Capitaine Vengeur

On 17-18 July 1936, a military coup in Spanish Morocco and Southern Spain proved a decisive challenge for the young Spanish Republic. After almost 3 years of a terrible civil war (pleonasm), an improbable coalition of militarists, Phalangists and Royalists, known as The Nationalists, prevailed over an even more improbable coalition of Social Democrats, Stalinists, Trotskysts and anarchists, known as The Republicans. The bloody cleansing that followed for years, the leaden shroud of morale repression that followed for decades, kept Spain for long in a serious delay behind the rest of Western Europe. The heavy emigration to France until the 80s is a clear symptom. In the recent aftermath of the Turkish failed military coup, one can just wonder: What would have happened, had the coup epically failed like the one we saw recently, and had a progressive Spanish Republic survived? Probably, Spain would have been invaded by the Germans in 1940 after the fall of France. Possibly, a Spanish Republic with a strong Communist constituent would have been kept aside for a while by NATO and the Western Europe, Yugoslavia-style at best, Cuba-style at worst. But surely anyway, the place and weight of Spain in today's Western Europe may have been very different.

Yes, this is the point: just "another attack", after the last one and before the next one... Once again, I think the target was not chosen randomly. The just quited (but still unofficial) mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, is one of the harshest upholders for an ultra-security policy. Now he shall have more morale authority to foster his stinky point of view and related dangerous totalitarian drifts. If the terrorists' goal was to begin to turn France into a police state ruled by delation and fear of neighbours, Nice was a very adequate first step. I'm afraid I won't recognize my own country within the next three years... To hell with the terros! I have never missed one single Bastille Day fireworks for thirty years, and I won't for the years to come, even while there may be a very slight chance it's the last show I could attend! I don't like mobs, and usually hate to be crammed with too many wagging, noisy and smelly people; but my dear compatriots, on the next Bastille Day fireworks, one year from now, for once I hope to see you many, as many as if the Bastille had to be pulled down once again!

Farewell, old Redtail !

The bloodiest day in British military History. The second bloodiest may have been July 2. A German machine-gunner wrote: "Killing Tommies was like mowing wheat!" Captain Wilfred Nevill, East Surreys, had bought four footballs, one for each of his platoons to dribble across the no-man's-land on this 1st of July. The outcome is easily predictable. Brave, probably. Foolish, certainly. Dead, absolutely.

Well, keep in mind however that many doctors and nurses working in the UE countries are foreign migrants too: I met some intra-UE (Spaniard, Romanian...), but also quite often extra-UE (Lebanese, undefined African...). They contribute to fill up the gap in several medical deserts. Many of the Catholic priests I can see in depopulated rural France are Africans too. This reminds me of a sketch that was old already when I was a child, with the archetypal xenophobe as the narrator, repeatedly rambling on the only foreigner settled in the village: "Bastard foreigner, who comes and eats the Frenchmen's bread!". The foreigner finally left: "I'm fed up with your France, and your bread!". And the narrator concludes: "And since, we don't eat bread any more in the village: he was the baker!"

I'm working as a Customs officer in Le Havre, formerly located on the Channel (or the English Channel, as they call it on the insular part of it), soon on the new Channel Front. And I sigh like a bagpipe at thinking of the hundreds of new special UE regulations that are to be promulgated/reestablished, and enforced in the years to come, regarding our distinctive relations with Britain (formerly "our weird neighbours, but brothers anyway", soon just "Albion" anew).

"Right now we are advising all our clients to put everything they've got into canned food and shotguns." (Gremlins 2) Agree that all of this EU stuff is rotten to the roots. Europe of banks and big money, no room there for the European people. But still dunno what shall happen to some country trying to resume life on the fringe of The Block, regarding the standards of living it had used to take for granted. That means, someone has yet to play the guinea pig for the other ones to assess, and well, Britain might play the role as well as another...

Mix of "Red Dawn" and "Southern Comfort" in the country of "The Heroes of Telemark" !! Now that's not Hollywood any more !...

I did not know the Duffel Blog thing, but it's crazy! I'll keep an eye on it...

A jewel! The effects and making are fine, for a low-budget product. Take that, Disney, with your big billions, big greed, and cheap imagination!...

Salute to the old warriors, but really, the view is as sad and depressing as a leper's deathbed ! Please let they go with respect for their privacy and dignity...

Buenos Aires flattened by a meteor? Mmm, already seen in "Starship Troopers"...

