33LIMA

Ziel zerstoert! On my next run at the enemy airfield, I made no mistake. My rounds raked the flak battery near the aircraft pens, setting off an explosion which smothered the enemy weapons in a large billowing cloud of dust and smoke. Finally, it seemed, I was getting the hang of this ground attack business! But I had noticed a second battery, at the apex of a triangular pattern of trackways, near the airfield boundary. I pulled up and around, then lined up on him...you're next, my friend, I thought wickedly. The enemy gunners seemed to have similarly evil thoughts directed at me or my comrades, for as I closed in, I saw their muzzle flashes. Too late my friends! My guns blazed and their rounds hit home. On my second pass, another explosion, then I was over them and away, leaving my target shrouded in smoke and dust. At that point, I decided enough was enough. I had wasted a good deal of ammunition on my ineffective attacks on the tanks, and expected my comrades might be risking their necks for similarly poor returns. I was determined to keep some ammo in reserve, in case we had to defend ourselves from enemy aircraft. So I flew off, orbiting the enemy air base in a wide arc which brought me back onto a heading for the German border and home. I called my staffel to break off and rejoin me, throttling back to enable them to do so. In the murky weather I could see neither them nor our escorting Bf109s, but at least, there were no enemy aircraft around. Looking behind at intervals, I was mightily relieved to see my men slowly closing up and to be able to count them all present and correct. After passing the border without incident, I started 'warping' home. About half way, we came out of 'warp' automatically, causing me to look around anxiously for the enemies this usually means are just out of 'TAC' range. Suddenly, a flock of aircraft whizzed past low and right. I wasn't inclined to hang around to find out who they were. I opened up to full throttle and sped off. My 110s were no slouches for speed and if these were enemies and they wanted to catch us, they would have to make an effort! But the other aircraft never re-appeared; if they were hostile, perhaps they ran into our escort. Soon, we were back at base. It's at this point that CFS3 pops up a little panel to tell you the mission goals have been resolved, and offering you the option to continue and land, or to quit the mission and see the debriefing, there and then. I chose the latter option. Although credited with the guns destroyed, I had not completed enough of the mission goals to make much of a success of it. Specifically we had not destroyed the tank formation, whether that was a realistic goal or not. Though not as badly as CFS2, unfortunately CFS3 still retains this rather silly, rigid 'mission pass/fail' assessment. It's much too 'black and white' and in sims whose designers know better, is sensibly not applied or at least not a big deal. In the Blitzkrieg campaign, I am not clear whether or not repeated mission failure could produce the result that it's Germany who gets 'blitzkrieged'! Anyway, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting mission. Even if you wrote off CFS3, you might well find a lot to like about its re-incarnation in the ETO expansion. And there are Mediterranean and Pacific expansions to try, too. For any simmer interested mainly in the western European theatre, CFS3 plus the ETO Expansion - especially if you're prepared to play to its tactical air war strengths - is definitely recommended. Disclaimer - I'm listed, rather undeservedly, as a contributor to the ETO Expansion, though my contribution consisted of precisely one set of skins, for this 'wellenmuster' Ju88 with optional worn temporary black undersurfaces, which I was very flattered to be asked to have included in this great free mod.

Plane versus tank, 1940-style This is where the effects of playing too many different sims made themselves felt. In IL-2, I have two joystick buttons arranged to fire MGs and cannon separately. But in CFS3, one of the same buttons fires all guns and the other one changes views. So when I applied the IL-2 two-key firing technique to CFS3, let's just say that the results were not conducive to keeping my sights on the target. It took me a couple of firing passes, to work out what I was doing wrong! At this point, as my staffel made their own attacks and I swung around for another one of my own, I realised where the AA fire was coming from...the nearby airfield! As I watched, I could actually see the muzzle flashes of a battery, near the end of a row of what looked like aircraft pens. I decided that I would let my staffel get on with it, while I indulged in a little of what nowadays would be called 'flak suppression'...perhaps also destroying some enemy planes on the ground. I hauled my big fighter around, and nosed down at my new target. I should have tackled the flak first but as I came out of my turn, I realised that I was well placed for a strafing run along the line of the pens. But as I screamed in, I saw that they were empty! This was proving a bit more difficult than I had expected! ...to be continued!

First strike! I turned right and led our eight Bf110s on the run-in to the target area. Another ten miles and we would see what lay there. As we sped on, low over the rolling, tree-dotted countryside, I popped on the Tactical Display, mainly for a quick navigation check. To prepare for our attack, I had previously cycled the TAC to display target type 'Vehicles'. When the time came, I would use this to allocate targets to my staffel. For a sim featuring the era of radio-equipped aircraft, the CFS3 'TAC' is not an unreasonable substitute for being able to use the radio like you might in real life and the limits to what you can organise during mission planning. Looking at the TAC, I could see the light blue line to the final waypoint - the target area - was just slightly right of our track. However, the purple arrowhead, whose appearance indicated the proximity and direction of our main targets, was right of this again. I stayed in a 40 degree bank and maintained a steady right-hand turn, noting as I did so that our Bf109 escort was beginning to turn with us. With the TAC confirming my arrival in the objective area, I searched ahead and around me for targets. At first, I saw nothing. Then...there they were! Crossing a field between patches of woodland, a ragged group of vehicles was moving in the open, their presence betrayed by the 'rooster tail' plumes of dirt they were throwing up, despite the wet conditions. I didn't notice at the time, but just beyond, lay an enemy airfield. In the cockpit view screenie below, looking back you can see that my gunner appears to have jettisoned his canopy and bailed out, but he's still there; it's just a feature of the rendering, perhaps deliberate so you see what your gunner sees without having to ask him! I pulled up and rolled around nearly onto my back to come in at them, cutting the throttle to tighten my manoeuvre. At the same time, I selected targets amongst them via the TAC and ordered in my staffel. For CFS3 veterans, the technique is ingrained - select target, hit 'A' key to despatch two planes on their attack; select another target, then 'A' again; repeat as necessary. The battle was on! I swept in at the enemies. I knew that they were most likely to be tanks or AFVs of some sort, as only tracked vehicles could reliably travel cross-country in early WW2. In fact, they were little WW1-vintage Renault FT tanks, though I wasn't sure at the time. Nor was I certain that even my 20mm cannon - Oerlikon types, firing relatively low-velocity HE shells - would do them much damage. But in I went! From somewhere or other, enemy gunners were watching, for flak began to burst around me. ...to be continued!

