JimAttrill

Rather like Col. Lewis who offered his machine gun to the US Army. They turned it down so he resigned his commission and sold it in Europe instead. The US Army were very p1ssed off about this and only used the Lewis when they were forced to in 1918. It seems he had made some enemies there

Well they worked on some sort of calculation depending on how many German casualties etc per shell fired, And they paid on that.

One of the ironies of war was that the British used Krupp fuses made under licence all through WWI. In 1926 they paid Krupp industries a form of their licence fees!

Here is a link to a very interesting Dutch site. If you go down the left there is a link to their reports on unexploded stuff in Belgium and dumped in the sea off Zeebrugge. Other interesting articles and pictures as well. http://www.greatwar.nl/frames/default-color.html

Do they serve Maroilles cheese in the mess? My favourite, but you need a gas mask

My wife has family in Fismes which is just down the road from Reims. I think there was a WWI airfield there at one time used by the Germans. Hanna Reitsch - just before she died she sent a letter to Capt. Eric Brown the famous RN pilot who had met her before and after the war. She wrote that 'It started in the bunker and there it will end'. He is convinced that she eventually committed suicide with a pill given to her in the bunker. Yes, she was a convinced Nazi for which we cannot blame her because of what was happening in Germany at the time, but she was a fantastic flyer. The first woman to fly across the channel upside down, so I have read. And many other feats including flying the Me163 rocket fighter.

It's also possible that the use of 'time compression' affects the time of a sortie - always downwards. Hey, theultimat are you going to join in on the DID campaign again? We miss you.

Sorry to hear you have been unwell. I don't know what has happened to UncleAl - maybe he has not made the transition from OFF to WOFF. He was very good on graphics issues.

And of course a lot of Indian soldiers were sent to the Middle East and even to France in both World Wars. They were not used in South Africa where I live in what is now called the 'Anglo-Boer' war although a lot of horses and fodder and British soldiers came from there. The fodder included a pernicious weed that is still around a lot and is called in Afrikaans 'Kakibos' (Khaki bush or weed in English). Horrible stuff, but I believe that an infusion of it was used to dye the British Army uniforms the brown shade. Could be a legend though.

What was worse with the Indian Mutiny cartridge fiasco was that the Muslims thought the cartridges were oiled with pork fat and the Hindus thought it was cow fat. It was, I believe a good example of arrogance on the part of the Army top brass to not bother to tell the truth. And a good example of the power of rumours. Of course, the Mutiny would have happened anyway.

One I have just remembered although it isn't used much outside of the RAF (and maybe the Army) was 'gone doolally' for someone who was not all there. This is named after a notorious Army transit camp at Deolali as Wiki says: "Deolali transit camp was a transit camp for British troops in Deolali, India, notorious for its unpleasant environment, boredom, and the psychological problems of soldiers that passed through it. Its name is the origin of the phrase "gone doolally". And faking madness was often called 'working your ticket' which was a discharge from the services. I believe in the US this is called a 'Section 8'.

The Royal Marines are called 'bootnecks' by the Navy or sometimes 'boots'. The reason is the same as for leatherneck, from the high stocks they wore before the 20th Century. 'Cushy' like 'Blighty' is from the Indian Army "First World War (originally Anglo-Indian): from Urdu ḵushī 'pleasure', from Persian ḵuš" as says the Oxford Dictionary. There are lots of Indian words in English including 'pyjamas', 'bungalow', 'verandah'. Not surprising really as India was British for 300 years. It is noticeable that the RNAS had a bigger influence on RAF slang than the British Army. A good example is 'gash' which originally meant rubbish but later meant anything that was unowned or lying about and therefore could be purloined. A good example is 'gash bod' which meant someone who could be used for pushing aircraft about, guard duty etc. And the denigatory 'zobbit' (sometimes 'zob') which is any commissioned officer. The British Army uses other words like 'Rupert' instead. Military slang is often fascinating and was used to define a group and exclude others like civvies (civilians) And I notice that the airport for Kolcatta (aka Calcutta) is 'Dum Dum', named after the armoury that was there once. And of course that's where the name of the bullet came from. And here's a WWII one that you won't have heard in the US. If someone went mad in any way he was described as 'Harpic'. This comes from the advertising slogan for Harpic toilet cleaner which has always been advertised as 'cleans right around the bend'. As 'round the bend' is slang in the first place, we now have a slang expression based on a slang expression!