Olham, the story actually comes from Clostermann's book "Une sacrée guerre!" (interviews gathered by Daniel Costelle, edited by Flammarion 1990). I had once read the book, but do not own it now. If I remember well, it is also during one of these interviews that he explained his pro-Argentine stance during the Falklands War, which shocked the British for coming from a former hero of the RAF, DSO, DFC&Bar). This event happened on 21 April 1945, and Clostermann may have felt confident for he had just confirmedly shot down two FW-190D "long nose" the previous day (a picture in an older edition of "The Big Show" that I own, presents a "long nose" crash-landed near a lake as one of his victims, specifying that the pilot died of wounds). His victor on 21 may have been Hans Dortenmann, JG 26, 18 kills out of 38 flying the 190D, one of the main aces on this model. Clostermann could crash-land his plane, himself unharmed, and once back to his squadron, was welcomed with banners displaying his "famous last words". Also, the French Wiki confirms that these "famous last words" were quoted by the RAF's Training Memorandum volume 5 number 3 of June 1945 ("Tee Eem", a RAF monthly confidential bulletin with advice, information, accounts, etc), in its column "Most Highly Derogatory Order of the Irremovable Finger" devoted to the most stupid things done that month by RAF pilots. Typical British humour... As you can see, the "long nose" had a short but intense military career, was usually feared by the Allied pilots for its powerful engine and deadly firepower, and woe betide those tackled it carelessly!

The French and German armies did not fight at Verdun exactly in the same way. While the French side was constantly held by the 2e Armée, the French divisions within were rotated after a system called "la noria" (the waterwheel). Even decimated during the most terrible moments of the battle, the soldiers there were assured to be relieved after one or two weeks, and sent onto another sector. On the Germany side on the contrary, the Kronprinz's 5. Armee constantly used the same about 20 divisions. Even when removed for rest, the soldiers were assured to be committed back to the same bloody mess. And it became to them a more and more hellish mess, as the German army was removing more and more artillery to counter new threats on other fronts by Summer 1916, while the French on the contrary were bringing more and more heavy batteries to make up for their initial critical imbalance. The German soldiers had no exit from Verdun but death, mutilation, capture or desertion. The French made lots of shocked and demoralised prisoners in the last months of the battle. Among those who fought in junior ranks at Verdun, Lt de Lattre de Tassigny became commander of the French 1st Army occupying Danubian Germany by 1945, and as such was humbly visited by former Kronprinz Wilhelm, commander of the German 5th Army during the Battle of Verdun. The deposed Crown Prince begged for the protection of his properties in Soviet-held Eastern Prussia, and for subsidies to maintain his own standard of living in his castle. De Lattre sharply replied that at the same moment, millions of Germans were starving of fighting in hopeless conditions, and dismissed the Prince: "You are pathetic, Sir, pathetic!" Ironically, former Kronprinz Wilhelm and former Maréchal Pétain, once opponents at Verdun in 1916, then both relieved in a humiliating way, both died in July 1951, Pétain just three days after Wilhelm. Captain Charles de Gaulle, later promoter of the French-German reconciliation as the French President in 1963, was wounded and captured as soon as March 1916 when his 33e R.I. was decimated near Douaumont. He could never escape, in spite of countless colorful attempts. His partner Chancellor Adenauer did not fight during WW1, he was 40 already by the time of Verdun, and councillor of the city of Cologne. But he could assess well enough the cost of total war on the interior front of mobilized and blockaded Germany.

In her famous book "War does not have a women's face", Svetlana Aleksievch gives many testimonies about the Night Witches. It is said that due to poor conditions of living, exhaustion, constant fear of a horrible death by flames, several of these young frail pilots stopped to have menses. Also, I can't but recommend once more Romain Hugault's fine art "Le grand Duc". The female main character is loosely based on famous ace Lilya Litvyak, and the first album "The Night Witches" introduces her as part of one of these units. This also reminds me of one anecdote from the Free French air regiment Normandie-Niémen, one amongst many about the Soviet oddities these Western pilots and Latin machos faced. The French Yaks were once to cover the attack of Soviet assault aircraft Shturmovik upon a German mechanized column. The target column was heavily protected by self-propelled AAA and Flakpanzern, and the Shturmoviks were facing a wall of fire. A French pilot expressed: "Impossible! They shall not pass..." The Soviets attacked in one column, the first two planes exploded in the air, those following made it though, and in one single attack, almost annihilated the whole column. A French pilot shouted on the radio: "Incredible!! Those guys have balls of bronze!" The French leader then asked to the Soviet leader the heading back home, and was surprised to be answered on the radio by a little girly voice: it was an all-female assault aviation regiment!