Outward bound Chaperoned by our escorting 109s, we headed steadily south-westwards, towards our distant target area. I had climbed to just over 4,500 feet and decided to stay there, in the rain but below the broken cloud base. I decided that we would make our approach and attack at low level. To save time, I decided to use the CFS3 'warp' function, calling up the map beforehand to monitor our progress and ready to come out, if anything untoward happened. It generally doesn't. But CFS3 tends to give you these un-realistic straight courses right to your objective, whereas (for example) First Eagles and other Strike Fighters sims give you a more realistic 'dog leg' flight in with waypoints you can adjust in the planning stage, and an 'Initial Point' before your objective, which you can place to choose the direction and distance of your run-in to the objective. One other bad thing about the CFS3 'warp' feature, in my experience, is that it invariably climbs you to a pre-assigned altitude, which is typically tens of thousands of feet. And if there's no encounter to interrupt it, you come out of 'warp' close to your objective, at that considerable height. Pretty silly for a tactical air war sim, where you will often want to attack at low level, and especially frustrating with torpedo strike missions. So i was pleasantly surprised - when I manually ended 'warp', well short of the objective - to find that I had stayed at about the same height. If this is an ETO Expansion feature, it's a very welcome one. I decided to descend, and to make my run-in to the target at even lower level. This would give me little time to pick up on targets visually; but better that, I reasoned, than arrive at the optimum height for light flak and then stooge around being shot at while I sussed out the opposition and made a plan. As you can see, the ETO Expansion pack significantly improves the default CFS3 terrain. Another good feature which you won't notice from the screenies is the sound. My Messerschmitt's two DB601s made a very satisfactory sort of snarling, whining roar as we bored along. As we neared the border, we overflew an aerodrome, which I only noticed at the last minute. For a moment, until I realised I was definitely still over friendly territory, I was a bit anxious that the airfield defence people were going to take exception to our visit. But all stayed quiet. Fortunately perhaps, flight sims don't seem to model 'blue on blue' incidents. So far, so good...not long now! ...to be continued!

The mission begins Broken cloud and rain greeted me as I arrived on the airfield. I don't recall if I was assigned to a named unit but the skin of my Messerschmitt represents an aircraft of the staff flight of V (Zerstoerer) Gruppe of Lehrgeschwader 1. Like the famous Panzer Lehr Division, the geschwader was nominally a 'trials' unit and was unusual in being equipped with a variety of aircraft types at the same time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehrgeschwader_1 However, LG1, like Panzer Lehr, was fully operational in WW2 and participated in the May 1940 offensive in the west. For this mission, we were based at Vechta airfield in northern Germany (if I recall right, this was later famous as a night-fighter base) and were allocated a 'close support' mission, striking enemy ground units in support of friendly ground forces. Here's the briefing; it's basically the stock CFS3 format, and our target is a good way to the south-west, just across the border in north-eastern Belgium. At the pre-flight stage I might have been able to opt for a different target or perhaps a closer one; I don't recall, though you usually can, in the stock CFS3 campaign. Anyway despite not being able to carry bombs - realistically, as it I think was Erprobungsgruppe 210 which later began the first operations with the Bf110C4B fighter-bomber version - off we went. Obviously, whatever targets we found in our objective area, we were going to have to rely on our heavy nose-mounted armament of two 20mm cannon and four 7.92mm machine guns. The ETO Expansion Bf110C is a fine machine, with the correct 70/71/65 camouflage (Schwartzgrun/Dunkelgrun/Hellblau) and represents a real-life aircraft, complete with the wolf head emblem of the Gruppe. The cockpit is certainly superior to stock CFS3 versions and is complete with an alluring but rather distracting picture of a close friend (?) stuck to the instrument panel. Normally, CFS3 seems to give you eight aircraft for campaign missions (the player is always leading the operation) and this was no exception. Also as usual, and despite being fighters ourselves, we had an escort - a similar number of Bf109Es. Both types of Messerschmitt do not feature in stock CFS3: they, and the French, Belgian or British aircraft we might come up against, and perhaps the ground targets we might be attacking, are courtesy of the ETO Expansion. You can see the 109s sweeping the skies ahead of us in the pic below. Assuming they stuck with us, that left me with just what was waiting for us on the ground, to worry about. ...to be continued!

Could this be it? See further down for solution. http://combatace.com/topic/76900-italian-front-wip/page-7?do=findComment&comment=646772

