33LIMA

PS I should have mentioned that at time of writing, there is a sale ongoing on the RoF Store (also on Steam), until 9th September 2016, with all aircraft and many other items significantly reduced. And you can get information, links and support for Pat wilson's Campaign Generator here... http://riseofflight.com/forum/forum/394-pat-wilsons-campaign-generator/ ...and a range of other mods here... http://rofmods.com/en/ ...and skin packs here: http://riseofflight.com/forum/topic/45373-new-useful-materials-page-official-links/ Good hunting!

Finale! I begin a full power spiral climb to clear my tail and looking around, see only a couple of Albatri, swinging in behind in an effort to regain formation. Evidently, the fight is over. I ease back on the throttle to let them catch up, and am pleased to see a third Albatros pulling up from below and behind, apparently none the worse for the excitement, earlier. Soon, our formation is back together. One, possibly two kills, for no losses – that’ll do nicely. As we regain height, I find we have drifted south of our patrol area, so I turn around to head back up there, climbing gently. As we go, I spot a distant speck against the sky to the south, moving across our front from left to right, heading west, towards the lines. There is no flak, but as a precaution, I settle onto an intercepting course. I do this by setting the ‘Tizzy Angle’, named for a Polish RAF fighter pilot from WW2 who described it. You aim ahead of the target and steer a course that keeps it onthe same relative bearing. If the target is edging ahead, you’re going to fall in behind him so you correct by aiming further ahead; if it’s edging behind, you’re coming in ahead of him and correct by aiming less far ahead. When the angle is right, you should see the target stationary, just growing in size. You can change to the curve of pursuit thing when you get close enough. As the range winds down, I see to my surprise that he’s a dark-coloured Nieuport. Is this a new foe I hadn’t seen before, or has the second Nieuport recovered? I go for him myself, and the turning begins again. My flight-mates go for him too and soon seem to have the battle well in hand, although there is so much whirling about that I fear there could be a collision. I pull up to watch the fight, not wanting any part of that. As I watch, something falls away from one of the aircraft. I think it's an aileron from the Nieuport, and hope there hasn't been a mid-air. But no, the Nieuport has had it. He falls away, going down in flames, like his comrade. The skies around us are now clear of the enemy. I'm not sure who incercepted whom, but an interception it was. Time to go home, I decide; I'm something of a believer in that motto about getting out, while you're ahead. My three comrades - all in machines identical to mine, save for their mauve and green upper wings - all seem to be undamaged. Speaking of damage, one unsatisfactory feature of the RoF damage model is - or maybe was - that rigging damage to an Albatros was manifested by all the interplane rigging wires, on both sides, simply disappearing. Which was pretty naff. I have not seen this since resuming playing, so I'm hoping that one of the last updates fixed this. As I am about to discover, one thing that hasn't been fixed is the AI's landing abilities, or the lack thereof. Not a complete lack; I have seen a damaged RE8 make a decent forced landing, after his engine spluttered and failed. He sort of spoiled it, though, by re-starting his engine, and trying to take off again. Which was fair enough, except that he ran smack into some inconveniently-sited trees, and cracked up. Anyhow, I fly all the way back to Pronville in real time, admitting the landscape, including the moving cloud shadows. As I mentioned earlier, the dark blobs of the forests are the only thing I don’t like; those, and the rather zipper-like trench lines. I haven’t been close enough to a cloud to notice if they still seem to jerk occasionally, but the incidence of ‘flikering trees’ seems to have stopped or reduced. I turn in and land. I can't recall what the done thing is, as regards your flight-mates upon return to base. But dark memories of reports of silly behaviour are rather brutally confirmed when one of my flight nearly lands on top of me, ploning down over to my left, while a second Albatros smacks down and flips onto his back, nearly in front of me. The third Albatros seems to have managed a go-around, although I cannot avoid clipping the inverted idiot with my port wings as I roll past him. The one who nearly landed on top of me rolls on and flips over, after clipping a hut next to a hangar. At least the mechanics won't have to go far, to pick up the pieces. I quit the mission quickly, hoping to do so before the fourth Albatros can come a cropper, too! Back in Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator, I file my victory claim... ...then play the animated map debriefing, which confirms that we got three Nieuports... Finally, it's time for me to write my mission report... And here's the Jasta Boelcke roster at the end of the mission, showing my four kills from two missions. I've still got a way to go, compared to the staffel's real-life rising stars, as you can see. Here's my pilot log book or 'dossier'... ...and here are my awards and decorations. To my pilot's badge, I have already added an Iron Cross. Not bad going, eh? Maybe I'll get to see Countess Kaeti von Klugermann watch me have that Blue Max hung about my shoulders, after all! Well, I must say the experience so far in this campaign has been much better than I recall from past such outings in RoF. I suspect it's a combination of PWCG and the AI mods; for one thing, experience in other missions seems to indicate that two-seater gunners are no longer firing laser-guided bullets, unaffected by the manoeuvrings of their aircraft. And general pilot AI seems...well, not as capable or credible as either First Eagles or Wings over Flanders Fields, but much more acceptable...apart from those landing crack-ups. With the benefits of PWCG's features - not least the pilot and mission records - the whole single player campaign experience is proving very satisfactory, and I'm looking forward to trying to get that Pour le Mérite. Brother Bruno has got some friendly competition!

Trouble shows up... Round and round we go, waiting for whatever we came here to intercept, to show up. It doesn't. So I allow my attention to wander to the scenery. There's three more Albatros scouts behind me, so I reckon I can afford to fit in a little sight-seeing, though in between, I'm careful to scan the skies. I bank slightly right and look down, towards an airfield I can see near a village close to the river...or is it a canalised river - it has several long, straight sections. My printed map tells me I'm looking at Hermes, which is about 7 kilometres south-south-west of our base at Pronville. In Rof, aircraft seem generally very tail heavy. Reportedly, this was a common characteristic of WW1 planes and many didn't have any form of trim, apart from what could be achieved by adjusting the rigging. I vaguely recall, some while back, doing the RoF equivalent - fiddling with joystick profiles - in an effort to reduce tail heaviness in the planes I commonly flew. This might have included my D.III, but she's still noticeably tail heavy, which results, in my case, in a tendency to porpoise. One moment, my flight-mates are slightly below me... ...the next, they are once more stacked up behind and slightly above, though perhaps having fallen back a little, as here... One we go, reagrdless. It's one of my infrequent taps of the padlock key which reveals the enemy. I'd prefer it if they had been brought to my attention through aircraft being even slightly more visible at a given range in the cockpit view, like they are in the external view (or with on-screen aids turned on). Or if their presence had been revealed by flak bursts - after all, they are well over on our side of the lines. Reagrdless, there they are...two distant specks in the sky, which you might just about be able to make out in the centre of the sceeen below, about three-quarters of the way up the leading edge of the rear arm of my 'N'-shaped left-hand centre section strut. I turn into them. It seems they spotted us first, because they are heading straight towards us. It all looks rather unfriendly. As we run in head on, I realise they are a pair of Nieuport scouts; their frontal aspect is quite distinctive. Here they come! And there they go! I just have time for the shortest of bursts at the right-hand machine before they have flashed past, straight into our formation, which breaks up at once. The Nieuports - Englishmen, from their RFC roundels, with the blue ring outermost - can pull tighter turns than I can manage, and they seem to have a decent zoom climb, too. I avoid dumping my speed by trying to turn inside them and allow myself to go wide, while holding my height. With four against two, I can bide my time. And I know I need to be wary of colliding with a friend who is chasing the same target – after all, that is how the illustrious ace after whom our staffel was named came to grief last year. Soon enough, my time comes. My chosen Nieuport shakes off his pursuer, and I drop onto his tail in the approved fashion, like a falcon onto his prey. I get some hits, but have to break as he turns underneath me. I pull up and look around. Finding myself clear I roll in again after the Nieuport, who is now flying level, trailing a fine wisp of pale grey smoke. I overhaul him rapidly, check behind, then let him have it. A quick glance to the rear reveals the other Nieuport is coming up behind me, but there are three Albatrosses with him, so I decide that I can concentrate on the enemy in front. But my attention is held to the rear, as I suddenly see one of the planes pull up then fall away, possibly out of control. The distance ,and the sun glinting on his upper surfaces, mean I cannot be sure who he is, friend or foe. Facing front again, I clear a stoppage in one of my guns and watch my tracers fly at the other Nieuport. He takes no evasive action this time, and suddenly, a banner of dark smoke unrolls in his wake, his left wing drops and I see the orange glow of fire underneath his motor. I bank around and see him go into a steep spiral earthwards. No need to watch him crash; he’s clearly doomed. Now, to find out what's been going on behind me! ...to be continued!

