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Wings Over Flanders Fields wins two CombatAce Awards! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rp4K6xsDQeo Narration: Aurora Price Music: Matt Milne Video: Hellshade Shadowing Mod: AnKor Cloud Mod: Arisfuser News Team: 33Lima, Adger, Hellshade Video Editor: Andre "Skyviper" Ford Game Play Review: Wings Over Flanders Fields Check out the multi-part reviews here: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four 'WOFF' is a utter and total transformation of Combat Flight Simulator 3 into a beautiful, unique WW1 simulator! See the brand new AI fight or escape in true WWI maneuvers and behavior!

Spotting for the Gunners in the LFG Roland C II! In an air war notable for the sheer variety of planes of all shapes and sizes that made it to the front, the LFG Roland C II must be one of the most distinctive, if not also one of the most attractive. 'Truely, this aircraft is a whale!' was the reaction of one of the German procurement people who came to see what they'd be getting for their reichsmarks, giving the Walfisch its enduring nick-name. But it was also one of the most advanced aircraft of its day, a compact, fast, streamlined single-bay two-seater general purpose aeroplane in a world where other such machines were bigger, slower or ungainlier…and mostly, all three. 'The best German aircraft now' was reportedly the verdict of RFC ace Albert Ball, who frequently came up against (and shot down) the type in the summer and early autumn of 1916. However, though sometimes encountered in sizeable formations in this its heyday, the Roland was produced in comparatively small numbers and its front-line service career was over by about mid-1917. Speedy in the air, it was slow and expensive to make. Its thin wings tended to warp in the harsh conditions of front-line airfields and visibility for landing was poor, resulting in many crashes or hard landings. But still, it was a notable performer for its time, whose capabilities generally matched its good looks. Many of us will know the type from the 1960s Airfix 1/72 kit, helpfully moulded in light blue plastic in imitation of the distinctive finish initially carried by the Roland. It made up into a nice model, with decent crew figures instead of the dreaded 'goggled alien' of earlier Airfix WW1 kits. One day, I will make this kit again, notwithstanding that newer versions are available. In the meantime, I can fly the Roland in simulators. I don't yet have the Rise of Flight Roland, seen here escorting my DFW C V in a recent mission... ...but I do have and like the First Eagles versions from the A Team Skunkworks. Though they have a 'Spandau' machine gun for the observer, instead of a 'Parabellum', there are a couple of interesting variants, including this one with a captured Lewis Gun fitted to fire ahead over the propeller arc, which was tried in real life: But for this mission I chose Wings Over Flanders Fields. Having flown the Roland in Over Flanders Fields, I was keen to see how I made out with this machine in the latest incarnation of this sim, with Ankor's self-shadowing mod and the new AI and landscapes of WOFF. The campaign Creating a new pilot, I tabbed throught the available German 'Bomber/recce' squadrons flying in September 1916 till I found one that flew the Roland in the British sector - WOFF still provides a better representation of the RFC order of battle, and would benefit in particular from the addition of French two-seaters more suitable for either 1916 or 1918 than the Morane L (really a 1914-15 type) and the licence-built Strutter (gone from the front by mid-1918). I ended up with Feldflieger Abteilung (Artillerie) 240, based at in Flanders. I believe the 'Artillerie' indicates that we specialise in observing for the artillery and can correct their fire using radio transmitters, one of the major jobs for two-seaters in WW1, along with photo or visual reconnaisance and to a lesser extent, bombing. Here's our roster and our operational area. Even without tabbing to the Intelligence summary, I knew that the deadliest foes we could expect to face in our sector would be DH-2 'pusher' fighters and the more modern French Nieuport scout, both types used by several RFC squadrons. With the British fighters apt to patrol up to ten to twelve miles on the German side of the Lines, I knew also that we must be prepared to meet them in the air, whatever our task would be. The mission It's 12 September 1916, and our assigned task for this morning is artillery observation. Down to the south west we must go, from our airfield at Houplin down to the trench-lines. There are no less of six of us on this operation, with myself leading the full flying strength of the staffel. When I draw an 'art obs' mission in OFF or WOFF, I generally fly to the front and orbit near any friendly artillery barrage in progress, as if I was directing the fire. It's not possible actually to call down fire onto ground targets (although after this mission I'm no longer so sure, of which, more