Recreating the dawn of the fighter aircraft in First Eagles 2 "Hundreds, nay thousands of machines have been ordered which have been referred to by our pilots as "Fokker Fodder" ... I would suggest that quite a number of our gallant officers in the Royal Flying Corps have been rather murdered than killed" Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, campaigning in 1916 against the dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the design of RFC aircraft "...McCudden gave him another burst, and the Fokker broke off the attack. For the rest of the flight, the Fokker merely accompanied them, more like an escort than anything else. 'We live and we learn' was McCudden's comment on the deflation of the Fokker Menace story" Alexander McKee in 'The Friendless Sky' The deployment of small numbers of a rather inferior monoplane armed with a fixed machine gun synchronised to fire forward through the airscrew was just one of a series of swings in the fortunes of the main combatants in the WW1 air war. Shortly beforehand, French pilots like Garros and Pégoud had sent shock-waves through German ranks with similar weapons, unsynchronised but with deflector wedges to protect their props. And within months, the Fokkers themselves had been eclipsed by superior enemies in the form of the Nieuport 11 and DH2, which in turn were outclassed by the Albatros. But it's the Fokker 'Eindekker' which gave its name to a whole chapter in air warfare, even if this owes as much to its exploitation in a British politician's campaign to secure a bigger role for private enterprise in British military aircraft design, as it does to the plane's own qualities. For despite its gun, the Fokker was a rather mediocre aeroplane, low-powered, with wing-warping rather than ailerons. And while its principal RFC prey the BE2c certainly suffered from a badly-placed observer with a limited field of fire, there are accounts which confirm the BE was not just the 'Fokker fodder' of legend and could defend itself ably enough if well-handled and not caught by surprise. Anyway, enough potted history! Having recently flown Stephen1918's superb new BE2c in the hostile skies of Spring 1917, I wanted to step back nearly two years and see the BE (and/or its fellow RFC machines) from a different perspective - through the gunsight of a predatory Fokker pilot, hunting his two-seater quarry in the period which truly pioneered the concept of the fighter aircraft. I decided to kick off a campaign in Ojcar's 'Armchair Aces' month-by-month campaign, starting in August 1915. At this time, Immleman and Boelcke were on the threshold of making names for themselves flying their new Eindekkers. Keen to do likewise, I created a new pilot and opted to fly with Kampfeinsitzer Kommando (KEK) Douai, based at nearby La Brayelle and flying against the RFC. Thanks to the modders, no other modern WW1 sim comes close to First Eagles in its flyable planeset, just as Red Baron 3d set that standard, before it. FE benefits from an excellent series of Eindekkers by modders Laton and BortdaFarm. Versions available are the EI, EII, EIII (which look much the same but have progressively more powerful engines) and even the twin-gunned but overweight EIV. And there are some look-alike Pfalz equivalents. For this campaign, our mount was the Fokker EI, with only an 80hp engine and a single 'Spandau' 7.92mm LMG 08/15. Ojcar's 'Armchair Aces' campaign integrates modder aircraft like these (and many more) into the FE campaign system and was therefore a natural choice to try my hand with an Eindekker in campaign mode. At this time, it was common for a flying unit on any side to operate more than one type of aircraft. Fokker monoplanes were initially allocated in ones and twos to ordinary two-seater units. While I believe you can do this sort of thing in single missions in FE, in campaign mode you have one plane type per squadron. As a staffel's Fokkers seem generally to have operated independently of the unit's two-seaters, it's easy enough to handle this by using the squadron roster, pre-mission, to ensure you fly either on your own or with one or maybe two companions. No need for missions with eight or twelve Fokkers lined up on the flight line, impressive though that may look! Operations in (slightly) greater strength become more realistic later, by which time Fokkers were often concentrated into Kampfeinsitzer Kommandos. I believe KEK Douai was associated with two-seater unit Flieger Abteilung 62 and actually formed in late 1915. Our first mission was in effect a 'scramble', to intercept an incoming enemy flight headed for Aniche airfield nearby. Although air defence/air raid warning systems were rudimentary at this time, it is clear from many accounts that Eindekkers were 'scrambled' in this fashion and did not always just fly patrols. To accompany me, I'd selected one other pilot, a senior NCO by the name of Rall, and here we are on the grass at La Brayelle. Assuming you haven't opted for an air start, FE starts you off in this fashion, with your prop just starting to turn, which gets around the issue of invisible ground crew in other sims (although I quite liked the invisible mechanic's cry of 'Good hunting, sir!' or 'Hals und beinbruch!' as you started up in CFS2 WW1 expansion 'Combat Aces'). As we took off, I noticed flak bursts quite low in the sky, ahead of us. Snatching a glance at the in-flight map, it seemed clear that this must be the flight we were intended to intercept. Peering into the sky near the tip of the trail of busts, I could make out a pair of specks. These looked to be heading towards a friendly airfield which I could see as I gained height, a few miles distant. Today, I would not have to look far; trouble was coming to me! ...to be continued!

Footnote - the Enidekker in OFF, and plans for WOFF Having mentioned the limited scope for a Fokker Scouge campaign in OFF, I decided to give one a try. The earliest you can fly the supplied EIII seems to be November 1915, with Jasta 1. This I think is long before that unit's formation, tho the staffel is 'badged' as recce unit FA 32 in its selection screen - the title in the drop-down unit seletion list, and the in-game plane labels, inaccurately show Jasta 1. The OFF Eindekker is, like Laton's FE version, a nice bird, with a rather better-looking cockpit. However, the fact that you can't start a campaign until November 1915 means you've missed most of the 'Fokker Scourge' and will soon yourself become fodder for DH2s and Nieuport 11s. There are some other problems too. OFF tends to allocate rather large flight sizes - for Jastas anyway - and the ten eindekker operation in my first mission seems wildly unrealistic. Even for the later Battle of Verdun 'barrage patrols', I suspect half that would have been a more realistic 'maximum effort'. Still, it was an impressive line-up, most of which you can see in this screenie: The next problem was the unrealistic mission - artillery spotting for a flight of Fokkers! I think Bletchley's campaign mod reduces or eliminates such mission allocations. And anyway, you can just do as I did, and assume that the Herren back at HQ have had a little too much French wine the night before and really intended you to fly a patrol up to the Lines! The next problem I had was finding any enemies. First mission drew a blank. There seemed to be lots of Fokkers in the air - including my unit's first flight of four, which I bumped into, and another Fokker out on his own apparently. But I only found the flight of BE2cs we eventually attacked (on a repeat mission) by turning on the 'radar' (yes I know it's called the Tactical Display aka TAC but if it looks like a radar and it functions like a radar...) AND by increasing its range to the maximum 8 miles. Otherwise, we would have missed them. The grey flak bursts (maybe British fire directed at yet another Fokker behind the BEs?) which trailed them either only started as we got closer or weren't themselves visible further away. WOFF has reportedly tackled the plane visibility issue - not being drawn until about a mile and a half distant is not far enough - by introducing a 'dot mode' you can turn on. There was at least one report that this goes to the other extreme and that the dots can be seen way beyond reasonable visual range. Doubtless this will be tweaked if necessary, the devs having already released some patches. Anyway back in OFF...having closed with the BEs I somehow then damaged my plane diving after them. I had to watch the BE's pull away from me as I chugged along in their wake, with my engine making rather unhealthy chugging noises. The Englishmen were undisturbed also by my flight mates who, having already angered me, as usual, with their poor formation-keeping, seemed reluctant or unable to close with the enemy, despite my increasingly-frustrated 'Attack!' commands. We might as well have gone artillery spotting, for all the good we had done. As for WOFF, OBD has announced a 'Fokker Scourge' add-on, to be released soon, adding to the current EIII two earlier Eindekker versions and a rifle-equiped BE2c (development screenies showed the rifle was a mid-WW2 Lee Enfield No.4!). A possibly more useful addition would be a pilot-only bomb-carrying BE2c, Immelman's first kill being one of these. http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3885222/Addon_Packs_Coming_soon#Post3885222