Looking for trouble... For my second mission, we draw something slightly different. The last sortie was a patrol up to, then down, the trenchlines, just on our side. This time, it’s an intercept mission, deeper into our own territory. This isn’t World War 2 so I have no idea if whatever our ground observers have spotted will be there when we arrive, so perhaps it’s more of a defensive patrol over a possibly threatened locality. Before leaving PWCG, I decide to take my more habitual flight of four. Leutnant von Tutscheck has survived his prang at the end of the last mission so I elect to bring him along again, adding two more pilots that I out-rank to ensure that I am flight leader. I like it that PWCG lets me opt to fly with the same people, like First Eagles, rather than forcing me to take random flight-mates who differ each time. Looking at the map - the screenshot below shows our assigned route as it appears after switching to RoF - I can see that the locality we are to patrol for any sign of the enemy is just north of a large, irregularly-shaped wood, near a prominent river. I commit this layout to memory as it will help me orient myself, with minimal reference to the in-flight mini-map. It's only a short distance south-east from our airfield, so as usual, I'll be readily able to fly the whole mission in real time, without boredom setting in. This time, I do not forget to choose a custom skin for my plane before kicking off the mission, picking a Jasta Boelcke default. As it happens, this gives me tri-colour (green/brown/dark green) upper surfaces which do not exhibit the pixellated effect of the green & mauve finish the others carry. Here we are, lined up on the grass at Pronville. The aircrew animations in RoF are very good, and include flight leaders waving to indicate to the flight that they should start engines. Keyboard commands let you initiate several hand-signals, which are initiated automatically if you issue a comamnd like a formation change or a recall, sometimes accompanied by the launching of a coloured flare signal. The only things I like less are that polits don't scan as efficiently as they do in First Eagles, and while it';s good that observers/gunners sometimes sit down, they tend to do so too often, including during combat conditions. Also good are aircraft animations like the valves on the ylinder heads of my Albatos's Mercedes engine and the cocking handles that move when I cock or re-cock my twin machine guns. As I have not elected to use 'complex engine management', I can see the radiator handle just right and above my head move every so often, opening or closing the transverse slats below my centre section radiator, to keep my temperatures in order. Great stuff! As usual ,I have swung to one side on takeoff and shied away from over-correcting, so I've come off the ground at a significant angle to the others. But that's better than cracking up on takeoff. I continue around to the left and gain height as I pass the airfield. The tower-like structure you can see behind the 'sheds' is a water tower, I believe. These are quite common in RoF and are a realistic feature of this area. I level off and throttle back, to let the others catch up. You can select a fformation before launching the mission and order changes in flight, but I've just accepted the default, which you can see is echelon right. Formations in RoF can become ragged sometimes, and for a time one of my men falls below, before catching up again. Perhaps this would happen less, if I didn't wander about the sky a bit! Looking to my left rear, I can already see the large wood near a river, that marks the southern limit of our patrol area. I really do like RoF's landscapes, complete with moving cloud shadows. The one thing I like less is that beyond the near distance, stretches of woodland can look somehow flat and...well, 'blobby', for want of a better description. Once more, the weather is fine and again, we are soon on our way, climbing up as we swing around and down to the south-east. Nearing our patrol area, we begin to orbit, at about what I think should be an appropriate height – not too low to be able to climb up after a higher adversary, nor too high to spot one trying to sneak in below us. If I’m lucky, friendly flak bursts will help me locate any enemies, but this isn’t FE/FE2 and luck may or may not be with me today. One disadvantage of flying in RoF’s virtual cockpits is that it is has quite a zoomed-out, wide field-of-view, which makes distant aircraft look very far away, and hard to spot. By contrast, the external view has a more ‘telephoto’, lower field of view look, leaving the same planes looking much larger and a lot more visible. I dare say there may be some settings I could tweak here, and there is an icon mode which displays quite neat aircaft markers in the 3-d world. But my preference is to flick on the padlock, every so often. This I haven’t seen pick up planes beyond what I think would be reasonable visibility, so I rationalise this as spotting planes during routine scanning that myself or a flight-mate could readily have seen. And I don’t do it too often. I have also noticed that my present mini-map settings will display a little black aircraft symbol if there is an enemy fairly close by, a bit like a map-based version of the Tactical Display available in WoFF. Again, I use the Ro/F mini-map sparingly. I would use both mini-map and padlock less often still, if distant aircraft were more visible from RoF’s cockpit view – or were more often rendered so, by AA fire directed at them. But I’m finding that I’m ok with the present set-up; mainly because I’m now having encounters more regularly than I recalled with my early forays into RoF. The empty skies seem empty, no more. Precisely why, I don’t know. Perhaps it's an effect of newer versions of PWCG. Planes may still be spawning inside a ‘bubble’ occupied by the player, but if so, it’s not obvious. And I don’t care if the skies outside that bubble are indeed empty – no need to waste processing power generating enemies I’ll never meet, enemies that’ll have no effect on the static WW1 battlefield below. For a while as we orbit, it seems that the skies may indeed be empty. I begin to wonder if not being careful to hit waypoints on my way here, means a trigger hasn’t generated an enemy flight I’m supposed to watch out for. The views are most delightful, but I'm not here on a sight-seeing trip. Where are the Englishmen? ...to be continued!