later). If there's no artillery fire going on, I regard my radio transmitter (or the battery's receiver) as having 'gone dark' and do a bit of recce work, so that the taxpayers still get their money's worth. We have an escort, but I wasn't going to put much faith in the two obsolete Fokker Eindekkers we'd been allocated. For all I knew they were the last ones at the Front, still able to beat up a BE2c but well outclassed by any fighter we were likely to meet. My own flight would serve as my escort. I would do the virtual artillery-spotting. Knowing that formation-keeping in WOFF was considerably improved over OFF, I knew my comrades would be able to keep up quite well as I circled over the front. Anyone trying to shoot down the spotter - me - would have to get through them, first. At least, that was the theory. Here we are, lined up opposite the sheds and ready for the 'off'. I had chosen a camouflaged skin from those available in WOFF, but the rest of the flight are in the original, distinctive and rather racy light blue. I checked my controls and started up. Then I called up the Tactical Display (TAC), set its target type to 'aircraft', checked its range was suitably low (I left it at half a mile) and turned the TAC off again: it was now ready to padlock air targets, when turned on again. I didn't expect to do too much (if any) dog-fighting on this mission but if I had to break formation and fight individually, I decided I was going to make good use of my forward-firing MG, relying on the observer to cover my tail. Which is more or less how it came to pass. But that lay in the furture. I roared off the airfield and tried some gentle turns before setting course for the Front and throttling back to allow my flight to catch up. I found the ailerons deceptively light and the rudder heavy. It was easy to under-bank and slip outwards, or worse still, over-bank and find yourself in a nasty side-slip, if you didn't give her plenty of top or bottom rudder. This was nearly to be my undoing. But that, too, lay in the future. For now, I watched my flight catch up from astern. One of them took several minutes, during which time I saw two aircraft fly past overhead - the two Fokkers, I supposed. This was the only time I saw them, as it turned out. At at last we were all in a nice diamond formation. I opened the throttle wide and I began to climb, maintaining forward pressure on the stick to stop my tail heavy plane's nose from rising too much. All around us, thin clouds loomed, slipped past below, beneath or beside us, then loomed ahead again. I spent a little time admiring and exploring my plane, inside and out, between navigating and scanning the skies. Visibility downwards was, as expected, not good, but in every other direction, I had a superb view, unobstructed by the usual high-mounted biplane upper wing. Looking behind, the sight of my flight tucked in behind me inspired confidence…to much, perhaps, I thought, remembering Albert Ball's opinion that such formations were easier to surprise as the aircrew tended to feel a false sense of security and relax. On we went. Climb rate was less than stellar and we were not far above five thousand feet as we came up the the trench-lines. Our Fokker escorts were nowhere to be seen and I decided I wasn't going to hang about looking for them. I was at a respectable height for artillery observation and was now at the Front, where lay our targets. I leveled off and throttled back slightly. I had arrived at the war. Approaching the area over the Lines where we were tasked with spotting for the Gunners, I turned on the Tactical Display to get a navigation check. Instead, I got a surprise. In fact, I got two surprises. First, knowing that I was headed roughly in the direction of my target area, I was startled to notice that the pale blue line showing the path to my next waypoint, instead of pointing up, straight ahead, had slewed around to my left rear. If that wasn't strange enough, the text displayed beneath the TAC itself was telling me that it was high time to go home. In fact, not even home - to the nearest airfield. Had I inadvertently skipped a waypoint? No, I was fairly sure I had done no such thing. My true objective still lay ahead. Who's leading this mission, anyway - me or the Tactical Display? Pilots in the German Air Service may often be mere NCOs but while I may have to take orders from my commissioned observer - my own alter ego, anyway - I'm certainly not at the beck and call of an on-screen visual aid. Sod that, I thought. On we go. Actually, the TAC was trying to be helpful. Looking behind, the reason for the device's caution was not hard to see. An aircraft was slicing into our formation from our left rear. And though I didn't notice it at the time, three other aircraft were below and behind us to the right. My initial reaction, seeing just the one presumed enemy attacking, was that I'm not going to break formation and get distracted from my objective for the sake of one aggressive Englishman. Unfortunately, those on