Hi tirta I think the screen with 1.6 maybe just didn't get updated when they made the newer version. In the difficulty settings for IL2, I always turn off engine overheating and don't use 'Complex Engine Management' as I just find it all a distraction; maybe try that, or just tuen off 'engine overheats'. I have similar problems flying the Albatros DIII. For some reason I can't understand, the usual throttle control does not seem to work. Instead, you have to use keys to turn magneto switches on or off to get some throttle control. I can barely take off and cannot keep up with my flight! I think that engines like the Mercedes DIII had a normal throttle control, even if they also had magneto switches. Strange. In one of my SE5 missions, my plane and the others exploded on the ground immediately; I read something about a bug when loaded with bombs that causes this. So there may still be some 'rough edges' to this mod, but it can be a lot of fun and looks good!

Yes they are in Dark Blue World: Haven't found a Korean campaign for them, maybe because I haven't really looked. Mission4today is a good place to look.

Life and virtual death on and above the ocean waves in Ojcar's 'Unsung Heroes' seaplane campaign Rise of Flight is not the only WW1 flightsim to feature seaplanes. Thanks to modder Stephen1918, First Eagles/FE2 also got its feet wet, with a series of floatplanes suitable for the Channel coast and a 'terrain' package, complete with some shipping. Fellow-modder Ojcar then provided us with a campaign to complete the scene. The aircraft are available here... http://combatace.com/files/category/360-first-eagles-add-on-aircraft/ ...the terrain is here... http://combatace.com/files/file/14129-north-sea-terrain/ ...and the campaign is here: http://combatace.com/files/file/14164-unsung-heroes/ The campaign needs a separate install of FE, which for FE2 is just a matter of copying the game executable, renaming and running it. This creates the 'mods' folder where you install the new items. The drill for FE(1) is slightly different but equally simple. You can combine the seaplanes in a normal install, but this campaign really needs a separate one, to avoid oddities like vehicles or landplanes moving on the sea surface. This limits the campaign to aero-naval action but it's nicely done and makes a fun and interesting challenge, nevertheless. The campaign is set in 1917 and the briefing sets the scene nicely, with some short but interesting historical background to help you get 'in character'. The Germans, having occupied a stretch of coastline running from the eastern end of the English Channel to the southern end of the North Sea, are contesting the British and allied blockade and running some naval operations of their own. Both sides have the support - for this campaign - of seaplane tenders and their aircraft. Which is where the player comes in, of course. I elected to fly for the German side, in a late-model Albatros W4. This was a fighter, basically a scaled-up Albatros DII with two large floats. For our first mssion, dated 1 November 1917, two of us were detailed to fly a defensive partol around our tender, the SMS Answald. I could have increased our strength by selecting more pilots from the squadron roster, but I thought we'd stick to a twosome. That was my first mistake. Anyway here we are, ready for the 'off'. If you don't have an air start selected, FE, logically enough, starts you on the ground. Also logically enough, if there's no ground - as in, the middle of the North Sea - you're started on the water. Like so. The ship in the background isn't our tender - which vessels were the progenitors of proper aircraft carriers - it's our surface escort. WW1 warship identification's not my speciality and it may be a representative type rather than a model of a real vessel but it looks suitably Victorian. I suspect FE doesn't model sea states which is just as well as I had enough trouble with all that water, in the 'dead calm' we got. Getting off the ground - sorry, water - was the first challenge. Basically I opened her up and when it felt right, pulled back on the stick to increase the angle of attack and get a bit more lift in an effort to unstick. This worked...eventually. But my W4, once airborne, soon confirmed my suspicion that she was going to be rather less tractable than the scouts I was used to flying. She felt somewhere in between one of those, and a two-seater. Slow in the climb, ready to buffet in an impending stall if I increased the AoA too much, but reasonably willing to turn without behaving badly. As you can see, you don't get a wake effect (unless I've not installed something somewhere, must check...) but the sea surface and our little flotilla made a nice backdrop for Stephen1918's beautiful plane, as myself and my wingman - the AI manage water takeoffs just fine - climbed slowly away. In a nice touch, our ships fly the correct Imperial German ensigns at stem and stern (the former being the pointy end, I believe). Behind us in the pic below, you can see both our escort and our seaplane tender. As I orbited, slowly gaining height and getting a feel for my machine, the gunners on both our ships decided to give me a little surprise by commencing some brisk shooting. Fire and smoke bellowed from every barrel and tracer fire sped up and past us, directed at a target or targets which I had not yet seen. Obviously, our patrol was going to be no mere sight-seeing trip... ...to be continued!

Yes the Schneider is too good a plane not to have in the campaign! It may have been an older model, but the two guys we fought did just fine in it! Next time I will try flying the Schneider myself, and maybe get to bomb some of those ships instead of defending them!

Hola mi amigo! glad you like the reports, Ojcar. And thanks for the info - I had the old versions, and am downloading the new ones now. Next time against the Nieu. 10 I will not be so lucky! Keep up the modding - looking forward to the next installment!

