Mafiozo

Whoa, for a minute there I thought such an episode exists! actually that could be a great theme for a Twilight Zone episode. Hun-Zombies emerging from the trenches, etc.

Hey buddies. very happy to see the fruitful, interesting discussion that this thread of mine ignited here. I have submitted my paper today - as I said earlier, the paper was mainly an academical writing exercise, very limited in space. the title of the essay was pretty cheesy, but I couldn't help: "Cavaliers of the Sky - Chivalry of Fighter Pilots in WWI", and on the opening page, an illustration named "Voss's Last Flight" by Michael Turner. in the short space I had, I gave a quick introduction detaling the rise of Aviation in WWI, expanding on the amazing speed that characterized the advance of Airplane techonlogy from 1914-1918, quoting a German officer whose name I don't remember (Siegfried/Siegler? I'm sure you'll know) that looking at the airplanes of 1914 from the year 1918, they seemed like an ancient bird. on I went and demonstrated some known "Chivalry" cases, adding the Udet-Guynemer encounter, referring to Billy Bishop's memoirs and to the memoirs of Boris Sergievsky, among other things like trying to explain why pilots painted their planes with colors and other special insignia. my conclusion was that Chivalry did exist in the aerial warfare of WWI, mainly because it was such a new institution. while the men on the ground were hiding IN the ground, pilots faced each other high above in the air in front of thousands of eyes, from both sides of the conflicts. the public and the fighting men themselves needed a "face" in this new faceless war, and the pilots were a good branch of the army to attribute that face to. it was a romantic conjunction that replaced the man and the horse to the man and the flying machine. also, pilots gained mutual respect from understanding the complicated difficulties a piloting career included. however, I finished saying that after all the good words - the object was ultimately to shoot down enemy pilots, and shooting down airplanes in WWI, usually meant death. that's it more or less. Thanks for all of your help, guidance and support. the files here on the site helped me alot. now I'm going to have find myself some time for OFF before the next exam. Cheers!

Oh, Combat Mission! boy, have I spent countless hours on that game. first, Beyond Overlord. played it for hours on end with hundreds of different mods. as I recall there was a REALLY good Battle of The Bulge mod, which I loved very much, side to side with the vanilla setting, in the hedgerows of the Villers-Bocage, zooming onto my British cromwell tank commanders shouting "Chew on that, Fritz!". loved that I also vividly recall waiting with excitement for my CMBB disc to arrive, back in October 2002. excited like a 16 year old girl (at the time I was the same age, just as a boy). the first scenario I played blew me away - a battle not too far from Moscow, October 1941. I loved CMBB, felt that it brought back the Honor that the Eastern Front deserved, on terms of wargaming. the only other games I really enjoyed on the subject were East Front II - Fall of the Reich, Combat Mission 3 and Red Orchestra. but I don't want to hijack your thread into a general WWII gaming thread. truth to be said the Battle for Normandy demo set me off a little. maybe it has to do with the crappy FPS(which is weird since I have a GTX 470), but your message prompted me to go check it again when I have the time.

Hello again fellas. sorry for the time distance between my first message and this one, academic life on the brink of exam period can be quite demanding. I wish to thank you all for the warm welcome and informative advice, indeed I am going to use the blessed heap of reading materials to which Dej directed me. I've already came across some great memoirs there which transfer "How they felt". my professor just yesterday confirmed my request to write about the subject, with much enthusiasm I must add! "This is a wonderful subject, well done on your choice to write about it" he wrote. now this on the one hand infuses me with motivation, but on the other, you know - this is just a paper to show how I write about historic subjects and analyze them. but I will do my best. the paper is going to deal with how the new technology was grasped by pilots, soldiers and the public alike, and the implications of this grasp. I have yet to come up with a pragmatic question, but I think I'll begin my introduction with a story of two opposing pilots who met after a dogfight. if anyone has any good examples of such occurrences I'd be glad to hear. I'm thinking of beginning with young Hermann Goering and the Australian Frank Slee, but already the sources on that seem elusive. beh, academy. also - I've borrowed two books from the library regarding the subject. the first is "The Great Air War" by Lee Kennett which proved to be, so far, very readable and interesting, and the other: "Aces Falling" by Peter Hart. the first one seems to be more accessible for my needs, but there's loads of memoirs and sources on the second one. I'm sure most of you know them. also, another essay I'll be using was written by A.D. Harvey and is called: "Why Was the Red Baron's Fokker Painted Red? Decoding the Way Aeroplanes Were Painted in the First World War. an absorbing read, I must say! again I thank you all for your very warm welcome. I've introduced myself to some internet communities in my time and I don't think I've ever experienced such hospitality. so please, by all means, drinks on me!

Hey huginn. the comments above me have already said it well - but seeing as I was exactly in the same boat like you up until a week and a half ago, and finally decided to go for P3, even with the risk of P4 coming out next month (something that is very unlikely) - I strongly urge you to buy P3. you won't regret it, I guarantee you.

Salute, fellow flyers! I am a new pilot to OFF who has just recently discovered this amazing game. spending a few days pondering if to purchase P3 or wait it out for P4, one night upon falling asleep, a magical force just got a hold of me and made me place an order. come 5 days and my dreams are dropped into my mailbox. installing CFS 3 (also ordered), installing OFF, and waving goodbye to six fruitful hours, in which, as a member of RFC 56 in April 1917, I have managed to shoot down 3 Albatross D.IIIs and to get shot down a few times myself. but as a newbie, I gave my pilot, for the time being, the privilege of being death proof. this is really one of a kind experience. all the reports about the immersion of the game couldn't have been more true. anyone who is interested in the history of world war I, history of wars, or just history by itself, owes it to himself to play this. hell, everyone should play it. it makes you fall in love with WWI aerial combat, clear and simple. like the last of the last of an old guard, Knights fighting in the air, before modernism bearing heat seeking missiles ruined everything. however like everything in life, my OFF story has its downside to it: being a University student, I've gotten into it at a very stressful time - Exam period. so I'll have to delay the joy of all those Huns on my Hard Drive just waiting to smoke me, and get back to flanders fields only when I have some spare time. and this is where I ask for your help! In one of my courses I have to write an essay about 20th century history, and WWI is included in the subjects I am allowed to write about. so what I want to do is write about WWI aviation, linking it to the sub-subject of technological advance. that is to say: how did the advancement of Aerial Combat affect the ground war and more importantly, how did it affect combat pilots. were WWI pilots chivalric as they are sometimes portrayed in popular culture? truth is, I have to find a research question and try to answer it. as I said it's a paper of not more than 6 or 7 pages, even less. so I would very much appreciate any advice from the schooled friends here on the forum, regarding books, sources and even ideas for a subject to write about regarding WWI Aviation. and of course, OFF tips! Cheers, Mafiozo