Irfanview is good stuff - I've been using it for years now. Much better than the terrible Micro$oft picture viewer. And it reads dds files as well. Most of the time the only skin I am worried about is mine .......

Try asking your question on the RAF Forum here http://rafforum.activeboard.com/ ps. this forum has nothing to do with the Official RAF (what is left of it which isn't much) Maybe you could sell your Mossie to the RAF as they need an aeroplane or two

Well it kept us busy while it was raining - back to flying today!

Lovely map but it is in a dangerous area! The only pilot we had flying in DID Verdun sector was Olham with Andreas Harms who is now deceased. Olham has now moved to Flanders South which is another 'Hotspot' area. I don't suppose the RFC flew there so on the Allied side it would have to be a French pilot of which we have none in DID - mostly because of the lack of two-seaters in June 1916.

After much mucking about I have found a way to stop the 'reasons for death' being asked for every pilot whether dead or not. There is a fault in the software that I have reported but I have managed to find a cludge that gets around the problem. So, if your pilot is reported as 'dead' you will see an extra screen which asks the reason. The reasons I have put there are as follows: Shot down by aircraft Shot down by ground fire Collided with enemy Collided with wingman Engine failure or fire Structural failure Crashed on landing Hit Titanium Fence I can't think of any others at the moment, but if you do, let me know.

For screen captures I use 'Cropper Capture' which is free software. Belive me that I have tried all sorts of free capture software and this is the best. I use it here to take screen shots of my Excel spread sheet with all the results and points and send that to Olham who does the graphics bit in Corel Draw.

Your time depends on the sector that your home airfield is in. Keeps things simple. The only time this changes is with time - see the chart, or if you move to a squadron in a different sector.

My whole flight of 5 FE2b's was shot down - I was crashed but unhurt, 3 dead and 1 severely wounded. I never saw what hit me! It's a rough world out there in June '16

Oh, I misread your post - I thought the kill was confirmed. Anyway, just put in the confirmed ones later. Remember apart from me and my Mk 1 eyeball, there is no automatic checking of your answers on the web. I would notice if your hours or sorties went down instead of up but on the other hand I may not. What is reported here is the last web capture unless I spot something wrong. Eg. your total hours must be equal to your Hot medium and quiet hours added together. I do keep all your web captures for comparison and if I see any anomalies I will pm the pilot concerned. THE FIRST RESULTS TABLE IS HERE http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3960675/24/The_%22DiD_Campaign_Revival

Hi theultimat I got your last post on the web site and there is no kill recorded there ..... Put it in on your next form. According to my data you have 4 hours in 3 sorties so far and are still alive. Don't worry too much about the victories as at the moment you don't get any points for them. I think this will change. Rules are meant to be changed.

Copied from SimHq: Olham and I are still working out the details of scoring. Whatever we do it will be the same for everybody. It is simple at the moment but will become difficult when pilots fly in different difficulty areas or the difficulty for the same area changes with time. For the moment, can I backtrack on what I asked before. ALL HOURS ENTERED ON THE WEB SHOULD BE TOTALS. (otherwise I have to add them up which is next to impossible to get right). So, as an example, if you have done two sorties of 1.5 hrs and 1.4 hours at HOTSPOT then you should capture: Hours: 2.9 Hotspot Hours 2.9 Medium hours 0 Quiet Hours 0 sorties 2 If you then move to a squadron in a Medium area and fly 1.3 hour sortie, then capture: Hours: 4.2 Hotspot Hours 2.9 Medium hours 1.3 Quiet Hours 0 sorties 3 ps. If you get it wrong for some reason then capture it again. I mostly look at the latest post. And I do not check that you are putting your hours under the correct sector difficulty level. I trust you to get that right. Olham and I are doing well (except he is dead and I was 'forced down' on my second sortie).

Pilot is dead page is removed as I couldn't get it to work properly. RNAS ranks changed as per WOFF so you can't be a Petty Officer any more! But we are getting there

This 'pilot died' page is a bug now fixed. Anyway you can enter what you like and I will ignore it as your pilot is still 'Active' This is the problem with going 'live' with what is a test system although it is getting there. Re the RNAS ranks I will change the web survey to differentiate between flying for Britain in the the RFC and flying for Britain in the RNAS. As an ex-RAF member I always forget about the WAFU's. Ok done now with the lowest rank being 'Petty Officer' which is equivalent to a Sergeant. Unfortunately that rank does not exist in WOFF itself where you have to enrol as an occifer. Maybe this was true at the time. So you can report as a Petty Officer if you like.