Hasse Wind

Have you seen The Patriot? Gibson's depiction of the British army is brutal, and the villain of the film is like the love child of Sauron and Cruella De Vil. That being said, war crimes have happened in each and every war throughout the history of mankind. It takes some serious skill to portray such events and their causes in movies in a correct way. Most writers and directors lack that kind of skill. In my opinion, the best films involving Gibson are the Lethal Weapon series and Apocalypto.

Some Rumpler C.IV pics would be nice.

When I first saw Braveheart, I thought it was great. Then in later years I started reading more British history, and was disappointed to see just how inaccurate the film was. That's always the problem. The more you know about a subject, the easier it is to spot all the faults in movies and books. It's a mystery to me why directors and producers are so interested in making historical movies that are not actually historical. Isn't history more often than not exciting enough just like it is, without any need to invent things and change the course of events?

This is indeed a great community of like-minded people. I've learned a lot about WW1 aviation - and many other things too - by hanging around these forums (fora?). I particularly like the fact that we have succeeded in avoiding most of the typical crap that plagues forums everywhere. I hope we'll all be here for many years, enjoying OFF (whatever the phase) and each others' company.

Here's a dog and a fire engine for you, Widowmaker. State of the art... in 1920 or so.

Yes, the battle of Amiens began the final phase of the war, which lead to serious German defeats and the final collapse of their fighting spirit. This became obvious when large numbers of Germans started to surrender, something that hadn't happened earlier in the war. The Entente air superiority must have had an impact on the morale of the German Heer, and combined with other factors, it must have made it clear to the majority of German soldiers and officers that the end was near.

Good to hear from you, old bean. Do yourself a favour and spend an hour or two looking at the new P4 screenshots. There are great many of them, and they look wonderful.

Great pics, as always. Now how about some French and German crates next?

We need more two-seaters, especially French ones. The Siemens-Schuckert was just as insignificant as the Fokker E.V/D.VIII. Too few, too late. The S-S was indeed an excellent fighter, but the war ended before they were in use in significant numbers. In my opinion, OFF really doesn't need more late war fighters at the moment, they should be added only after the most obvious missing aircraft have been added. That means two-seaters, no matter how boring they are for fighter jockeys. Naturally I want OFF to have all the WW1 aircraft available one day, but it won't happen anytime soon and things must be prioritized. The Pfalz D.XII and the Roland D.VI would be more important additions to the late war German order of battle than any Siemens fighters. At least they saw service longer than the E.V and the S-S, the Pfalz in relatively large numbers. I hope after P4 is ready, the devs will release aircraft packs for it. I'd be the first to buy a two-seater pack, for example.

I wonder if that Wikipedia top speed is the correct one? Everywhere else I've looked it's given as somewhere around 185 - 190 km/h. Still a decent speed for a German fighter though.

Tatzenkreuz = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_patt%C3%A9e I first wrote Tanzenkreuz, but fortunately noticed the mistake before posting.

Panzerkampfwagen, Panzerkraftwagen, Kampfpanzer - you name it. And don't forget the lovely abbreviation, PzKpfw!

Xmas 2012 maybe? I hope not, because there's the Apocalypse and all that.

I've never particularly liked the E.V/D.VIII. I'm no fan of the Dr.I either. For a late war German fighter career, there's one aircraft that's easily the best: the Fokker D.VIIF. The Flying Razor doesn't come close.

I thought the site was gone, maybe hacked or something. This is such a nice community that it would be awful to lose it.

I've always thought the French Escadrilles had lots of beautiful emblems, and the stork is definitely one of them. There were some very creative people with remarkable artistic skills working on those early aircraft. A nice collection of such emblems can be found from the link below: http://albindenis.free.fr/Site_escadrille/page_insignes_escadrilles.htm

Isn't that one of the basic rights of customers? They pay for the work, after all.

That's a beauty! And my favourite Jasta too.

Cows taste good, too.

It seems to me that field modifications of all kinds were very common in WW1 aircraft, much more so than in later years and conflicts. It's only natural, considering how young the whole business of aviation was and how rapidly things were being invented and developed in all countries that participated in the war and had an air force of their own. Actually that's one of the things that fascinates me so much about WW1 aviation - the almost crazy creativity.

It was an awful day in so many ways. Just when people everywhere were starting to become used to the feeling of peace and security that followed the end of the Cold War, the world was plunged into a new conflict, one that I fear will be never-ending, because of its nature. It was one of those days that define an era and leave its mark on generations of people.

Maybe the flying wings people occasionally spot during night time are actually N9Ms.

The Ho 229 (Go 229) never saw service, like you said. It was designed by the Horten brothers and Gotha was chosen to manufacture them in numbers, but that never happened. It's fascinating how futuristic some of those 1930s and 1940s designs were.

They are exactly the kind of opponents we need for Eindecker careers.

Actually I'm more interested in hearing confirmation from the devs that some Caudrons will be in P4. Everything else is secondary.