sgha

Thanks for pointing this out ...

The only decent book I can find about german flak has a chapter on WW1 (Flak - German Anti-Aircraft Dfenses 1914-1945, Edward Westermann) with some rather interesting information. It mentions a study carried out by a german officer in 1926 which estimates that the 748 entente aircraft destroyed by flak in 1918 represented an effective shoot down percentage of one eighth of a percent of the 600,000 sorties that could have been (but often probably were not ed.) engaged by flak during the period. It also gives data for the number of artillery shells fired per aircraft destroyed. 1914 - 11,500 1918 - 5,040 Clearly they got better at it, but they were also probably often firing at larger formations as well. While the data include all flak, most of which was employed protecting cities and industrial installations which were increasingly attacked by night, it still gives a feel for the true effectiveness of flak - ie very low. (That is not to say that dawdling around within MG range of the ground is a good idea, I hasten to add...)

Just seeking some guidance here - I have been enjoying the scenery, weather etc, but..... So far I have flown about 1 hr 45 mins in 3 missions all set in 1916. Twice shot down by flak over the lines. The other time 4 out of the 7 escort and bombers shot down by flak (but not me ) plus, I suspect from watching the review mission timeline, several other a/c in non-player flights on both sides. The only thing I can see which affects the ground fire is the AI Range box which I have on "realistic", since I think it affects the air guns too and I do not want to change these(?) The last mission my flight of French N17s (very amusing flying that sideways over the aerodrome, BTW) actually managed to fly along the lines for about 5 minutes before I was hit. There must have been 8-12 guns firing judging from counting the bursts. This is at a time when there may have been only a few dozen AA guns in the whole german army, and shells were in short supply. So something is not right. My question is what can be done about it? I appreciate that some things are CFS3 hangovers and maybe hard or impossible to change, but I would like to know how the adjustment is made if possible, given that there is no multiplayer issue here about everyone having the same game and I am quite happy to do my own editing if that is all it takes. I have looked in the SOH forum but my searches have revealed nothing pertinent. Can anyone explain to me what the thinking is on the design choices and limitations on flak in the game or point me to a thread somewhere that does this?

In 1916 all these range finding devices were in their infancy. Your optical method will be very ineffective at long ranges since the angle between the sightlines is so small, even if you expand the distance between the prisms. Alternatively if you guess the aircraft type and know its wingspan you could calculate the range from the observed arc covered by the wings. If you guess the aeroplane type right you might get a value +/- 5% for range if you have excellent optics and a favourable angle, ie the aeroplane flying directly towards you or away. For an aeroplane at 5,000 ft this would still be +/- 250ft of error. But then this is just range not height - for height you have to correct for the horizontal distance between the observer and the aeroplane, ie more trig calculations based the angle above the horizon. Actually I do not know if WW1 AA fuses worked off time (ie range) or pressure (ie height). Anyone know? But then this also assumes that the fuse actually works at the desired height/range, when in fact there would have been an additional random error due to manufacturing tolerances (plus a fair number of duds). Another method would be simple trigonometry - take two sightings from observers a few hundred yards apart (a known distance) and then calculate the range and height, of course for this to work you need a well worked out system of communications and preferably a simple computer, or at least a set of preprepared tables. All this is just to get range and height. Still have to get target course and speed. Looking at the target with a stopwatch gives a rough idea of course and speed, but since you can only guess the windspeed at target height and direction there will be an error as the shell is affected by the wind. While everyone surely got much better at all this between 1916 and 1918 it is still something of a miracle that anyone was ever hit and the facts are that hits by high level AA were rare except where large formations of bombers were attacking well protected targets which would have been mostly urban manufacturing centres, not the front lines. In WW2 procedures were standardized, optics perfected, fuses were more acurately manufactured, propellent was more uniform, the guns had higher muzzle velocities, the explosive charges were more powerful, fragmenting cases more lethal and eventually radar could be used for height determination. Hard to quantify the effect of all of this but I would make a preliminary guess that the ability of a WW2 AA battery to identify a target point and get a shot within lethal distance was probably about 10 times as good as that of an battery in WW1, more if you are just looking at 1916. The only disadvantage in WW2 was that the aeroplanes were three times as fast. My worry in OFF is that we have WW2 standards of accuracy and lethality modeled into the AA but WW1 target speeds! This would make OFF AA about 30 times as effective as it should be. Note this applies to high level AA - low level AA - certainly that from small arms, would have been about as lethal as WW2 as it is just a matter of volume of fire aimed by eye. I would be only too happy to be proved wrong on this, if someone can explain how the AA system actually works in CSF3 or OFF.