Campaign set-up...and first mission RoF has a ‘career’ mode with some nice features. Some are fine with this, and I can’t remember now why I didn’t particularly warm to it. Like (I suspect) most RoF single players, I have tended to prefer the alternative ‘Campaign Generator’ system developed by Pat Wilson and recently adapted for Il-2 Battle of Stalingrad, whose stock SP campaign system was...well, let's just say here, unusual and controversial. 'PWCG' has evolved over the years; my version is #16, not quite the latest - 'Be not first with the new, nor last with the old' - but it’s what I had installed, when I started this campaign the other day. I have long since used the 'Planes owned' option to tell PWCG which aircraft I can fly, and tweaked some other settings. I believe the latest version of PWCG is automatically integrated with RoF's menu, so easing the process I'm going now to describe. In short, you run PWCG first, and create a pilot in a given unit at a given date. You can then do various thinks like checking out what other units are flying in your area. You can also adjust many mission-related settings, perhaps the most important being those related to enemy air activity, which I have set at ‘Medium’. My current campaign is the one listed above for Richard Stachel (yes, I'm an unashamed fan of the movie The Blue Max, so I'm flying as Bruno's brother, Richard). The next important task is to generate a campaign mission. This I did, and below is the map-based briefing for the mission I got. Note the rather good supporting information, in the panels to the right. Unfortunately, my zoomed-in screenshot has cut off part of the right-hand panel and the bottom of my patrol route, but that's basically just south, down the lines - the cross-hatched zone around 'No Man's Land' running roughly north-south, with each side's front lines marked in olive (Germany) and blue (Britain, in this sector). You can ‘scrub’ the mission if you fancy trying for something different. Mission types are what you’d expect, but for two-seaters include simulated artillery observation and aerial reconnaissance, which were the most important and common missions for World War One's 'working planes', but seem rarely featured well, if at all, in WW1 sims. This shows what's basically a segment of RoF's printable map (a nice printed copy comes with the Iron Cross Edition, which I picked up in Spain as a 'backup'). One thing I don't like here is the way the labels on the patrol route obscure map detail. As this info is already in the top RH panel, it would be better not printed on your route; maybe just the waypoints numbered, if anything. Because I dislike formation flying and prefer the extra tactical challenge of patrol leading, the next thing I generally do is review the roster for the mission and remove or add pilots, so that I am the senior rank and thus leading the flight. In playing First Eagles 2, I tend to fly a four-aircraft flight picking the same pilots each time, but this time, for some reason I can't remember, I settled for just one companion, Leutnant Adolph von Tutscheck, who like others on the roster, really flew with Jasta Boelcke at this time. Neat! Having generated the mission, I accepted it, minimised PWCG and launched RoF. Some versions of PWCG could be integrated into the user interface of some versions of RoF, so you could run everything from the latter, but functionally it’s the same drill, and it's neither complicated nor tedious. When RoF loads, the mission you just generated and accepted is listed under single missions. You fly it, and afterward return to PWCG, where, as we will see later, you can record any claims for victories, view a map-based mission replay, and write a combat report. I have various mods enabled, including Criquet’s AI mods for scouts (fighters) and two-seaters, and several skin packs. RoF doesn’t use a decal system like First Eagles (or classic Il-2) but you can choose a ‘skin’ for your own plane and if an ace is flying whose machine has a skin of its own, see that one on his aircraft. Here were are soon after take-off, from the airfield at Pronville (rather than Proville in WoFF; both airfields existed) near Cambrai. As per the briefing, the weather is good. Historically, the real weather was poor at the start of the Battle of Arras in early April 1917, as replicated nicely by WoFF. I get enough crap weather at home in real life, so I’m not complaining about RoF’s blue skies! As a leader, my Albatros has a blue streamer, attached (as is usual in RoF) to my upper main plane, inboard of the port aileron. I have neglected to choose a custom skin, but I will remedy this on the next mission. One consequence is that the cockpit view will display the heavily-pixellated outer surfaces from which some colours on some planes suffer. Take-offs in RoF I find to be much more likely to result in a ‘prang’ than in either WoFF or FE/FE2. Your nose may swing strongly and your wings can wobble up and down as you bump over the grass. I find it quite easy to ground loop or dig in a wingtip, if my control inputs are other than gentle. I tend to maintain gentle back pressure on the stick to keep my tailskid on the ground, the drag helping keep me straight until I have built up what I judge is enough speed to let the tail come up with the minimum of control input – it seems easy to over-correct and bring on a crash. For this reason, I tend to settle for taking the edge off any swing, rather than risk a crash by trying to keep dead straight. This can result in me getting off at a noticeable angle to my original heading from rest, but hey, grass airfields make that do-able and when I’m airborne, I feel I’ve accomplished something requiring a certain amount of skill, rather than undertaken a chore requiring none. Once aloft, I call up the mini-map and adjust my heading onto the first leg of my route. I’m afraid I usually have little time for navigating by real map and compass, though I may start. The printed/printable RoF map corresponds nicely with what you can see in-game, making more realistic navigation a more attractive option. Another thing I find about RoF is that I spend more time flying from the cockpit, than in the external view. In other sims, I generally switch to the cockpit view for combat. It’s a combination of factors, but the sights, sounds and visibility – I use mouselook – make RoF’s cockpits a more welcoming place for me. With their considerable tail heaviness and tendency to wander, I also find it easier to maintain attitude and heading from within, rather than outside, my virtual aeroplane. Perhaps it's my flying, but it can take a little while for my flight-mates to settle into formation; they generally keep up tolerably well, once they have. A word on aircraft visibility: one disadvantage of flying in RoF’s virtual cockpits is that it is has quite a zoomed-out, wide field-of-view, which makes distant aircraft look very far away, and hard to spot. You can zoom in and out as you scan, but that is rather tedious. By contrast, the external view has a more ‘telephoto’, lower field-of-view look, leaving the same planes, at the same range, looking much larger and a lot more visible. I dare say there may be some settings I could tweak here. But for now, I tend to flick on the padlock every so often. I don't think this magically picks up planes I should not be able to spot in real life, so I rationalise this as noticing aircraft that myself, or a flight-mate, could readily have seen while scanning. I don’t turn on padlock too often, as a balance. I have also noticed that my present mini-map settings will display a little black aircraft symbol if there is an enemy fairly close by. It's a bit like a map-based version of the Tactical Display available in WoFF. Again, I use the RoF mini-map sparingly. I would use both mini-map and padlock less often still, if distant aircraft were more visible from RoF’s cockpit view – or were more often rendered visible, by AA fire directed at them. But I’m finding that I’m ok with the present set-up; mainly because I’m now having encounters more regularly than I recalled with my early forays into RoF – the empty skies seem empty, no more. Precisely why, I don’t know. Planes may still be spawning inside a ‘bubble’ occupied by the player, but if so, it’s not obvious, and I don’t care if the skies outside that bubble are indeed empty – no need to waste processing power generating enemies I’ll never meet, enemies that’ll have no effect on the static WW1 battlefield below. This time, I don't need the padlock to spot three specks in the sky, over the lines to our right front, at nearly our level. They're not being fired on, so I am clueless as to their identity. As I watch, the group splits up: one of the machines flies off to the left, the other two to the right. In such situations, I always follow 'Mick' Mannock's rule, that an unidentified aircraft must always be treated as hostile, until proved otherwise. I swing north, away from our patrol route, to intercept the two aircraft. In the picture below, you can see them just above my offset centre section radiator, while the third aircraft is above the Maltese cross on my port upper wing. The two aircraft turn east, towards the German lines. They're still not being fired on and from their distant but distinctive profile as I climb past their level, I get the impression they are DFW two-seaters. My identification is correct, and the two slip past below and to our right, homeward bound. One of them is glinting in the sunlight off my starboard wingtip; the other is above my nose. I turn back south and am soon flying along our patrol route, above our lines. In the picture below, you can see the rather ugly pixellated effect you get on exterior textures with some colours on some skins. Strange, that a relatively modern sim should exhibit this; on my next mission I'll have a skin which doesn't do this. Uh-oh! A glance up and right reveals von Tutscheck is no longer there. Looking back over my tail, I can clearly see why. He's in an air fight, rather far back already, with three enemy scouts which must have crept up on us! Needless to say, I spin around and have at them. 'Them' turns out to be three DH 2s, pusher fighters that the Germans knew as Vickers types, after the original Vickers FB2 'Gun-bus'. They are highly manouevrable but don't like the fire of two synchronised MGs. I surprise myself by chasing one off damaged and smoking, then knocking down first one, then the other! During all this, I have lost sight of von Tutscheck, and conclude sadly that I have been too late to save him. I'm all the more pleased, therefore, when I begin my usual post-combat full-power spiral climb and, looking back to clear my tail, see he's still very much alive. He's trailing some white smoke, but still apparently determined to rejoin formation. Time to go home! I level off and, throttled back, lead my comrade back towards our base. The Rise of Flight mission end screen confirms my three kills... ..but this is a PWCG campaign mission I'm flying, and something a whole lot more interesting and immersive awaits me, than this rather dry summary. First, I'm invited to submit a quick claim form, which I duly complete, using the drop-down lists supplied to select the number and type of aircraft I am claiming to have brought down. Next, I can elect to view an animated, map-based mission replay. The picture below shows this after it has finished playing, marking out my track and listing the mission's main events. That von Tutscheck is shown as 'Destroyed' indicates he, or rather his machine, has cracked up on landing, though I didn't see this happen - more of this in the next mission, where he'lll be flying with me again. Finally, I get to see a mission summary, to which I can append a typed combat report of my own (under 'Narrative'; everything else is pre-populated). As you can see, I wasn't sure I had knocked down the first 'Vickers', because after chasing him from the fight I immediately went back to help my comrade. Truly, I find bringing my men back alive is as satisfying as shooting down the enemy. Unlike WoFF, I don't think your RoF combat report helps you get kills confirmed, as this appears to be automatic. However, for me, the PWCG 'before' and 'after' mission elements really lift the Rise of Flight single player campaign experience, from rather ordinary, to something altogether more immersive and wonderful. I was also quite pleased, even on 'medium' air activity settings, to find that I was able to see and/or encounter other flights going credibly about their business, in a way I saw more rarely in my previous 'empty skies' outings with Rise of Flight, even with previous versions of PWCG. So far, so good. But I'm going to need at least another decent mission, to prove this isn't a fluke! ...to be continued!