Sorry for rallying the topic that late. Gepard, Feldfebel (Фельдфебель) was an actual rank of the Czarist army, The Russians used to adopt foreign words from the best specialists: French for cuisine, English for business, and of course German for the military. There were many ranks directly adopted from the Prussian army: Ефрейтор (Gefreiter) for the corporals, Младший/ Старший унтер-офицер (Unteroffizier) for the Sergeants/ Staff Sergeants, Фельдфебель (Feldwebel) for the Master Sergeants (same epaulette than the Starshina, a later naming), Генера́л-майо́р, Генера́л-лейтена́нт or Генерал-фельдмаршал for the generals... Crawford, I agree that something sounds wrong. But as explained in my Medals Packs for WW1, almost every nation had an awards system for enlisted/NCOs, and a completely different other one for the officers. I chose to select the officers' crosses and orders only. An optional system I uploaded with my Medals Packs entitles you to be promoted as soon as your first mission is completed, either succesful or not. Yet I chose to keep the first rank as a NCO one, in order for your Roster screen to show many NCOs in the air units where they were, actually, many. If like Stephen1918, you shine enough during your very first mission, you'll be awarded an officer's distinction while still a NCO, just before being promoted. Sounds bad, true, but I had to settle a choice, and I did. And the oddity shall concern but your very first mission, if outstandingly succesful.

Rather than lazy, Southwestern France was then known to be a bastion of die-hard Radicals, a Socialist bubble of defiance and disobediance (see the mutiny of 17e R.I. of Béziers in 1907). The Provencals were renowned Radical voters too. And so the High Command felt that this Southern mob had to be brutally subdued and taught who the master is as soon as the first weeks. God bless the state of war and the martial law...

The French public at the beginning of the Century rather considered their own Black Africans as hopeless savages and scarified cannibals (and muslim/animist oddities), their own Black Carribeans as lazy skivers and drinkers, but the Black Americans in France enjoyed a much better reputation as civilized, honest, sober, sturdy, hard-working and deeply christian people, with high musical sense which helped in the artistic circles. The French Air Force was not prohibited to coloured people with French citizenship, and the highest-scoring Black ace fighter pilot ever, Roger Sauvage, was born from a Martinican father (he had to start as a NCO, but no discrimination here, the largest part by large of the French pilots in 1940 were NCOs).

Ooh, yes, too many explosive soil in many places... As a child, I had for a while a weekly walk on the plateau overlooking Craonne, a hard-fought spot during the 2nd Battle of the Aisne. There was a place where each week-end, I could see the rusty ordnance collected that week in the area, neutralized and stocked there in the open, and that the following week-end, this daunting lot had been replaced with a new different batch. Also, Olham's picture reminds me of a story told by an older guy, who did his military service in the 60s. One night, his group had to bivouac on the heights of Moronvilliers, another hard-fought spot on the front line north of Reims during most of WW1. They dug foxholes by complete darkness, and when daylight came and he could examine the walls of his hole, he realized that a rusty hand grenade jutted out, and that he may have struck it several times with his spade! Hauksbee, lots of 'cleaners' in France after WW2, especially on the mine-stuffed Atlantic Wall, were German POWs forced into this hazardous labour on the ground that they were the ones that made these coastal places lethal, and that they were better qualified in neutralizing German-made devices. Of course, not all of these POWs had worked on the Atlantic Wall, and not all of them had been trained as sappers. Of course, it was against the Convention of Geneva, but these POWs had been allocated a lower-level, non-immune status as 'disarmed enemy forces'.

A Greek terrain for FE would be a wonderful idea, for the Macedonian Front 1917-18, and also now for these very interesting campaigns, in Epirus 1940-41, and in April 1941 involving the RAF and large strengths of the Luftwaffe. The brilliant and last blaze of glory of ace pilot St.John Pattle... Well, easy to ask, long and hard to make: lots of alongshore islands, tortuous montainous coasts, passes, orthodox churches and typical farms, mills and buildings to be added... Few roads anyway. The Gladiators could prove able to gain the upper hand even against modern fighters. In June 1941 over Syria, the 'X' Flight could claim four Dewoitine D.520 from GC III/6 shot down or forced to the ground with total loss, to one single casualty. The Vichy French pilots, blinded with the superiority of their planes, had made the mistake to engage the nimble biplanes in dogfight at low altitude. - 15 June: 2 D.520 forced to crash-land, pilots unharmed (S-Lt Le Gloan by Sgt Appleby, plane written off - Sgt Mertsizen by F/O Jeffrey, landed behind enemy lines, back safe) to 1 Gladiator shot down (K7947 by S-Lt Le Gloan, F/O Craigie KIA) and 1 badly damaged (K7914 by Cne de Rivals-Mazères, P/O Watson unharmed). The French claimed 3 plus 2 probable... Exactly one year before, Le Gloan had shot down 4 Fiat CR.42 in one combat with the same D.520 N°277, which could explain his superiority complex over biplane fighters (he had then dubbed the Italians as "tourists"). - 18 june: 2 D.520 lost (Lt Boiries KIA, shot down by F/O Young - Sgt Pimont crash-landed, POW), no RAF damage or losses Don't mess with the biplanes...

