Stiffy

Never ceases to amaze me how many of you don't actually live in 1917!... sometimes I wonder if I take this game too far....

Lol thanks Red Dog. AS there are silly pictures of OFFers popping up over the forum couldnt resist trying the uniform on for a shot! Had to breath in to get it on though lol.

Huzzah! New camera for Christmas. A couple of updates one a minor detail the other a potential new direction for the jacket. First off on another visit to my local army surplus store I discovered they had some british service pistol lanyards in stock, these are similar to those used in the great war. Unfortunately I don't have a pistol as active hand guns are illegal in the UK and it is illegal to trade in replicas... I could get a deactivated service revolver but alot of money for something that doesnt go bang any more! As a compromise I have tucked the lanyard in to the pocket as was sometimes done if a trench whistle was attached rather than the pistol... I know it doesnt make sense for a pilot to have a whistle but had to put it somewhere! Second new item was an ebay find... It is a modified 1960s jacket made to look like an early war "Cuff Rank" Jacket. The fabric tape and pips are spot on may even be surplus originals but more likely repros (ww1 tape is the same as the tape used on sergeants stripes etc from ww2). The Jacket was originally made for a production of "Journeys End" in London's West End so has been modifed to a very high standard. It is fitted with stitched leather buttons which I have now learnt where often permitted for use on original uniforms as an alternative to shiny brass. The pattern of the buttons is correct for the period. I am now certain that I want to create an RFC jacket with these cuff ranks as they have a much more iconic look to them as they where only used in ww1 (up to 1917). This jacket however is also not a good fit so I have decided to make my own from another larger jacket! I have already tracked down a source of repro rank tape, all I need now is the correct pattern of jacket to modify... unfortunately my current RFC jacket has the late war 2 piece cuffs and cant be modified to this earlier style.... the hunt continues! Heres a shot of the new jacket with accesories. Very recognisable as a WW1 uniform with these cuffs.

Never worked out how to get in to multiplayer... I assume it is a private game but never had an IP address

Just waiting to get my new camera to put up some new shots...

Amazing!!!!!! Damn the french had style, cant wait to see the whole uniform. Great to see you are using mink oil on the sam brown, many people make the mistake of using olive oil or Neatsfoot oil on an antique, they will both eventually destroy the stitching and olive oil will permamnently darken the colour. I use Pecard Antique Leather Dressing and am very happy with the results, when my new camera arrives I will put some pictures up of my restored Sam Brown. Theres something odd about the fittings on your belt though... The upper ring that attached the belt to the shoulder strap is all wrong... perhaps a home made replacement? Should be a brass D ring... you can see the curved ring you have is tugging the leather on the belt side, may cause a split if tightened too much. D rings easily replaced from leather suppliers.... again I will put up a pic of a correct one from one of my belts (got 2 now!)

Finally got a chance to play some OFF! Downloaded HITR! Installed it all! Time to sit down and get back into the DiD campaign!!! ALL FLIGHTS CANCELLED And the weird thing is I still think the historical weather is a fantastic feature!... could try a different pilot... but I even like the immersion of being grounded lol

It's made in England, in Oxfordshire The photo must be from a foreign bottle.... over here the label reads... "Traditionally Crafted Legendary Ruby Beer" They brew some other good beers like Circle Master and Goliath And also a very nice english cider called Green Goblin

mmm beer.... right I 'm off to get one now! Got some Wychwood's Hobgoblin in the cupboard downstairs should be perfect.. just a slight chill below room temperature. And on that subject I think we need to clear up this whole english drinking warm beer thing! Firstly it is important to know the difference between lager and beer!... the stuff you drink in america like budweiser etc is not what we call beer! it is Lager! (yes I know it is technically a type of beer). We, like you drink LAGER icy cold Chilled. What we call beer is what is also known as Ale, which is drunk at (or just below) room temperature (not warm!). Although I love real ale Lager is far more popular over here these days... possibly as it is lighter and easier to drink and suits our penchant for binge drinking and casual violence! That being said I also love a pint of good German lager Of course the most important thing about british beer is we drink it in REAL pints (20oz) ... not the little 16oz things americans call pints

Dont know if you are already away of these guys... http://www.schipperfabrik.com/ Some good repro ww1 french uniform and equipment, including red breeches, gaiters, puttes etc... They also have everything someone would need to start a german flyers uniform.... C'mon Olham! you know you want to!

Finally finished all deadlines for the year! Now to get back to flying. Just payed my $23.77 and addon pack downloading!.... by the way....18.5% VAT!!!! is that standard American rate? And I thought 15% was bad over here. Anyway will be up again any time soon to give the Hun a thrashing!... although my new trackir combined with new AI may put my kill rate down for a while!