The prologue (skip, if you don't like digressions)... To renew my acquaintance with Rise of Flight, I decided to fly a Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG) career flying an Albatros D.III with Jasta Boelcke in April 1917. This was partly because I had recently completed a similar campaign in Wings over Flanders Fields, which, fresh in my mind, would form a useful yardstick. When I say ‘completed’, I don’t mean ‘brought to a satisfactory conclusion’. Unless you consider this satisfactory: We’ll come back to RoF in a moment but to digress a little, that whole final mission was unsatisfactory, not just the finale. I had led my flight south towards the airfield over which we to try to catch hostile aircraft. About half-way there, a check to my rear revealed they were no longer in formation behind me, but were sliding off to my left. I thought at first they were attacking something I couldn't see amidst the clouds, but no. Instead, they spiralled down, to the cloudbase and then on down, below, until they were putzing about just above ground level, seemingly flying in circles. I believe this sort of AI behaviour in WoFF commonly has two causes. First, they have departed to attack an enemy they have spotted, without letting you, their leader, know. I’ve seen this happen in RoF as well, and would find it less unrealistic if both sims operated like the AI in First Eagles/FE2, which will stick with their leader unless actually attacked, or about to be. They still won't announce their sighting - no WW1 sim seems to have cracked this, short of using on-screen visual aids - but at least in FE/FE2, they don't break formation lightly. The other WoFF explanation for mass disobedience is, I believe, that your buddies have come to the conclusion you are is no longer able to lead, and that they should continue the mission with a new fellow at the helm. Today, neither of these explanations seemed to fit: the first, because there was no enemy around, the second, because I had done nothing to indicate that I was abdicating my leadership and they showed no inclination of continuing the mission. I watched this rather unsatisfactory circus for a while, hoping that either its cause would become apparent, or my flight would give up and rejoin. Sadly, neither of these things happened. And in WoFF, the ‘Rejoin!’ command only works as a recall after a ground attack, for whatever reason. So I lost patience, gave up and decided I would do a short ‘lone wolf’ patrol over the friendly airfield we were to protect. I’d do just enough to show willing, show my face as it were. My pilot’s career was developing quite nicely and I was in no mood to spoil my chance of a Blue Max by wading in to an unequal fight of any description. So that’s what I did. I flew down there and then made a few circuits where the fellows down below should be able to see me, like I was looking for trouble, rather than looking to stay out of it. But as soon as I felt that honour had been satisfied, I turned back for home. When I arrived there, I still hadn’t lost enough height for a ‘straight in’ approach and overflew our base, the better also to get a good look at three Albatri that had already landed – members of my errant flight, I suspected. You can see them, near the top left of the picture below, taken as I was turning in for my overflight. While making said overflight prior to turning back onto a final approach, I was suddenly shot at from behind by the leader of a small pack of SPADs. Really, this was too much! My frustration boiled over and I turned and went for the leading Frenchman, using my superior manoeuvrability to get onto his tail. Even as I tanned his hide with my twin Spandaus, I was thinking, ‘Now, safety first! Get down or away as soon as you can, let the airfield defences put some holes in them!’ But that’s not what I did. We’ve all been there – ‘Just one last burst, before I break!’, you know the story...and the usual ending. I nearly got the Frenchman. He was an ace, but that didn’t save him. One of his mates did, coupled with my target fixation. I was hit from behind and broke hard left. Or tried to. Nothing worked. I don’t know where I was hit, but some magic bullet or bullets had simultaneously clobbered all control. My plane just fell sideways out of the sky like a shot bird, with me apparently unwounded but just a helpless passenger. Hence the picture of my crashed Albatros, at the head of this post. And before you ask, does it look like my pilot walked away from that? All right, I was asking for trouble, leaving my break till the rounds were flying past or (as it turned out) into me. But this was a bad ending to a bad mission. My flight should have stuck with me, or have been able to be recalled, when they didn’t. Then those SPADs rather doubtfully chanced descending into the circuit of an enemy aerodrome just to pick off a solitary Albatros (or shoot a few holes in hangars). And to cap it all, a few hits from a short burst instantly rendered my aircraft uncontrollable. Visions of having Countess Kaeti watch admiringly from the limo as the Blue Max was hung from my neck, in front of the staffel, had been swept away, just like that. So I thought I’d give the same career a try, in Rise of Flight – same timeframe, same unit, same machine. Well, not quite the same plane. WoFF models different variations of the Albatros D.III – the plane that made April 1917 ‘Bloody’, for the Royal Flying Corps. RoF has one version – what in my day we would have called a ‘late production’ model. This we now know was the version built by OAW, the Ostdeutsches Albatros Werke, distinguished mainly by the rounded, rather than straight, rudder trailing edge; also by the centre section radiator having been offset from dead centre to the right on the D.III, by the time OAW production began – said to be to avoid the pilot getting scalded in the event of battle damage, but also usefully improving the view dead ahead, by moving the associated pipework to the side. As RoF also has the Albatros D.V, in service from mid-1917, an earlier variant of the D.III would probably have been a better choice. But it would be churlish to complain about getting to fly a fine bird like this, a little while before the actual sub-type probably arrived at the front. Especially as the OAW version was reportedly more strongly built, lacking the parent company's product's rather unhelpful tendency to serious lower wing failure under stress. Anyway, here endeth the prologue; if you skipped this bit, we'll be back to Rise of Flight in the next installment! ...to be continued!