the right of my formation didn't agree that staying together and meeting the enemy with massed fires was the best bet. That side of my formation broke up rapidly, as Rolands wheeled off and after the Nieuport. All very commendable perhaps and it certainly seemed to put off the foe-man, who turned away. I now had a decision to make, and I needed to make it immediately, before the passage of time removed one of my options. I could hold my course to the objective, with what looked to be two remaining flight-mates. Or I could turn us back to join the battle, keeping my formation, if not intact, then together; and resuming my progress to the objective when the battle had been won. Keeping to my present course seemed to comply with the Master Principle of War - Selection and Maintenance of the Aim...but at the expense of one nearly as important - Concentration of Force. Incidentally, contrary to what John Keegan said in 'The Face of Battle', these principles, far from being thought old-fashioned, were taught at Sandhurst in the late 1970s. Anyhow I had read too many accounts - Trafalgar, for one - of forces that are (or get) split up, then being defeated in detail, even by numerically weaker enemies. So I turned back to join the fight. By this point I had realised there was more than one enemy aircraft. I picked up one who lay ahead and gave the attack order, so that the others would pick their own targets. Mine, I recognised as a Nieuport Scout. He was manouevring a few hundred feet below, to my half-right. I made a series of swooping attacks on him, allowing my observer a crack as I whizzed past. While I kept up my speed and most of my height, the tightly-turning Nieuport was able to turn in under my attacks most of the time. He in his turn was prevented from having a determined go at me by the presence nearby of at least one other Roland. After a few more passes I got behind him and stayed there long enough to get in several good bursts from not too far out. He stopped manoeuvring and settled into a steady glide earthwards, emitting a spluttering trail of grey smoke. I watched as he piled up into the mud behind me. Got him! But the fight wasn't over yet! ...to be continued!

Second time lucky? Flying the BE12 in Wings over Flanders Fields This time up, having met a heroic but early end in my First Eagles BE12 campaign, I'm checking out the same experience in WOFF. No need to worry about editing files this time tho, for the BE12 is one of the new planes included in this latest version of OBD Software's popular WW1 airwar sim. 'Latest' not for long, though, as a new iteration, WOFF 2.0, is about to hit the virtual shelves, as a payware upgrade and expansion, with the emphasis on Home Defence against Zepps and Gothas: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4018110/WOFF_v2.0_Screen_Shots__!#Post4018110 As in FE, I created a new pilot, finding that I could enlist in the same squadron from the same date - 19 Squadron, RFC, from 1st September 1916, just days before Boelcke and his 'cubs' from Jasta 2 burst onto the scene. WOFF bases us at Fienvillers/Candas, to the north-west of Cappy and further behind the Lines, than in FE. And here's my pilot logbook, a much better presentation than FE's pilot stats screen (better than how most other combat flight sims have done this, come to think of it). Not so good is the accuracy of this page, describing my mount, which emphasises the BE12's brief and almost accidental fighter role and says it was at the front in April 1915, a whole year or more too early. The data in the panel looks more like it applies to the BE2c; for example the BE12 has a 150hp RAF4 engine, not a 90hp RAF1 and the armament is also wrong. Here's the squadron roster for my first campaign mission. Perhaps WOFF is trying to break me in gently with a patrol behind my own lines. And while I've selected 'always lead', I'm leading just myself, for oddly, I'm on my own in B Flight while A Flight is well up to strength, and flying top cover, for just little old me. Obviously, this squadron believes very strongly in looking after its new pilots. Naturally, I did not consider for a moment the possibility that they might be using me as bait for the wily Huns. And here's the briefing itself, confirming this rather odd arrangement: No doubt, the CO knows best. Ours not to reason why, and all that. Off to the airfield I went, finding myself lined up next to A Flight. Losing no time, I started up, checked the controls and as soon as the others began to move off, opened her up. The WOFF BE12 is not a bad replica, tho the nose is I think a little slender. Unfortunately it has not yet been updated like the WOFF BE2c and thus still has its interplane struts visibly too far inboard. Hopefully WOFF 2.0 will effect some improvement. With little thought for such things, I banked around and turned my mind to the task at hand: to wit, a solo patrol behind our own trench lines, with A Flight covering me from somewhere on high. Nothing to it. Or so I thought... ...to be continued!

