case, I found my flight of 4 N.17's over the North Sea, EXTREMELY far away from any friendly coast. The closest shore was in Germany, and we didn't have the fuel to make it even there, much less to England or Northern France. So in the end we ditched down in the water and either drowned or froze to death. It must have been some kind of a North Sea Bermuda triangle that pulled my flight out of warp speed to meet their death in the icy waters. Fortunately I've had only one such disaster during all the time I've had OFF, so it's not something that occurs regularly. But it taught me to always look at the map when using warp...

BoB II is the only other sim I find time to play these days in addition to OFF. Good to hear the new patch is progressing. Now if only my Halberstadt D.II had 8 guns like the Spit and Hurri... (it probably wouldn't be able to take off with that lousy engine!)

Well, you really should start as a Pfalz D.IIIa pilot in 1918... ...if you have a deathwish and like to lose pilots a lot. Seriously speaking, 1918 is a Bad Year for OFF newbies to start with, especially in the northern and central sectors of the front. There's just so much action everywhere against deadly planes that it can be quite overwhelming even to experienced pilots. SE5a is a great beginner's choice - easy to fly, fast, two machine guns, and it can easily give the Albatros pilots some serious headache, particularly when flown in a campaign game that starts in early to mid 1917. For Germans, the Albatros D.II is a perfect beginner's plane and really superior against most opponents when it enters service in autumn 1916 (it's also one of my favourite planes in OFF). For its time period (late 1916, early 1917) it has the same good qualities as the SE5a does a bit later. I think the Alb D.II is better for inexperienced players than the D.III, because the latter has weaker lower wings which can cause problems (ie. break off) if you don't know what you're doing. Otherwise the D.III is superior to the D.II in every way, and is a good plane to choose next in the learning process when flying for the Germans. For Entente, the easiest and definitely the most enjoyable plane to fly beginning in December 1916 is the Sopwith Pup. The Nieuport 17 is more manoeuverable, but much more difficult to master because it has REALLY weak lower wings. I've had a lot of fun with the Pup in early 1917 British careers. Late 1916 - early 1917 is in my opinion the most enjoyable period to fly in in OFF. The mix between fierce action and peaceful, uneventful missions is just about perfect then. The earlier in the war you go, the more peaceful it will be because there aren't that many squadrons or planes on the front, and OFF is currently lacking almost all the primitive early war designs, with some exceptions. And 1918 is deadly, especially after the major offensives begin in March 1918.