Hunting an enemy commander in Normandy! In between my efforts at practicing section tactics as I knew them in Iron Front, I decided to interleave this more serious business with some light relief. As in, playing some 'regular' missions. Preferably ones which don't over-tax my as-yet-still-developing skills in team command. First choice was to re-start my effort at the German campaign, set on the Eastern Front at the time of the great Soviet summer offensive of 1944, which took the Red Army deep into Poland, where this campaign is set. I had already completed the Operation Flaspoint-style training missions, familiar to any player of the genre. My first real mission began with my squad of replacements being conveyed to the front in the back of an Opel Blitz 3-tonner. Below, you can see our squad with the camo-smock-wearing officer who has been supervising our training. He's stepping through our ranks to hand us over to the officer commanding the position, who is standing to our front with an MP40 SMG and his officer's silver-braided epaulettes shining rather brightly on his shoulders, reminding me of the gormless officer in that Tommy's song from the First World War: 'Brother Bertie went away, to do his bit the other day With a smile on his lips and his lieutenant's pips upon his shoulders, bright and gay...' He'll learn the hard way, I'm thinking. At least he's wearing a steel helmet not a peaked cap, reminding us that Iron Front, like ARMA2, is visually and functionally a serious 'soldier sim' and not an arcade shooter. Sehr gut! Not so 'sehr gut' followed shortly. I managed to stumble quickly enough onto the correct actions to obey my first order, which was to unhitch from the truck the Pak 40 7.5cm anti-tank gun we had brought with us. However, I gave up trying to work out how to push the gun into position. Evidently, I need a bit more practice in object manipulation, ARMA2-style. Sooo...I needed to find a mission which doesn't overtax either my nascent team command skills or my nearly non-existent object manipulation skills. The one I settled on is called (somewhat unhappily, in these sometimes rather grim days) Beheading the Command - all the English text in Iron Front, like briefings, is a little whymsical. In short, I'm in the US Army, Normandy, July 1944. I'm a sniper, and me and my buddy must make our way across country into enemy territory. We are to go to a point where 'int' - or 'intel', I should be using US not British Army shorthand - tells us that we will find an important enemy commander. Our task once there, reasonably enough, is to kill him. Or 'neutralise' him, if you like. These days, western armies seem strangely reluctant to speak of killing anyone, as if they are scared that the Chattering Classes will think they are bad people, unworthy of their tax dollars. Not me. I'm with George Orwell, who's quoted as saying that we sleep safely in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf. Spot on, George. Here's the mission map. Our starting point is marked 'You start here' in small green text, towards the top right. Our objective is near bottom left, marked in red crosshairs and orange rings. The spot labelled 'Meeting point' is where we are to meet a patrol on the way out, who will cover our withdrawal. Which is liable to be helpful, as the enemy are likely to be not best pleased if we succeed in bumping off their boss. Or maybe not; as one well-known senior British officer observed, few things cheer up the troops like seeing a dead general from time to time. Remembering at least some of what I learned all those years back, I have marked on the map some rendezvous points, in black - RV1, RV2, and FRV for Final RV (final, before the objective). I could have plotted other stuff like compass bearings between each RV but it's a fairly simple route, just west of due south on the first leg then close to due west on the last two; then north, to get out of it. The most important thing is to site the RVs where there's some cover and on, or hard by, physical features I can recognise on the ground, so that I will know when I'm there. So, how did I actually get on? We'll make a start on that, next. ...to be continued!

Thanks, but I'm not having much luck with the replays! First, the late-mission save point I thought I had, reverted to much earlier on. So I tried a wide sweep to the south, moving faster, and got as far as a ruined house next to a poppy(?) field... But, in too much of a hurry, I ran into a patrol while having got too far ahead of my number two. I made it to the abandoned house and, reluctant to leave my buddy to his own devices, managed to pick off one of my pursuers through a convenient hole in an upper floor wall... The enemy moved up to the house and I lay prone with my pistol covering the top of the stairs, ready to blast whoever showed up first... ...but they never came. I should have waited longer to see if they moved off, but I got impatient, moved out onto the landing, and was spotted by several of them from a nearly field; I think a second patrol had joined in the hunt. A scoped bolt-action rifle is not a great asset in such a shoot-out! Failed again! Next try, again moving faster than first time... ...but taking a slightly less southerly route, I got in sight of the enemy base, from the west. Usually in the original Operation Flashpoint, you can snipe enemy in a camp quite successfully, with maybe just one of them coming out after you, and taking a while to get to you. So I decided I'd have a go at this. First, I quit the mission, because the 'Suspend' option saves at this point, thinking the previous reversion to an earlier save point was a fluke. I got one of the dismounted Tiger crewmen... ...but was then imediately fired on, then rushed and killed, by other enemies from the camp. They are rather hotter than I was used to, from OFP! To make matters worse, the 'Suspend' option didn't let me resume from my position near the camp, but threw me back to my original mission save! Next time, I went for the high ground to the north of the base, hoping for better fields of fire. Arriving there and leaving my number two back a little way, I had to crawl out into a field, to get a decent view... I needed to rise to a kneeling position, to get a clear field of fire... ...but could not see the officer I had come here to shoot. I edged left a few feet, and rose again. There he was, at last! I was reluctant to crawl forward to get into a spot from which I could fire from the prone position. So I took the shot kneeling, hitting him but not fatally. Instead of immediately dropping flat as planned, I lined up another shot before my target crawled out of sight, but promptly went down in a hail of accurate enemy return fire! Again, my impatience had got the better of me. Still, I'm having a lot of fun. The major downside is that while the enemy planes are around, my number two is constantly and pointlessly halting and reporting their presence, instead of shutting up and keeping up. I may see if I can edit them out of the mission. But the Iron Front D-Day DLC map is a wonderful place for a sniper mission and looks even better now I have turned up the shadows a bit, with no observable framerate hit. I'm looking forward to my next replay! And there are plenty more user-made missions available over at the Iron Front Mission Repository. That enemy officer had better watch out!

Have you tried it with the 'Elite AI gunnery' option? I don't dare - I don't much mind winning! I do have wind effects (don't affect AI) enabled...and now also 'duds', which I hope does affect the AI, so it takes a little of the edge of the 'super-torps' (tho shells can also be duds).. As for future development, Killerfish, on the AF Steam forum on 12 August, posted: "As for Atlantic Fleet, we're not quite done with it yet. If sales remain steady and we continue to bring in some funds with the seasonal Steam sales, the goal would be to dedicate a month or two of development in order to do the following sometime before the end of the year: - fix the turn cycle bug with merchants - add some very basic modding to tweak some game parameters (air cover, submarine start distances etc) - maybe add a few more ship classes - add Pacific Fleet (direct mobile port) as a stand alone DLC - add Steam Trading Cards " Somehow I could live without the 'trading cards' but the rest sounds good, if it comes to pass.

You could try pulling some clips from this, or any similar videos you can find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S2mODnwG1Y