Unfinished business... Some way off, a trail of receding flak-bursts maked the line of retreat of a single aeroplane, which I took to be the second BE2 from the flight we'd been tasked to deal with. To my left, I saw my flight-mate's Fokker turn and head after the retreating enemy. I did likewise. The German flak ceased firing; evidently the Englishman was out of the battery's range. But it wasn't long before another one found him and he was again under fire from the ground, including some tracer fire from machine guns. By now, my flight-mate was steadily closing the range, undeterred by the 'friendly' flak that was bursting around the BE. The Fokker started shooting. Then he stopped, broke off his attack and came around in a wide left-hand curve, back into formation with me. Had he been wounded or damaged? Had he run out of ammo? Whatever it was, this was now up to me. My Fokker seemed to have only a very small margin of speed over the BE and as before, I closed slowly. At first, conscious of the damage I'd taken from his friend in my first attack, I nosed down then pulled up to come at him from well below his tail. But pulling up my Fokker's nose sharply from level flight invited a stall with little time for sighting, so I reverted to making an attack from dead astern and just slightly low. I started cracking off short bursts, in an effort to spook him into weaving, ready at the same time to dodge any return fire. At first he kept to his course, but as I bore down on him he started jinking, then broke into several tightly-banked sustained turns. This made him a difficult target but seemed to give his observer little opportunity to fire. I managed to get off a series of bursts and a final one at short range brought the fight to a sudden close by killing the enemy pilot (who disappears at this point in FE, Strike Fighters-style; as in RoF too I think, after a short interval hunched down in the cockpit). Job done! Six kills in one sortie is a bit extreme, to be sure, even in the fairly busy skies of this first mission. But to put this in context, if I hadn't been very lucky after kill #1, that would have been the end; two of the kills really should have been shared with my flight mate; and two seemed largely attributable to the FE Nieu. 10 apparently having a 'glass fuel tank'. Another point worth making here is that I have not (yet) applied the arc-of-fire mod to Stephen1918's BE2c, so their observers still have a particularly restricted field of fire - even by BE2 standards!. Anyway after the debrief, lucky or not, a nice 'presentation screen' advised me that my achievement was being duly recognised with the award of the Iron Cross, second class. Well on my way, I am, to the coveted Blue Max…if I live long enough! Had I wished to, I could have increased the challenge by upping campaign difficulty from 'Normal' to 'Hard'. From what I've seen, this increases the skill levels of the enemy AI across the board, to the point where the most skilled enemy pilots are really, really scary. But I believe this doesn't change your own flight's skill, so casualties there can be greater, in consequence. As I like to mentor my comrades and see them through my campaigns, I tend to avoid doing this. Another point worth mentioning is that there were several other flights in the air in this mission, doing their own thing. This included some Vickers FB5 'Gunbusses' (one pair was the target of the other flak bursts I had seen), some Morane 'parasols', two Fokker B-types, and a couple more Morane 'bullets', this time from the French air service. I have no idea whether or not I would have encountered other flights if I'd ignored my mission and flown a dozen or more miles north or south. But the FE campaign system can do a great job of putting you in the middle of what looks like an air war going on around you. To me, it feels very like Red Baron 3d and I'm fine if FE doesn't tie up system resources creating and/or tracking events you will (or should) never see. As far as ground activity is concerned, FE campaigns are often quiet but can be as busy or as quiet as the campaign designer chooses to make them and the mission itself requires, featuring everything from guns, trucks, tanks, armoured cars and troops. In FE, I have seen ground battles in progress (as opposed to 'environmental' artillery strikes). But I, for one, am quite happy when it's 'All Quiet ON the Western Front', so long as it's not all quiet, ABOVE it. At least I can routinely see firing AA guns from the air, and even attack and kill them (though I have largely given that up since I started playing campaigns which also feature ground-based AA machine guns!). So there you have it. This was not my first campaign mission in the iconic Fokker in First Eagles and it won't be my last. It was a tense and exciting mission, a flying predator but in hostile skies filled with unforgiving hazards and dangers at every turn. I'd been made to work hard for the results my little team achieved and I had been very lucky to survive that stiff fight with the first Moranes. You can also fly the Eindekker in RoF and in OFF or WOFF. Although I could not resist the delightful RoF Nieuport 11 and DH2, I didn't invest in the Fokker. Superbly-engineered as RoF's Eindekker is, the sim's planeset just doesn't cover the 'Fokker Scourge' period and I had no wish to play the part of fodder for Nieuports, De Havillands or Fees, with no BEs, Voisins or Moranes to hunt in compensation. Hopefully, RoF will one day get a BE2c (and/or a Morane parasol or the like). The position in OFF is only slightly better; there is a BE for your Fokker to attack, but OFF's version of the 'Quirk' is basically defenceless, armed only with a fixed forward-firing Lewis Gun and further handicapped by CFS3-style bomber AI. WOFF, if you have the system to run it, at last remedies this, adding a BE2c with a proper pintle-mounted Lewis, a Morane parasol and a BE12, as well as an Aviatik on the German side - and improving the AI, to boot. However, FE has always had very good AI and it still has much the best planeset for 1915; so it's still a great option to really savour the experience of fighting in or against the rampant Eindekkers. Highly recommended.

Not over yet! What I hadn't noticed amidst the excitement was that our fight had drawn the attention of more enemy aircraft, This time, it was a couple of Englishmen in single-seat Nieuport 10s. Looking behind me after the Morane's crash, I could see my my flight-mate was low down near the deck and fighting for his life against some newcomers. I swung around immediately and went for a Nieuport which was chasing my comrade all over the sky. I caught him by surprise and was surprised in my turn when, after a short burst, the RFC machine went on fire and plunged earthwards. Knowing their reputation and my Fokker's limitations, I was rather dreading a fight with these Nieuports. But this pair - flying two-seaters adapted to serve as fighters, not as agile as the later Nieuport 11 'Bébés' - evidently lacked the flying skills of my first victim. To deal with the second enemy, I applied the same tactics I'd used against the last Morane. I let my flight-mate fight him, but took advantage of the enemy's preoccupation to have a crack at him as opportunities presented themselves. Once again, this improvised teamwork paid off and it was not long before another burst from my gun set the last Nieuport on fire, too. I've noticed that some FE planes are more prone than others to become 'flamers' and Stephen1918's Nieu. 10 seems to be in the 'fire risk' category. Anyway, down he went! ...to be continued!