Ouch ! That's a sad news. I Liked his acting and characters...

I just had some interest back to this game, but completely missed that news. Thank you very much, Do335. To me, it is still by large the most accurate and immersive terrain for NW Europe in the piston engine's era.

Happy New Year to all of you. Mm, this new bouquet of 2016 is smelling... oh, very nouveau, indeed...

View File WW1 Medals Pack for FE - Beyond the Western Front Designed to complete my just updated WW1 Alternative Medals Pack for FE, this new Pack provides you with rich panels of decorations, for four air forces who fought bravely on fronts far away from Flanders or Verdun, with limited resources but some few worthy native models – namely the Russian Imperial Military Air Fleet, the Italian Military Air Corps, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops, and the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons. Generally speaking, awards for enduring service have been assigned highly demanding requirements, to hang on to Ojcar’s Armchair Aces dynamic campaigns allowing to go through that long-term World War in its seemingly never-ending aspect. As usual, each panel includes several decorations from allied countries: thus, as an Imperial Russian officer before the fall of the Tsar, you may be awarded decorations from the grateful sister nation of Serbia; and as a Russian pilot keeping on fighting a hopeless war by 1917, you may be conferred prestigious Orders by the Kingdom of Romania desperately relying on its stumbling Slavic ally. I chose to have the citations display the decorations’ names in original language without subtitle, as you can notice on the screenshots. Be easy, the awards you deserved are still announced in English on the Debrief Screen, and listed in English on the Medal List Screen. Two Nations lists are provided, the first one devoted to campaigns and missions taking place before early 1918, and the second and default one reassessing the state of the belligerents from early 1918 on (before and from early 1917 regarding Russia). You’ll have to juggle with both lists according to the period of the War when you plan to fly your campaigns. Everything has been designed, when swapping the pre-1918 for the 1918 medals file during an extensive career, for the decorations you were awarded before April 1918 both to be preserved with original look and citations, and not to be awarded a second anachronistic time thereafter. The pre-1918 list grants much more lenient criteria to be awarded the same distinctions you could also receive later spending more sweat, and prevents you to get awards unavailable before 1918. A complete set of musics includes national anthems and marches devoted to each nation's overtures and successful debriefings sequences. Other interesting optional assets include optional lists of awards, designed for pilots of the belligerent nations of the Western Front fighting over Venetia, Galicia or Palestine, as well as optional lists of ranks with tweaked sequence of promotions allowing you, IMHO, much more realistic careers if used with Ojcar’s long-term campaigns. This Pack is a huge lot, and has been repeatedly re-engineered by a psychotic perfectionist. Each list of medals includes many links to other files, sometimes to my Western Front pack’s contents, and not all of the available panels have been tested on the long term. Please report all of the quirks, crashes, and other non-appearances of medals or citations you could experience. I shall then edit the Pack according to the problems found. IMPORTANT : There was an important warning in the ReadMe file of the latest upgrade of my WW1 Alternative Medals Pack for FE, to inform downloaders that this updated version had reshuffled orders of precedence, and that the decorations in each panel had their code names modified and their personal numbers reallocated, in such a way that it may certainly alter the lists of honours received already in any of your ongoing Allied or German campaigns. With this in mind, I have designed this ‘add-on’ “Beyond the Western Front” in order that it is actually a ‘stand-alone’. I mean that you won’t need to have installed any older or upgraded version of my Pack for the Western Front to enjoy the medals lists and bonuses enclosed here for the four Nations of Russia, Italy, Austria and Turkey. Still, you need to have installed the latest version of my Pack for the Western Front to use the optional medals lists. January 2016 modifications: Corrects a couple of graphical and regulation mistakes on the Italian panel, also adds a wound stripe (Distintivo di Ferito). Beware, these amendments could alter the Italian awards received during your ongoing campaigns started with my December 2015 panel. Submitter Capitaine Vengeur Submitted 12/17/2015 Category First Eagles - General Files - Hanger, Menu Screens