Jasta 5 at Cambrai - a 'Wings Over Flanders Fields' Campaign The first mission - 20 November 1917 A little while back, CA member Captain McMuffin suggested I report on the progress of a campaign or two. Seems like a good idea to me, so here's the first installment of the first campaign. If there's interest, I expect I'll feature different sims; but first up, it's back to the new kid on the WW1 block, Wings Over Flanders Fields. My chosen unit for this campaign is Jagdstaffel 5, famous both for its Albatrosses' green-painted tails and as the unit of the 'Golden Triumvirate', the three famous NCO aces Rumey, Mai and Koennecke. It's also the unit of Leutnant Hans von Hippel, whose green-tailed Albatros DV with its prominent dragon marking (apparently borrowed from another pilot) was famously photographed after a lower wing broke off at altitude and the pilot was lucky to get down in one piece. It's late November 1917, the first day of a big British offensive, spearheaded by a large force of tanks. It looks like fate has picked an interesting time for me to arrive at the front! A rookie Leutnant on my first assignment to a combat unit, I'm glad to have been posted to a staffel with a decent reputation and some outstanding pilots - Jasta 5. We're based at Boistrancourt, near the town of Cambrai itself, right in the path of the new British offensive, although we pilots don't know this yet. Our aircraft is the Albatros D V, the latest version of this sleek fighting machine, but by now, we all know its abilities are falling behind those of the latest enemy aircraft. And the lower wing troubles which first appeared with the D III model in early 1917 appear to have resurfaced. But in the hands of a good pilot it can hold its own and until better aircraft arrive from German factories, we must make do with what we have, At least the flight I'll be with on my first mission is a good crowd, experienced pilots with a fine tally of victories between them. In fact the top scorer, Sikorski, has been detailed to fly on my wing, no doubt to keep a close eye on me and make sure I don't do anything silly...and also that I get home in one piece, I hope. The day of my first combat flight has arrived! It's early morning and six of us have been detailed to patrol near Cambrai at about two thousand metres. I'll be flying in the leading 'vic', on the left of our leader, Hauptmann Bonin. Fortunately, the weather is good. In my excitement I have neglected to check the intelligence reports but I know that we can expect to face the enemy's best and that both French and British aircraft could be operating in our sector. As they fly offensively, I know that we can expect to meet them from the moment we are airborne. On the grass at Boistrancourt in front of our canvas hangars, our lined-up aircraft make a fine sight, with their varnished plywood fuselages gleaming softly and our red-edged green tails proudly proclaiming our Jasta's identity. What will my first mission bring? It's time to find out! ...to be continued!