Definitely not suggesting the BE2 is anything other than a pig!... but ridiculous to assume it is correct for the pilot to just sit there reading his newspaper while you shoot him down... should at least try to evade.... I have shot them down without them even once banking slightly, just plodding along in a straight line. As for flying style I had based my assumption that it should be agressive rather than defensive on the fixed front gun.... didn't realise OBD had got it wrong! doesnt happen often!.... certainly cant find anything to support the presence of a fixed gun online... OBD please either wake the pilot up or give at least some BE2 flights the correct observer gun firing backwards over the pilots head! At the moment they are just a pigeon shoot for the Hun!

come to think of it... I'm not even sure you sit in the correct seat in OFF... in early BE2s the pilot should be in the back seat with the observer in front... late models switched positions.

Hmm thats odd I'm sure it has a front mounted gun in BHAH..... I'll have to check! Another point is they never have an observer gun in BHAH... in reality they had one unless they where carrying a heavy bomb load... havent seen one firing backwards yet in BHAH Apparantly the observers gun could be moved to 4 different positions... but had to be unbolted and physically lifted in flight! And I quite agree that it should be no match for a decent fighter.... but it shouldnt sit flying straight as if the pilot is asleep either! Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it Albert Ball who described it as "A bloody awful plane!"

This is either a great feature or a great fluke! Dont forget if you use this that it would take a long time to load a vickers belt compared with a few seconds to pass in some lewis drums! Ive often thought it would be great if you had to re load after each drum just like they had to in flight... after all when you hit shift-c in the Nie17 the lewis gun lowers to re-arm would be nice to have to reload it like this (blocking your view of course!)

This has come up before I think, trouble is not all 2 seaters should behave the same... an FE2 should act far more like a fighter but concentrating on evasion while the gunner takes the shots... BE2 is the worst as it doesnt act anything like the real thing, they where designed to be aggresive in combat with a fixed front facing gun, not defensive... It should try to turn constantly to get you in it's sights not just sit there as if it has a rear gunner. If they didn't dogfight they would not have bothered with the weight of a gun at the front. Still not clear why it can't be corrected as the German 2 seaters dog fight properly. It is a bit of a myth that 2 seaters just plodded along... they where designed to fight... BE2 was an early dogfighter... FE2 shot down more Fokkers than the DH2.... Bristol fighter was just that, a fighter. Havent played the new addon yet so hopefully much of this may have been fixed!

Just found a bit of info I wasnt previously aware of.. Acording to Captain W.E. Johns RFC german anti-aircraft explosions were black.... British/french anti-aircraft explosions were white! Presumably due to differences in the charges used. This had a HUGE impact on ww1 flying. You could tell if an aircraft was an enemy or not from miles away simply by the colour of the flak bursts around them!!!! Is there any way this can be added to OFF (if CFS3 allows) as it means that we are missing a major visual element of ww1 air combat. For anyone playing off without the radar you are flying with far less info than the real pilots actually had! For now i will start to use targetting to simulate the fact that I would definitely know if a distant spec was friend or foe.

Fantastic! 1940s fashion still looks great today... bring back trilbys and fedoras! Any excuse to dress up is good in my book! Here's me in 1942 arresting a "Spiv" I caught selling silk stockings on the black market. (thats me with the pipe!) And here I am enjoying some Babycham in 1973 And looking like the typical English binge drinker back in 400AD! I've got some 40s stuff I took on an original camera somewhere.. I'll try to dig it out.

Update on the unusual uniform I found..... Turns out that some british officers still used the old fashioned style right up to 1942, especially if they had a tailor with older patterns. Just sold it on ebay for £92 (bought it for £40) Spent the money on a new item for the uniform.... watch this space!

Just to confirm....if you are doing Siggi's DiD campaign ignore the DiD in the sticky! It is not the same as we are using in the campaign. Siggi has changed the gun acuracy to inaccurate instead of normal. You want the DiD rules on Siggi's campaign website.

I go awol for a week and when I come back you've bought up all the bargains in france! Some really nice looking pieces. And glad you went for the red breeches! Best option in my opinion as they underline just how flambouyant the early war french uniforms were and are a strong reminder of how not too many years before hand soldiers were still marching slowly towards each other in line and charging on cavalry. Ive just won an item on ebay that should greatly alter the appearance of my uniform.... watch this space! Hopefully it should arrive this side of Christmas.

Outstanding!... really think this would look fantastic over some red breeches..... but that is a matter of personal taste!

actually for what it is... 2 million doesnt seem bad! http://www.vintageaviation.net/Original%20Sopwith%20Camel.htm one of only 4 in existence... and the only one left actually built at sopwith factory

Have to agree that cetainly in England if you mentioned a fokker triplane or fokker DR1 to your average man in the street they wouldnt know what you where talking about... As soon as you mention ww1 flying they say "oh you mean in sopwith camels?" If however you ask them to describe what german planes looked like they will usually say "they were all red weren't they?" They would recognise a picture of a DR1 better than a sopwith though (as long as it was bright red!) So... Sopwith camel - more famous name Red Fokker DR1 - More famous image

Thanks to a particularly generous OFFer I have managed to get a TrackIR! So much more emersive!... my kills may go down for a while though, much harder than using the padlock in my opinion... I have to keep track of enemy planes manually now!