Yes I'd say get it. NeverEnough covers it pretty well. Having played OFF and RoF a lot, as well as FEG and FE2, while each does some things best, the latter is IMHO the best current WW1 sim, by a significant margin. WOFF reportedly improves OFF's (have to say it) rather indifferent AI but FE2 already has good AI, plus unbeatable planesets and theatres. FE2's great value - unbeatable, considering the free mods - and doesn't need a highly-specified PC to look great. So even if you're weren't specifically looking for another TW sim, FE2 is a great choice for anyone wishing to experience WW1 in the air.

The tables are turned... To digress a little, the warning you get when you're 'pushing the envelope' in First Eagles - a comparatively realistic audible and visible 'buffeting' effect (no 'stall horn', red light or text message!) - is another area where FE really shines. Coupled with good Artificial Intelligence, Damage Models and (at the hardest setting) Flight Models, it's just a great dog-fighting sim. Combine this with sensible wingman commands and responsive wingmen, plus good aircraft visibility and a very serviceable view system, and you get a sim that's also good at patrol-leading. Dog-fighting and patrol-leading - probably the most important things for a WW1 air war sim to do well, and in my experience, FE is best at both. Add to that (including close variants) a couple of hundred flyable planes, unique aircraft and squadron markings, great aircrew animations, several theatres of war, campaigns to match, extra medal packs and skins plus all the other free add-ons, and you've got quite a package, light years ahead of the original rather limited release. Meanwhile, back at the front...the skillfully-flown little French-made monoplanes stubbornly continued to refuse to co-operate in our endeavours to shoot them down. I was now well and truly caught in a close-quarter turning fight, without the height or the speed to 'extend' and then re-engage on my own terms. The urgent need to avoid being shot down myself gave me no time to try to seek help from, or co-operate with, my flight-mate, of whose whereabouts and actions I remained largely ignorant. What to do...??? All I could think of was using the vertical, in an effort to get him into my sights - and keep myself out of his. So I 'yo-yo-ed'. Having been turning hard, my low-powered Fokker didn't have the energy to go up, so that sort of decided it. I pushed my nose down, rolled into his turning circle until my 'lift vector' was ahead of him, and then pulled up. Still no good; he whipped past my nose before I could get off a round. Again! Another try, using what energy I had left. This time, more through luck than judgement, I found myself coming into him from ahead, as he appeared to try to foil my yo-yo by turning into me. Knowing that this fight had been quickly slipping away from me and that I might not get another chance, I squeezed off a short, desperate burst as he zipped past. My clumsily-handled machine shuddered on the verge of another stall and I recovered with difficulty. I looked around, fully expecting to see the Morane on my neck and about to give me the chop. But no! There he was, low down and wings level. Wounded, damaged or just recovering from his last move, I did not know or wait to find out. I quickly swung my sights to bear and cut loose with a long burst which was rewarded with a stream of smoke. The Morane, engine out, glided down to a forced landing. I knew I'd been lucky to get him but I wasn't hanging around to congratulate myself - there was work still to be done! I watched him go for a moment, letting it all sink in, then looked around for my flight-mate. There he was, above and behind me, engaged in a turning battle with the second Morane. I swung around and climbed up to their level. I was keen to see my comrade get a kill but wasn't going to take any chances with these dangerous opponents. So I started making firing passes at the Morane while he was occupied with my comrade - a bit of improvised teamwork. After one frontal pass at low level, I looked back to see the Englishman had rolled over nearly onto his back. I watched as he fell in that attitude into the ground, apparently unable to control his machine. Whatever the damage had been, it had been quickly fatal. I felt a sudden release in tension and looked around again. ...to be continued!

Battle is joined! The airfield, its AA defences firing defiantly, remained un-bombed. The BEs sailed on…towards another airfield close by. I only just failed to catch the Englishmen before they finally cut loose with their high explosives. Fortunately, their loads just cratered the centre of the second airfield, leaving the hangars and their precious contents untouched. Now, I was about to make them pay a high price for digging a few holes. I singled out the leading BE and swung in behind him, leaving the second one to my flight-mate. As I was closing the range and lining him up for a burst, the enemy observer opened fire. Tracers whipped towards me and there was the whack of rounds hitting my machine somewhere close by. I nosed down slightly, eased off to one side, and returned fire, snapping out short bursts. The range was a bit longer than I would have liked but I was now committed to my attack. I hoped my fire would cause the BE to evade, enabling me to close the range more quickly. Instead, the RFC machine held its course. Suddenly, he seemed to stop dead in the sky in front of me, as if his speed had suddenly fallen off. As indeed it had; grey smoke billowed back from the Englishman and just before I broke away, out of the observer's field of fire, I could see that his propeller had stopped turning. Trailing smoke but under control, he was still headed for the Lines, but would clearly never reach them. One down, one to go! But it was not going to be so simple... Looking behind to see where the other BE was and what my flight-mate was doing, I got a bit of a shock. There were two aircraft behind me...but both were monoplanes. I stared rather stupidly at this spectacle for a second or two, before I had the sense to break hard right. One of the monoplanes was my flight-mate. But the other was an Englishman in a Morane Sauliner 'Bullet'. There were two of them, in fact, and their intentions were clearly unfriendly. Leaving the BEs for now, my comrade quickly went for one of the Moranes. I seemed to be Number One on the other Morane's hit list and had to break hard to avoid his tracers. My friend seemed well-placed to deal with his chosen target; the other Morane was clearly going to be down to me. As I turned into the RFC machine, it didn't take me long to realise that this was not going to be easy. I've been flying FE quite a while now and one of the good things about the AI is its variability. And the fact that you can quite quickly form an opinion about the skill of the individual enemy you are facing, from how he flies. This guy seemed to be at the 'hot shot' end of the scale, from the way his machine zipped about the sky and refused to be shot down. My Fokker soon showed itself for the rather primitive fighter it was. Tight turns had often to be backed off as my machine shuddered on the verge of a stall. To make matters worse, the other Morane had avoided my flight-mate's attack and it was now everyone for himself with the well-flown Moranes looking likely to come out on top. ...to be continued!