The other nationalities in Wings Over Flanders Fields Part 2 - the US Army Air Service The plane For this WOFF campaign mission with the US Army Air Service, I should perhaps have chosen the SPAD XIII, instead of 'yet another Nieuport'. But this Nieuport is different. For starters, the Nieu.28 has been one of my personal favourites, from the mid-1960s when I built Revell's little 1/72 kit in their new range of WW1 fighters, great models for their day, with classic Brian Knight box art. And while the 28 retained the rotary engine of its predecessors, it replaced the weak single spar lower wing and V-struts with a more conventional, but no less elegant, wing structure. The aircraft may have been infamous for shedding the plywood leading edge of the upper wing and attached fabric on pulling out from a power dive. Sometimes, unburnt petrol collected in the engine cowl went on fire. But apparently, unlike the lower wing failures of the V-strutted Nieuports, these issues, though alarming, were rarely if ever fatal. And the Nieu.28 was fast, agile and fairly reliable - certainly more so than the SPAD XIIIs which replaced them, the geared Hispano-Suiza engine proving so unreliable that French units equipped with the XIII reportedly kept a stock of SPAD VIIs to maintain flying strength. Besides, I had previously flown a series of comparative mission reports featuring the Nieu.28 in First Eagles 2, Rise of Flight, Over Flanders Fields and IL-2 Dark Blue World 1916 (here). So with WOFF having supplanted OFF, this mission report serves nicely, if I may say so, to bring that series up-to-date. The unit I elected to fly with the first unit to receive the Nieuport 28, the 95th Pursuit Squadron, the 'Kicking Mules'. Held back for additional gunnery training, the unit wasn't in action until the beginning of May 1918, by which time fellow First Pursuit Group unit the 94th 'Hat in the Ring' Pursuit had already seen some action. Here's the WOFF squadron board for the 95th; many of the named pilots are recognisably those who really flew with the squadron at this time. We are based at Toul, not far from the shattered battlefield of Verdun, scene of one of the war's most awful battles, during 1916, when the French army fought the Germans to a standstill in a desperate and costly but successful defensive effort. Two years later the front here is relatively quiet, although further north in the British sector, the Germans have unleashed their spring offensive in a last-gasp effort to turn the tide and win the war in the west. The mission Here's the mission briefing. We're putting up two flights as escort to a reconnaisance by three French Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters from Escadrille Sop 43, flying down from Beauzee sur Aire. This type was already obsolescent when the French started using it in large numbers during 1917, to replace even older 'pusher' types. At this point in the war, the French Strutters were in the course of being replaced themselves, generally by the excellent Breguet 14. Here were are lined up and good to go. I'm flying with a single flight-mate, with the squadron's other flight on 'top cover'. I have chosen the 'skin' of Lt Quentin Roosevelt, the President's son, who had the dubious distinction of being pictured on German postcards lying dead and broken beside his crashed Nieuport, after being shot down in July. If this is one of the 'skins' I've copied over from OFF, it works fine; the long grey fillet atop the rear fuselage is not a glitch, it was on the real aircraft. After take-off I took it easy until my number two had caught up, then sped off to the rendez-vous point with the two-seaters, climbing hard. The skies were an unbroken blue, visibility good but hazy at longer range. It wasn't long before I spotted them; three Strutters with the distinctive French roundels, all in un-camouflaged clear doped linen finish, which made them relatively easy to see from above, against the ground. By this time I had lost sight of the squadron's other flight but trusted they would be up and behind us, somewhere. In turn, I took my own station above and behind the Sopwiths, weaving left and right to keep station while maintaining my airspeed. Our route was a long slanting one which took us back and forward over the zig-zagging front lines. All seemed peaceful, until I heard from somewhere close by, above the noise of my own motor, the sound of an aero-engine revving and stuttering. Looking back, the cause was not hard to see. My flight-mate's engine was on fire! There had been some Archie fire earlier but the skies were now clear of both AA bursts and enemy aircraft. So I took this to be one of the random failures WOFF simulates (unless you have it turned off) - perhaps one of those fires from pooling petrol in the cowling. Despite the dark smoke and the pyrotechnics, my buddy seemed under control, and