Stiffy

Blimey, I was actually right! It is for filling the balloon, this is taken from http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/ss/index.html Evaluation tests on the first SS craft, the SS2 were made in March of 1915 some 5 weeks after that first meeting. The ship was 70,000 cft and 140ft in length. The ship was effectivly an aeroplane fuselage without wings slung below an envelope. There were eventually 3 types of “SS” or submarine scout class ships after the initial prototype was built. Each was quickly and cheaply assembled by attaching the wingless fuselage of a B.E.2c aeroplane beneath a simple envelope. Minor modifications were made to the original design, namely the placement of the blower to fill the ballonet in the envelope, and on the 18th March, less than 3 weeks after work began the new airship was entered in to service. Admiral Fisher commented his approval with the famous comment "Now I must have forty!" Looks like these early ones did only have one internal balloon! which i would imagine would make them very easy to shoot down. Heres some models with custom built fuselages. Note the bomb! apparently some models also had machine guns... so what are the chances of these ever being added to OFF? :) half the work is done you just need to take the wings off a B.E.2c!

Also noticed that later it is described as a derigible so fits with the theory of outer shell over smaller nets of balloons. The idea of many small ballons inside makes it much less likely that a punture/;bullet will bring it down as only one small balloon is effected.

One end is situated directly behind the propellor, the other feeds into the balloon. Is it possible this is to pump air into the outer ballon to maintain pressure and keep it rigid? The actual hydrogen is likely in many smaller balloons inside the outer held in place with nets (as with larger zepelins) the outer balloon is probably just ther for aerodynamics.

JUNE 1917

Yes almost all of the images are photographs but a large proportion of them have been touched up. This is probably due to the unreliability of the cameras of the time which photographed onto glass plates instead of film, often the images are over exposed and to washed out for printing. Also the process of transfering the image to a brass printing plate often alters the appearance making it look more like a painting. A particularly bad example of touching up is the 'photo' of guynemer inspecting a kill which has clearly had alot of ink added lmaking the image flat and painting like. You can spot the real illustrations however as they tend to be overly dramatic and absurdly patriotic, usually featuring hoards of terrified germans surrendering to a single plucky tommy who, against all odds, has managed to develope the physique of a bodybuilder while on trench rations.

Lol its my fault for choosing a silly forum name!... typical just when you least expect a duoble entendre.... someone gives you one.

Good lord... your right! And if anyone still has any doubt, here is the original photograph the image has been taken from! Sorry i dont have a larger version. Mystery solved. I'd be interested if anyone spots any other discrepencies in 'The War Illustrated' Clearlyintelligence wasnt particularly good.

That suits me fine! i'd much rather play co-op as a squadron against AI I'll try to get multiplayer up as a priority when it arrives!

Yes I downloaded everything from Microsoft. The problem wasnt the file it was the fact that I have downloaded 1.3a without first downloading 1.3. Anyway CF3 is now ready for OFF... hopefully OFF should arrive early next week if everyone elses postage experience is anything to go by!

Unless fo course its a picture of Lothar..... The uniforn is certainly right for lothar as he was a dragoon not an Ulan. It bears slightly more resemblance to him than manfred in my opinion (only younger). It would be an easy mistake for the press to make, after all if they had a picture of lieutnant Baron Von Richtofen... that could be either of them as they were both Frieherrs (litterally 'free lord' / Baron). If it is Manfred then it must have been taken before 1911 when he joined the Ulanen-Regiment Kaiser Alexander der III. von Russland, from which point he wore the distinctive double breasted uniform. This could explain differences in appearance as he would be a cadet in his mid to late teens. Heres a pic of lothar (possibly older???) Anyway... its definitely NOT a picture of Manfred during the war thats for certain.