'...le jour de gloire est arrivé!' - blocking the Blitzkrieg with the French air force...in a US fighter! Having enjoyed flying for the Luftwaffe in the 1940 German offensive in the west, courtesy of the CFS3 ETO Expansion, I thought I would swap sides and see if I could stop the enemy tide. None of this comes with stock CFS3, which focuses on the later-war period. But 'Attack in the West 1940' is one of the additional 'eras' that the freeware expansion bolts on, and firing it up, I saw that I had the choice of flying with the Belgians, French or RAF (which latter had an 'Air Component' to the Army's British Expeditionary Force on the continent when the balloon went up in May 1940). I've always been a fan of the Hawker Hurricane and lapped up the initial scenes of the film 'the Battle of Britain' which have some great footage of Hurris, culminating with their 'lame ducks' being clobbered by a low-level strafing attack by Bf109s. When I say 'low-level', that doesn't do justice to the flying of the Spanish air force pilots operating the Hispano 'Buchons' in Bf109E colours - one of them almost clips a perimeter fence with his prop - totally mad, and no Star Wars CGI anywhere in sight, just great planes and great flying! But I digress... Despite being a fan of the Hurricane, I decided to fly for the Armee de l'Air, as the French air force was officially called. As a kid I'd built the neat little FROG 1/72 Morane Saulnier 406 and the Revell Curtiss P-36/Hawk 75. Plus I was keen to fly a French fighter of some sort, to add a bit of immersion by giving me some sense of defending hearth and home against the invading enemy hordes. So I created a French pilot, naming him Clostermann after the famous Free French/RAF fighter ace whose great book, 'The Big Show', is much the most vivid and powerful fighter pilot auobiography I've ever read. Likely because that's how the inbuilt 'Nationality Expansion' pack works, the ETO Expansion actually does describe the 1940 French side as 'Free French'. This didn't become a reality till later, after de Gaulle had rallied the defeated nation from England with his stirring call to arms 'La France a perdu une bataille, mais la France n'a pas perdu la guerre' - a battle is lost but not the war! My assigned unit - which I don't think was actually named - was allocated the Curtiss Hawk (French designation H75C1). This was one of several US planes the French purchasing commission had obtained from America just before war broke out. The swift German victories in the west tend to create the impression of overwhelming Luftwaffe superiority but it was a hard fought battle and the Curtiss Hawk was no pushover. In 'WW2 Fighter Conflict' Alfred Price says ''Although its general performance [like the Hurricane's] fell somewhat below those of the British and German fighters mentioned [spitfire I and Bf109E] the American fighter, with its finely harmonised controls and large mechanical advantage between stick and ailerons, was superior to both of them in its high speed handling'. There are some nice clips of a preserved P-36 in Armée de l'Air colours on the net, including this one on Youtube, where you can soak up the sight and sound of this gutsy little warplane in flight: I was shortly to experience my own first flight in the Curtiss, albeit a virtual one. I kicked off the campaign, and was started early on the morning of 10th May, 1940, the day the German western Blitzkrieg kicked off. As usual with CFS3's dynamic campaign, I was offered a campaign map - which showed the front lines as yet aligned with the national borders - and a drop-down list of alternative missions. The first item was an interception, and I accepted this as more appropriate and possibly more fun that a close support sortie. We were based at Etain-Rouvres in NW France, up near the border with Belgium and Luxembourg, where the main weight of the German offensive would fall. In real life anyway: perhaps not so in this more open-ended and simulated campaign, where our target lay well to the south-east. As usual, I was allocated a flight of eight - this would be effectively a squadron operation, with the player leading in the usual CFS3 style. Here we are, lined up and ready to go in the early morning light. Below that are the orders for the mission. As you can see, I got much the same weather as in my previous Blitzkrieg mission, flown in the German Bf110: cloudy and failrly steady precipitation. Undeterred, I turned on the 'radar'/Tactical Display/TAC, left its range at the maximum of 8 miles, and - bearing in mind this mission was air-to-air - cycled its displayed target type from 'all' to 'aircraft'. In the external view, I checked the movement of all flying controls, started up, and lowered my flaps, one notch. Behind me, my squadron was already started up and good to go. Opening her up, I accelerated down the runway, correcting swing with rudder and a touch of differential braking. My men wasted no time and were quickly roaring after me. The ETO Expansion aircraft generally model wingtip vortices and navigation lights at low airspeed and these were visible as I took off. Soon it was 'gear up' and off we went, leaving the rising sun behind us as we formed up and began the climb for height. The Boche were going to pay for setting foot on the sacred soil of France! Or at least, that was the plan... ...to be continied!

What AI mods are you using for Rise of Flight? I have Criquet's AI mods for scouts and 2-seaters enabled. I just tried another PWCG mission (version 14 is the last one I installed), flying for Jasta 2 in April 1917 and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Distant aircraft visibility is still awful. But at least flak seems to be a slightly better target indicator than it used to be, though not as good as in First Eagles. For example, 'Archie' showed me the way to these two FE2bs... ...but it totally ignored this bigger formation of Sopwith Strutters a short time later, in the same general area... This also happens far too often...I got an RE8 ( a single machine, which was good, but he was I think too low to have been doing anything much, which if so, was not so good)... And three of the Strutters. And they all shed their wings in this fashion... And I expect that Albatrosses still lose all their interpane rigging at the same time, like this one, in a different mission... On the plus side, at 'Medium' PWCG air activity settings, there seems to be a little more going on in the skies than I remembered. And it is possible to spot some of it without resorting to on-screen aids. Others are still too hard to see, though, they might as well have a Cloak of Invisibility. Still, the 2-seater observers are no longer as deadly which I assume is Criquet's mod in action. This one kept shooting at me all the way down, helped by his pilot taking the edge off the roll to the right after I shot his starboard wings off. There's still too much of a scatter in the planeset, though, the lack of a BE2c or 2e and a French 2-seater prior to the Strutter being the main gaps. As far as flight models are concerned, I'm not sure about some aspects of WoFF's but in RoF, I find the considerable tail heaviness wildly overdone, and the general tendency to wander all over the sky unless kept on a tight rein, likewise too much.

Beating up the enemy after dark, in Prangster's Mosquito campaign for IL-2! To adapt the 'Redneck's' line in the movie 'Outpost', you can say what you like about Hermann Goering, but he had style...and a perhaps characteristically brutal but effective way with words. Of all the pithy statements attributed to 'der Dicke', as the rotund Reichsmarschall was unceremoniously nicknamed, one I like best concerns his opinion of the 'Wooden Wonder' - the justly-famous DeHavilland DH98 Mosquito. Of this superlative aeroplane, Goering is said to have remarked: 'In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked.' It's said (eg in Crowood's Me262 history) that - far from having been forced into development as a bomber by Hitlerian ineptitude - the famous German jet fighter was heavily marketed by Willy Messerschmitt as a multi-role plane from the outset. And that this was partly in an effort to cash in on widespread German recognition of the Mosquito's success as a very fast warplane which excelled at many roles: fighter, night bomber, precision day bomber, fighter bomber, night fighter, anti-shipping, reconnaisance. Whatever Messerschmitt's motivation, the Mosquito is one of those aircraft which, as the saying goes, looked right and was right. It also sounds pretty good: A little while back, my plan to feature comparative Mosquito mission reports in a few different sims didn't get beyond CFS2 add-on 'Mosquito Squadron' when my graphics card failed. Restored by heating it to re-flow possible failed soldered connections, I can pick that up now. So it's time for 'Mosquito Squadron' again; this time not the CFS2 add-on but Prangster's mini-campaign of that name, available for IL-2 over at that peerless resource for all things Sturmovik, Mission4Today: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=1172 I was especially interested in flying the included Amiens Prison raid in IL-2, by way of comparison with the CFS2 equivalent. But that will come later. This report is on the first mission in Prangster's campaign. Intriguingly, this is for a night intruder mission, which I knew Mossies flew in 1944 around the time of the Normandy landings. Some of these operations are described by participants, in Osprey/del Prado's 'Mosquitos of World War 2', a good basic source. One of the units flying these missions in 1944 was the Royal New Zealand Air Force's 487 Squadron, squadron code 'EG', assigned to the RAF's 140 Wing, No. 2 Group, in the famous Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF). And this is the very squadron featured in this campaign! Go, Kiwis! Night intruder missions were a new departure for me. I knew they had earlier been flown by black-painted Hurricanes and Bostons, stooging around in the dark, low over enemy-occupied France and basically shooting up anything that looked like it needed shooting up. Now, I was going to attempt this in a Mosquito...a virtual one of course but the darkness would be real enough. So with the room light turned off and illumination provided from a light outside filtering through a partly-open door - the better to be able to make out detail on a dark screen yet see a little of my keyboard - I braced myself for a new simualtion experience. Here's the mission brief. I have to say that it is short but exceptionally good. Mission objectives and important parameters are clearly stated and appended to this is some immersive, realistic extra, military-looking stuff, starting with a met report from the meterolo...meteriolo...you know, those weathermen chappies. From what I remember, this is the original IL-2 Normandy 'map', which I think came with the Aces Expansion Pack or thereabouts. No South of England provided. So I'm taking off from a small island where no land should be, out in the English Channel and quite close to the French coast. But I for one much prefer this to an air start. And the island is a reasonable substitute for Thorney Island on the southern coast of England further north, at which Mossies were really based at this time. Though it's February 1944 and D-Day is still four months away, knowing what's coming I can read off from the map and savour all those names about to become famous on The Longest Day...Pointe du Hoc, Ouistreham, Courselles-sur-Mer and all the rest. In short, on this sortie I must fly west at low level and orbit at the enemy airfield near Valognes, knocking down any Gerries silly or unfortunate enough to be caught in the circuit there. Then I fly south for a bit, clobbering all and sundry ground transport as I go. If I can see any. It being dark, this doesn't seem very likely. How on earth will I manage? I have no idea. But there's one way to find out... I started the mission. Here I am in the cockpit...and in the dark. At least it's a moonlit night. When you're out and about in the countryside, away from the city lights and relying on just the Mark 1 Eyeball suitably dark-adapted, you appreciate the massive difference between visibility on a moonlit night, compared to a truly dark, overcast one. This was bad, but it wasn't impossible. At least I could see my immediate surroundings and most important of all, a horizon. So I had at least a sporting chance of getting airborne...and maybe even staying there. So far, so good. Switching to the external view, I had a look around. Against the lighter sky to the west, I could at least see my own aircraft, on its own as this is a solo mission. Our little island base seemed quite well-appointed and the flarepath was nicely illuminated for my takeoff. Feeling a little less uncomfortable, I called up the 'mini-map' and oriented myself. Sad to say, I completely forgot about using my own cockpit, navigation or landing lights. Not enough training in night flying, was my excuse. What are they thinking, throwing people like me to the lions, on operations like this, that we're completely untrained for? Feeling still slightly peeved, I started humming to myself that old airman's refrain...all together, now: 'I didn't want to join the Air Force I didn't want my b*****ks shot away I'd rather hang around Piccadilly Underground Living off the earnings of a high-born lady.' Not much hope of that now...maybe later, if I make it back and that transfer to a training unit comes through. Oh well, nothing else for it, but back to the night's business. I started up, checked my controls, set flaps two notches down and opened the throttle. Very slowly. This seemed to have the desired effect in minimising swing. Keeping well between the rows of lights either side of the long runway, I lifted off and climbed away. Early days yet but so far, still so good. Maybe I'd do alright at this night intruder lark, after all. ...to be continued!