The 'Tizzy angle', World War One-style Unsurprisingly, my 80hp Fokker was neither particularly fast not a great climber, so overhauling the enemy flight was a slow job. I kept my climb rate low to maintain airspeed, anxious to intercept them before they reached the nearby airfield, lest they be intending to bomb it. As we gained height, I adjusted my heading to acquire and maintain the 'Tizzy angle'. This is nick-named after the Polish WW2 RAF pilot who described how the optimum intercept course involved keeping your heading such that the enemy plane stayed at the same angle in your arc of vision, as you closed. If it seemed to be moving ahead, you were liable to come in behind it and end up in a tail chase. If it seemed to be slipping backwards, you were going to arrive ahead of it. Keep the enemy's image fixed in a constant direction, just growing in size as you closed, and you had it right - the 'Tizzy angle'. I closed slowly but steadily, watching the flak banging away. Looking around in case of threats, I could see another trail of bursts in the sky, some way off to my right. They didn't seem to be heading my way. My assigned target was in sight ahead, so I stuck with that. As any good Prussian officer will tell you, orders are orders. The race was now on - to intercept the enemy airmen before they arrived over the friendly airfield! As we came closer, I could see that my wish was about to be granted. Having flown Stephen1918's superb new BE2c, I now wished to meet it in the air, in combat, and that is exactly what these two enemy machines were. BE's often left their observers behind to carry more bombs but the emergence of the threat from Fokkers rather inhibited that practice. These two, though bombed up, were also ready to defend themselves. It finally became clear that I was not going to reach the Englishmen before they reached the airfield. I saw the BEs change course as they swept over it and cut the corner to catch them, glancing down to see the impact of the bombs I had not been able to stop. ...to be continued!

Brilliant! Not worried about moving trains - but railways played such a major role in WW1 that their omission from FE's landscapes has always been the big gap there. In particular, stations and goods yards were always such a major bombing target. It would be a great step forward, visually and operationally, to have railways and station targets added to terrains and campaigns. Railway lines and bridges, stations and goods yards with rolling stock you can attack or defend...drool!

Come on in, the water's lovely! At this point, flushed with success, I blundered across the nose of my flight-mate, who was being hotly pursued through the flak-bursts by the other Englishman, in the second Sopwith Schneider - for that is what these aircraft were: floatplane derivatives of the the same company's pioneer little Tabloid landplane. A little out of place in the skies of late 1917, perhaps, but these two were flying like that thought had never occurred to them. My comrade broke away and down, with the Spowith behind him every step of the way, undeterred by the pool of oil on the sea which marked the grave of his friend. I banked around, then dived in for a quick pass, before pulling back up to re-assess. Re-assessing the situation didn't take long. Though I had got him off my flight-mates neck, the Sopwith was still very much in action. Next thing, the two were back up at my level, snapping at each other's heels. Knowing better by now than to get into a turning fight with these nimble little Britischers, I 'extended' then came back in for another pass. Once, twice, a third time. The Sopwith banked and dived out of my way each time, on the last occasion pulling up just as I thought he was sure to pile into the sea. On my fourth pass - by which time, I was beginning to get worried that he might nail my flight-mate in between my attacks, if we let this go on much longer - he turned into me. All right, head on it will be, then, I thought to myself. My two guns against his one. I lined him up and held down the trigger. At the last moment, he seemed to veer slightly sideways. I was determined to get him this time and I kept my nose onto him, taking advantage for that fraction of a second of being out of his line of fire and having a slightly-bigger target for my own guns. There was a bang and my machine lurched, then started to roll to the left. A collision! By crossing my controls I managed to stop my kite rolling over and throttled back as I steered desperately for the sea, minus a large section of my port mainplanes. As I came in, I could see that my nose was yawed well off my direction of travel, as in those crazy crosswind landing clips you see. I planed to kick her straight with the rudder just before touch-down but I over-did it and lost the deflection I had needed to keep the wings level. Too late to correct, my machine rolled hard left at the moment of landing...bang! All over! To cap it all, the Sopwith whom I'd bashed into - though damaged enough to quit the fight and head for home - had obviously come off best. As he flew off, there was first one and then a second violent spash, as two other aircraft hit the sea, not far apart. The Sopwith Babies had arrived, and as I found out later from the debrief, my flight-mate, not to be out-done by his leader, had collided with one of them. Evenyone else just went about their business, including the two Rumplers, another pair of Schneiders, and a bloke in a two-gunned Hanriot floatplane, who would likely have been a much more dangerous foe than any of the Sopwiths. You never know with FE, though; the variable AI means you can come up against a variety of skill levels in the opposition you meet. This was my first mission in an FE seaplane campaign and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The 'air-to-air' was typically First Eagles, close up and personal, a dogfighter's dream (or nightmare, depending on result). As an areo-naval sim, FE evidently has its limitations. The seaplane tenders and their consorts may be potential targets but are I think static, placed like airfield buildings in a conventional landscape. There is no land in the North Sea 'terrain', nor any landplanes in the campaign. And the planes there are, are a bit of a mix as regards era; and no two-seaters or flying boats (yet, anyway!). But they are really lovely to look at and excellent foes or mounts, as you like it. Ojcar's campaign with Stephen1918's planes, ships and terrain are an excellent way to experience a dimension that so far only RoF amongst current WW1 sims can manage. Highly recommended!