Hmm yes I was wondering about the Richtofen picture. I had wondered if it was perhap a much younger shot of him as a cadet? This would explain facial difference... possibly. Several things show this picture is not right for the time... No pour le Merite (got after 17 i think?) No double breasted cavalry uniform Hat is rigid (richtofen like many other pilots ripped the wire out of his hat) Biggest problem i have with it is his cleft chin... although this may be the light as richtofen had a very slight crease and undoubtedly put on a little weight as he got older.

Count me in! Can't see myself getting into ROF multiplayer as it frankly seems a little limited. Is multiplayer on OFF pure 2 team combat... or can you fly missions against ai? Would be great to try multiplayer in a 2 seater.

Ahh sorted... I should read more carefully! Was trying to download 1.3a mini patch which requires 1.3 to be installed already. found the right file now and installing! All done... now i just need OFF to turn up! Cant stand another day of making do with ROF with no opponents!

APRIL/MAY 1917 Mention of a promising young german lieutenant... and a new Fokker... Focker D6 perhaps? Hard to tell from drawings. Doesnt look like they had much to work with drawing an albatross either!

I had a look at computer pilot website... only one article about OFF and thats 3 years old... dont take offence at this... but do they even know about Phase 3? I'd never heard of OFF before last month.. and then all i'd heard is it was an addon for CF3. i'm sure thats pretty standard for the majority of the gaming population. The good thing is though that i and i'm sure many others are discovering it when looking for info on ROF.

MARCH/APRIL 1917 Any chace of mini airships in OFF? I'm no expert on Italian planes.. anyone know what the sea plane is?

Shouldnt be a problem watching it on a computer though... provided you have multi region software. Might have to get a copy of this at some point. Do you know what aircraft they used for filming? Not often you find authentic aircraft in something of this age... remember the strange radial engined german planes in Aces high?.. and the se5s with swept back wings. Would be great to find this more authentic!

Ok, I cant find the stuff from 1916 anywhere.... but I have from Feb 1917. I'll just go through in order picking out anything about aviation. If anyone wants anything non aviation let me know... battle reports etc. Out of interest can anyone identify the crashed german plane? Looks like an albatross tail plane... iron crosses on wheels. FEB/MARCH 1917

Can anyone tell me how easy it is to set up OFF for LAN play? I run a lan party with friends and we are considering investing in a few more copies for network play. We can't use ROF as there is no internet connection at the site we use (rented cottage, room full of PCs, fridge full of beer). I havent recieved my copy yet so not even sure it has LAN capabilities!... but i expect it will do.

Hi all Well ive been waiting for a new WW1 sim since Red Baron 3D. Recently bought a copy of ROF but until i upgrade my processor it wont run more than 2 planes in the air..... but then i discovered a ROF forum mentioning OFF! (i know comparing the two on forums is frowned upon... but if people didnt I would never have discovered it!) I ordered straight way of course. Does anyone know how long it takes to arrive in UK? Also does anyone know what the minimum and recomended specs are? Website seems a bit vague just stating 'low' medium' and 'good' PCs. I have a Dual Core Celeron 1.8 with a Geforce 9500GT and 4gb RAM... is this enough for top settings? Can't wait to get im my DH-2!

I'm in the UK Plymouth, Devon, England

I have some original british newspapers from the great war somewhere.... mostly centered on key events. I'll scan them if they are any use. I also have a several large volumes of 'The War Illustrated' An original british weekly photographic publication which has then been bound into several books. I have a complete weekly run from 1916 to 1918, I can pull a few sample scans if you'd like.... If anyone knows the Blackadder goes fourth TV show, 'The War Illustrated' is what they based the 'King and Country' magazine on.... pure propaganda of course.

it doesnt run ROF, thats why ive ordered OFF :)

another point i'd be interested to hear about is the networking capabilitys/problems with this game. I occasionally run LAN parties with some friends and they were very interested in running networked ROF.... but of course you can only do it via the internet and there is no connection where we host the parties just local area. OFF would seem to be the obvious choice but i've heard there are complications/problems involved.... or is that just for online play?

Ahh thats good to hear, as long as i can get it looking half decent with a good framerate i'll be happy!