Just got lucky - at least as often, I'm the one losing wings...

The last lap? We crawl on to the west, towards where I hope the Final RV lies, at a distinctive track junction short of our objective. The previous RV isn't far behind us when we spot a small enemy patrol, moving across our front from left to right. We lie still till they have passed. My buddy mustn't feel threatened, for he sensibly obeys his 'hold fire!' standing orders. While allowing a couple of minutes for the patrol to clear the vicinity, I mark on the map what I believe to be the position in which we spotted them. The hedgerows are now fairly discontinuous and we cross the gaps carefully, one moving over the open ground while the other covers him. At a point while I'm in the lead, my buddy reports sighting enemies to our rear. I turn around, staying prone, but see nothing. Suddenly, shooting breaks out; single shots, then a burst of semi-auto. All I can see is some pale grey gunsmoke. Some of it appears to come from the spot along the hedgerow to my rear where my number two is lying; some slightly right of that. I hear a metallic 'ping!' after one of the shots, which I realise is the clip of my buddy's Garand being ejected after his eighth round. I edge out into the field to my right, trying to get eyes on the enemy. From here, I can see the smoke of firing from near the base of a tree, beyond and right of my number 2's location. The long grass is blocking my view but marking the spot, I rise to my knees and line up my sights. I can still see sod all, and to make matters worse, my buddy is now wounded. He's still in action though, and fires off another clip. Soon after, the enemy fire having stopped, I see him crawling back. It looks like we have got away with it again, but not entirely unscathed, this time. I crawl up to him, with the intention of administering first aid. But if it's possible, I can't work out how. No suitable 'action menu' seems to be available. He's still mobile so I turn around and crawl on. I don't want to hang around here. To help break trail, I cross to the other side of the hedge, through a gap, having checked the other side's clear before emerging. Once over, I go firm and call my number two forward. I wait, but he doesn't re-appear. In the end, I decide I'll go back, and make a more determined effort to do the first aid thing. I have no sooner started to crawl back to the gap in the hedge when a Kraut runs through it, muttering something about somebody who's 'gerwundet'. Recovering quickly from my considerable surprise, I naturally omit to enquire of him as to whom he's referring. He's no more than five yards away and coming right at me. He spots me and goes down on one knee. Knowing he'll have got me by the time I can line him up in my scope, I fire a quick round over open sights. By that time, he's so close I can hardly miss, and I don't. Recovering my composure, I sit tight for a few seconds but no more enemies appear. So I resume my crawl back to my number two. But I'm too late! I am bitterly disappointed at losing my buddy, and not just because he's been a good guy to have along on this trip. I don't play sims using my 'wingmen' as canon fodder; I want to bring them back alive. Any satisfaction at my second kill of the mission is overshadowed by this loss. But there's nothing else for it, but to go on. As careful as I may be, I am very conscious that without the extra pair of eyes and ears, and the additional firepower, my chances of completing my task have just nose-dived. I consider briefly leaving my Springfield and taking the Garand, but decide against it. Moving on, my spirits are somewhat lifted when I come to the Final RV, confirming that my navigation has been up to snuff. You can see the track which comes in from the right, making the junction which marks the RV, just beyond the small bush about ten yards ahead, quarter right. I call up the map, and after some thought, mark my intended fire position, in a hedgerow just north of my objective. The latter looks to be surrounded by hedges and my chosen spot is a bit closer than I'd have liked, but it provides a quick, covered escape route north, to the patrol which will cover my withdrawal. Incidentally, one thing about these maps I don't like is that while the foliage patterns and roads are accurate, the contours are almost invisible, even if you zoom in and out, making it tedious to judge the lie of the land. Moving towards my chosen firing point, I edge further south to take advantage of a hummock which looks like it might give me a decent view of the area of the objective, to supplement what I can make out from the map. This turns out to be a good move. There they are! I can see a group of sand-coloured soft-skinned vehicles, and what look like either stacks of supplies or sandbagged sangars. Ominously, I can also see a Tiger tank, to the left of the enemy position, facing in my general direction. I back off into the shadow of the hedgerow behind me and then edge down to the road to my right, into dead ground. From there, I crawl forward, aiming again for my intended firing point. If it looks too exposed when I get nearer, I'll either double back or press on, until I find somewhere better. I crawl along the near side of a hedgerow, until I come to a low crest from which I can get a closer look at my objective...including that Tiger. This looks about as far as I can safely go on this side of the hedge, so I edge back, then go through a gap, onto the far side. I haven't gone very far when I spot a three-man patrol in a field, heading my way. I watch them for a few seconds, long enough to gauge their direction. They are consistently heading my way. What are they aiming for? The road behind me? Hard to say. What is clear is that I can't just lie here getting a tan. I'm going to have to take them on, or go to ground. Remembering how the first German we met walked past me on the other side of a hedge without spotting me, I decide to pull back and lie low. I slide off the crest and then crawl back through the hedge. Through a small gap in the foliage, I suddenly realise that the Germans are very close and seemingly making straight for the gap in the hedge through which I have just come, now right in front of me. I consider grabbing a grenade, but am concerned it'll be caught in a branch and land back on my side. That leaves my .45... ...but it's to late. One of the Germans shouts out a warning and the next second I'm hit! Mission over! At least I got to the objective. But I'm a bit miffed about the rather keen vision the enemy displayed this time, and the fact that they made a beeline for my position, before apparently spotting me. Perhaps that was just my bad luck. I had saved the session at a point before my buddy was hit, so I do have the option of replaying from well into the mission. Which I may do at some point. I certainly enjoyed the operation. I'm not sure yet how well Iron Front handles other kinds of mission, stock or user made, but in this Operation Flashpoint-style, freewheeling 'stealth' mission, it does quite well. The D-Day DLC's Normandy map seems to lack villages but otherwise, it looks really great. The 'bocage' close country effect is first class. You may have noticed that some shadows look a bit box-like at my 'Normal' setting but this probably improves with higher settings. I did get the odd 'black screen+sound playing on' problem, but pending finding a full solution, pressing and holding left shift+keypad minus, then releasing both simultaneously then typing 'flush', reloads the visuals (reminiscent of 'cheat keys' from OFP). All in all, the mission was more tense and interesting than this mission report likely conveys, and was much more my style than a 'run and gun mission on rails'. This is how I like my 'soldier sims' and I'm looking forward both to resuming my Iron Front campaign...and yes, at having a crack at some of the tank missions!