'This is not a drill...' As it happened, we were far from the only enterprising naval fliers in the air that day. Some of our friends were airborne, including a pair in Rumpler 6B1s - a single-seat fighter adaption of the same company's C-type machine which pre-dated the more successful Albatros I was flying: There was also this rather less friendly pair. Although they were headed in the direction of us and our ships, these Sopwith Babies were not the target for all the anti-aircraft fire which our vessels had unleashed. My wingman seemed to see them before I did. Looking up and quarter left, I could see the flak bursting in the sky, tracking steadily and menacingly straight at us. As the range wound down, the two specks at the head of the trail of flak bursts resolved themselves into the form of two floatplanes in echelon formation. I nosed up towards them, knowing that they were high enough to fly right past us if they were on a bombing run. No way was I going to be able to save our ships from being bombed, if that was what these two had in mind. Fortunately, perhaps, it was us they were after - me and my flight-mate, not the ships. They accepted my challenge and dived straight for me, guns soon blazing. For the avoidance of doubt, I gave my flight-mate a hasty command to attack. In no time, the four of us were whirling round and round in a merry little dogfight. It did not take me long to realise that these enemy pilots were either very skillful or they had machines which were rather more nimble than mine. My flight-mate went for one of the Sopwiths, but as you can see from the pic above, the second enemy machine whipped around and was on his tail in an instant. Here's my chance, I thought, to save my comrade and get an easy kill. The first bit went as planned; the second did not. I managed to shoot the Sopwith off the other Albatros's tail but I then found myself in a turning fight with an agile foe I could only manage to hold in my sights for the briefest of intervals. I got quite close at times, despite the flak bursting merrily all around me. I knew I was hitting him, but he seemed somewhat reluctant to go down. After a final burst at close range, he started trailing smoke and I saw his propeller grind to a stop. He sideslipped away, down and out at last. One down, one to go! ...to be continued!

First try-out with the latest version of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator Fans of classic WW1 sim Red Baron 3d like myself will likely know Pat Wilson from his outstanding 'Western Front Patch' which added shed-loads of good stuff to RB3d - I still have a WFP install on my current PC! More recently, Pat has turned his attentions to Rise of Flight. The latter shipped with simple 'mission set' linear campaigns, later joined by a career mode (which is still nominally in beta!). To this, Pat added a new campaign interface and mission generator, which adds lots of features and for many, transforms the RoF Single Player campaign experience into something reminiscent of RB3d, whose campaign set the bar for these things so many years ago. PWCG has its own forum at RoF, where you can find out more, get the download links, and discuss the mod with others, including the developer: http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewforum.php?f=394 The PWCG web page is here and includes help and documentation, as well as the downloads themselves; http://www.pwcampaigngenerator.com/WebSite/PWCG.html PWCG simply unzips into your RoF game folder and when you run it, lets you create a campaign pilot, chose his rank and nationality (if you choose 'US' this allows you to transfer from French or British services to the US Air Service after the latter takes to the field) and campaign start date, month by month. You then generate a campaign. After that, you generate one mission at a time. You can review the mission briefing with a map which describes route, waypoints and enemy & friendly air units known to be operating in the area. If you don't like the look of this you can scrub it and try again. This is similar to the option in OFF but doesn't just give you a different target/route. Don't feel like busting balloons today? Scrub that and try again, till you get a mission type that you prefer. You can also vary waypoints, review the squadron roster and select which pilots will accompany you (except the leader, if that's not you). You can then close PWCG and start RoF. Your generated mission will be there, waiting for you to fly, under the 'Missions' menu option. After flying the mission, you can go back into PWCG. You're prompted to give the number of any claims you want to make and can then view a RB3d-style animated mission debrief on the map. This describes results more like the Red Baron original and in a less cryptic way that OFF's equivalent: naming your wingman in entries for losses or kills for example. If you want, you can type free text into a mission report, for future reference or to impress the 'brass hats'. PWCG also lets you adjust many campaign parameters, not just simple ones like air and ground unit density. You can also apply for a transfer to a different squadron and take leave (=advance your campaign's current date). There is an interface mod available at the PWCG web page, that will put PWCG onto the RoF menu, improving integration. I'm not sure if it works ok with the latest versions of both PWCG and RoF. I started using PWCG on the recommendation of Barkhorn over at SimHQ while doing a comparative series of campaign mission reports for OFF, FE2 and RoF. I had been reluctant to do so as I (wrongly!) thought that working back and forth would be more hassle than I cared for, but I'm glad I changed my mind. Main factor here was that PWCG lets you choose a rank high enough to ensure that in most missions, you are the flight leader. This removes the chore of formation-keeping, takes away dependency on potentially-erratic flight-leader AI, and best of all, gives me the important and satisfying extra challenge of leading the patrol: navigating, watching out for activity and enemies and deciding what to do when we have a 'contact'. That's how I like to play all my sims so this is the biggest 'plus' for me. This is not a review of PWCG. I've barely scratched the surface of its capabilities; suffice to say it looks like an amazing piece of kit and I can well understand the general enthusiasm for it in the RoF community. Rather, I'm going to describe a campaign mission in the latest release. The change I was most looking forward to seeing (which came the previous release, IIRC) was more flak. One of the things I didn't like at all, beforehand, was the paltry AA fire. Naturally, I have long ago installed the mod which kills RoF's horrible 'environmental flak'. In a war where the sight of AA fire was perhaps the main indication of potential targets in your area - something well replicated in FE2 and OFF, but not in RoF - the presence of stray flak rounds just to add immersion was, in my view, a classic 'What WERE they thinking?' feature. But with 'environmental flak' laid to rest, I'd found that there was precious little 'real' AA fire. Much too often, planes that looked like obvious (if not priority) flak targets - and which I could see only using the excellent RoF view system - were not fired upon at all and so were not 'legitimately' detectable. This may have been compounded by enemy flights spawning rather close. Bad enough, but much worse if their arrival is not announced by the presence of nearby AA bursts. Getting no warning might be a fun extra challenge to some; but to me it's unrealistic if it happens nearly every time and it severely reduces the opportunity to do the patrol leader thing, where you spot an enemy flight in time to consider your options and make up a quick plan to deal with them. Preferably, with results like this: So having downloaded and installed PWCG 15.2, I was keen to see the difference and to get to the grips with the enemy, at least sometimes on my own terms, rather than just blundering into them. I was not disappointed! ...to be continued!

Oh, that looks good!

Ok, ok, so the guy has an oddly-shaped airspeed indicator, that doesn't make him a bad person!