Normal it is then, see what happens in the next few flights. Thanks for the tips. Meanwhile I am exploring the files .... hmm, "burst radius=1", hmmm.....

Hello chaps. Had the original OFF download but did not play it much, my PC not up to the strain. Now I have monster rig and huge screen, and the BHH CD has just arrived, so I thought I would see how it has got on, and after a couple of false starts got it running, and .... wow! I have it on all settings at 4, and it is only a little stuttery low down and fine a little higher. Looks, georgeous and I love that RB3D campaign feel. Well done to the devs, I can see this was a labour of love, even if they did have to go commercial. So far I have just been experimenting, getting my controls set up, etc A question - on the rotary engines, I landed the N11 on my first trip by just cutting the fuel supply and gliding in, but this does not I think quite emulate the behaviour of a blip switch since the response on restarting is slow - anyone already figured this out? Is there some control option I have missed? A comment re AA - this bothered me about the first OFF version as it essentially seemed to use WW2 AA guns modeled in CFS3 and was much too accurate and powerful. The first time I took an aeroplane anywhere near the lines today, the first couple of sighting rounds were exactly on my altitude, (do not know exactly what that was, as the horrible old Halberstadt has no altimeter, but looked about 10,000ft). So I retreated to my side then turned and headed over no-mans-land again. Bang crash - into a spin, lots of warning messages, black out, death. This in Sep 1916 mind. Was I just unlucky, or is the AA still a little strong? Anyway I can see this is going to use up a lot of time.....

I have tried the other ideas but I like this one the best, thank you - gives a nice quick response. To turn off fuel for a long decent I just set the fuel mixture to max lean - always cuts the engine so far! Max rich when you want to restart. I did not know there was another command for this. Now all I need to do is hire a teenage boy to program my stick so that I can use one button as a toggle rather than two - I tried to do something like that myself once and found the instructions completely incomprehensible.

I have used TiR on a 70" Samsung HDTV playing IL2 for a year or so now with great success. The TV is positioned fairly low so that from my seat, looking normally ahead, the screen fills most of my visual field, which means that my eyes are a few inches above the centre of the screen. My eyes are about 5 feet from the screen. The TiR thingie sits on an artist's easel in front of the screen so that it does not quite intrude on my eyeline to the screen, but is just off the bottom, a few inches closer to my head but still way beyond the normally recommended distance. The only time it loses tracking is if I move my head up too sharply, so the up/down gearing needs to be quite acute so that your in game pilot can look up. So long as I do not lift my head up too sharply it works brilliantly. I toyed with the idea of fixing it on a stick on the top of the screen, but the USB connector is too short for my set up.

Hi uncleal Actually I hate the Halb, it is a pig, but it what you get as a noob at that time in the war in early Jastas. (That is odd, there is no emoticon for showing sadness or dissatisfaction on this forum - I suppose that is one way of keeping dissent to a minimum ). I just mentioned it as part of my question about the AA effectiveness. Put another way, is there an editable file somewhere in the bowels of BHH which determines the AA effectiveness, through, for instance, a random error when it shoots? Not that I am saying the current setting is incorrect, far too little experience to be sure, just that one direct hit in about 3 minutes over the lines looks a trifle unlucky when the actual loss rate to AA per sortie in the whole of WW1 was something less than a fraction of 1%. Thanks for the suggestions - actually I do not want a horrible HUD, never use these things, not being snotty about realism, actually I find having any text on my screen when I am flying a terrible distraction, breaks the 3D illusion. I will try having buttons set at 0 and 100% or some such, although this is not quite right as a blip switch does not put the engine into idle, it actually turns it off, but this may be close enough.

Aha - yes that seems very obvious now that you point it out! Obviously I am too exhausted by my excitement to think clearly. Thanks!