My PC is pretty old, Vista 64 with a 2.33 GHz core 2 quad, 6 GB of RAM but slow, and a 1Gb 250 GTS (basically a tweak of the 512Mb 8800GT it replaced). I suppose you already tried updating your graphics drivers and maybe creating and tweaking a profile for CFS3, like turning off triple buffering, if it's on. Maybe also worth posting over at Sim Outhouse's CFS3 forum, if anybody can help it'll be somebody over there. I had a look but could not find a report of a similar problem but somebody over there may have an answer. Worth trying, CFS3 looks soo much better with the latest DX9 mod. Especially as regards processor, my PC is at the bottom end of the specs for WoFF but runs it fine (possibly not in busy late-war skies but I rarely go there). And I am able to use fairly high graphics settings. Definitely worth a try if your PC is no worse than mine! For Single Player, I find WoFF is much better than RoF, even tho the latter is free with the D.V and SPAD XIII. The WoFF graphics I think are as good on balance, and the campaign is much better. Even with PWCG, in RoF I hate it that other flights can be nearby but effectively invisible, and the WoFF AI is much better than RoF. If your PC can handle RoF it could probably handle WoFF - that was my experience, anyway.

Wow. Not seen that before. Looks like the Firepower Me 410. One thing you might want to try is (re-)installing DirectX9. Can't do any harm, Rise of Flight insists on it, every time you update, won't interfere if you have a later version. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=34429

In an unusual example of enemies co-operating in aeronautical engineering, an Albatros D.I converts a SPAD VII to a monoplane... ...Albatros courtesy of Stephen1918.

Can't see those images - just a big red + white 'No entry' sign for each, with the label 'No Permission'. As an experiment, I went to my stock CFS3 install and used the cfs3config program - not the in-game video options tab, tho it may not make any difference - to reset my screen resolution to 1024x768. Not very suitable for a widescreen monitor but it works. And the DX9 mod also works - here's the stock CFS3 Bf 109G-6 with dynamic shadows, the more natural viewpoint, and ground object shadows, screen resolution 1024x768. It may be nothing to do with whatever problem you have encountered, and as an 'old hand' with CFS3 you probably know this already, but it's definitely a good idea to run CFS3confix.exe and use the File/Custom Settings/Window/Overrides and Window/Texture Info tabs to apply all the settings illustrated in Olham's easy-to-follow guide, here: http://combatace.com...ictorial-guide/ What was the problem in the pics? You can upload files into your posts here using the 'More Reply Options' tab that appears at the bottom, when you are posting a reply- this lets you upload into your reply screenshots you have saved to your hard drive.

Another contact! We move on without delay, lest the sound of the recent shooting attract enemy attention. I owe my buddy one; despite being fired on, he nailed the lone German, with no help from me. My sniper-scoped Springfield is not going to be much use in a close encounter of this sort - especially with the magic 'floating aiming point' and other on-screen aids disabled. So I decide to sling my rifle for now, and draw my trusty .45. Convenient or not, thank goodness proper 'soldier sims' don't encourage you to run around with multiple 'primary' weapons, which is one of the things that, to my mind, mars the otherwise excellent shooter, Brothers in Arms...that, and heavily-challened mission maps, plus the ability magically to convey verbal orders to accompanying tanks, as easily as to your own squad-mates. Yes, I admit that a Thompson SMG would be really good to have at this point. I have actually fired one, once; tho without a compensator, in full auto the muzzle climb was a lot more more impressive than my accuracy. I've fired a Colt M1911A1 too, and it seemed to me no heavier in recoil that the average 'nine mil', so I'm quite happy to have one of these in my virtual hands, for now. Come on, Jerry, care to try and sneak up on me now, eh? Next time, I'll be ready for you! Or so I tell myself. Now, we're heading west, aiming for the second RV, which is at another 'T' junction, for ease of recognition upon our arrival in the vicinity. As usual, we're moving one at a time, using intermittent hedgerows for cover. I'm continuing to move out first, for now. It helps with the navigation; I can use the minor junctions we cross, to help keep me oriented. As we approach the RV, the ground begins to fall away in front of us, opeiing up a longer field of fire to front and left. Still crawling ahead while my buddy covers a short way behind, I slow down, to get a better view of what's to be seen, calling my number two up to join me as I do so. Again, it's the movement that catches my eye. Almost directly to my front, headed roughly towards us at walking pace, are two Germans. They have emerged from a treeline and are out in the open. I holster my .45 and grab my rifle. I'm hoping they'll turn left or right and leave us alone. If they don't, I decide, I will fight at bay, and we'll kill them. Suddenly, shots are fired. By whom, I don't know. One of the enemy runs to the left, and gets out of my line sight, the other side of some trees. This isn't going like I planned it! I pick up the other German in my sights. He's down on one knee, but as I line him up, he gets up, turns around... ...and starts zig-zagging back the way he came. I'd prefer not to have to try for a crossing target but I'm in luck; his next change of course sets him moving directly away from me. I line him up and let fly. The round seems to strike the ground a short way in front of me, perhaps clipping the low crest I'm lying behind. I work the bolt automatically and as soon as the next round's chambered, raise my point of aim and fire again. I seem to hit him high, perhaps in the head from the spurt of blood. Down he goes, and lies still. I start scanning for the second German or other enemies, but see nothing to my front. Likewise, to my left. Where the heck has that other darned Kraut got to? There's more shots fired, somewhere slightly right. My buddy is engaged. He's too far away to hear any reports he's making (and I have subtitles turned off, glutton for clear screen punishment that I am). The shooting has stopped again. I scan again for targets and again see none. I wait, but don't want to wait here too long. I order my buddy to crawl across the open ground to the far side of the track junction - which is the second RV point. He's the one with the self-loading rifle, so now it's his turn again, to move on ahead first. He makes it across without incident. Now it's my turn. I pause to scan for any reaction to our presence. Nothing happens. OK, time to go! After several anxious seconds, I make it over and rejoin my buddy. When I get there, I discover what's become of the second German. He must have doubled back across my front from left to right, in dead ground, while I was clobbering his mate. And run smack into the line of fire of mine. He looks like a sniper himself, in a two-piece camouflaged combat suit with a scope on his Mauser rifle. It seems like we have run in to our equivalent on the other side...and beaten them. But this is no place for a victory celebration. I check out the view to the north again, before resuming our move west, towards the final RV. Nothing to be seen. Apart from those darn Focke Wulfs, which are still buzzing around. Ignoring them, I turn west and resume crawling along the line of the hedgerow. The final RV's not far off now, and when I get there, I'll pick my firing point and plan my move to it. Won't be long now! ...to be continued!

The 110's look a lot better with Ankor's mod, as well...