quickly turned back towards friendly territory. Though I was relieved at the prospect my flight-mate would get away with it, I was rather less happy at the thought of a long solo escort flight. Suddenly, I felt very lonely. I'd have felt a whole lot happier if I could have seen the other flight of Nieuports, but wherever they were, they were invisible to me. Nothing else for it. I flew on, zig-zagging behind and above the three Sopwiths, varying my turning points and keeping an even more careful look-out. But the skies around us remained clear, apart from some intermittent Archie. The German gunners must have fancied a challenge, for instead of targeting the straight-flying two-seaters, when they did cut loose, it generally seemed to be at my Nieuport. This did no damage but it certainly made me feel all the more exposed and vulnerable. The flight stretched on interminably. Whether it's Silent Hunter 2/SH3 or IL-2, I've never much liked time compression. The 'warp' feature of CFS/CFS2 I did like, though not quite so well when in CFS3 it changed to very rapid time acceleration. At least it dropped you out if enemies were near, which WOFF's current time acceleration 'warp replacement' does not. Best of all is the 'next encounter' facility in European Air War and Strike Fighters/First Eagles. But without it auto-quitting when contact was imminent, and especially up on my own, I was reluctant to speed things up. I flew on in real time. The tension left little room for boredom! Nearing their turning point for home, the Sopwiths flew past two of Verdun's large forts, both set in the sea of shell-cratered mud that stretched all around and as far as Verdun itself to the south-west. I urged them on. Since my flight-mate's departure, any desire on my part for a fight with the Boche had evaporated. My sole concern now was to see my charges as far as their objective, watch them make that turn for home, then see them safely over the lines. And then get myself home in one piece. Victory claims and medals could wait for another day! Finally, the Sopwiths turned left and headed back towards friendly territory, just a short distance to the south. I turned with them. The mission had ended uneventfully, but I had no regrets. The relief of the anxiety I'd felt since losing my flight-mate was palpable. The satisfaction of a mission accomplished more than made up for the lack of air combat. I'd got my charges back safely! But not quite. Looking back not a moment too soon, I was appalled to see at least three Albatros scouts with candy-striped tails breaking formation and peeling off to attack. Worse if anything, they looked to be after my Sopwiths! Groaning at being so nearly home free and now having to fight at bay and badly outnumbered, I nosed down and around, and cut them off. An aggressive defence seemed the best policy. At any rate, they were not going to get my Sopwiths! Get stuck into them, give them plenty to keep themselves occupied, then dive for home at the first opportunity. And I would do my level best to get one of the Boche first, if I possibly could. This seemed to work quite well. The enemy pilots appeared to forget about the Strutters, evidently intent on shooting me down first. I was soon in the middle of a stiff little dogfight with the three Albatros scouts, hurling my machine about the sky, taking snap-shots each time an Albatros sailed across my path. Likewise, the Boche were taking shots at me, whenever they got the chance. I tried to edge the fight towards my own side of the Lines, ready to dive away for safety when the right moment came. But it never did. Instead, there was a horrible rending and ripping sound as the top left wing of my evidently over-stressed aircraft tore off! Down she went, straight down. I throttled back but the flight controls seemed not to be answering. The end came suddenly, inevitably. To add insult to injury, what I was quite certain was a structural failure was credited to enemy action; either way one of the Boche will doubtless be putting in a claim for ein Amerikaner kaput. Given that the real-life Nieuport 28's structural issues seemed to have killed few if any pilots, I was a little miffed that my tenacity and at the end, my rather courageous solo defence of the Sopwiths should end thus. I hope mes camarades Francais in the two-seaters will carry with them back to their base a suitably glowing account of the brave end of the pilote Américain courageux who saw them safely home at the expense of his own virtual life. Perhaps a posthumous Légion d'Honneur will be in order?

The other nationalities in Wings Over Flanders Fields Part 1 - the French air service I can't do a biography-based mission report for the US and French sides as I only have memoirs by British and German pilots. But for the sake of completeness, I'm going to do a separate pair of mission reports in Wings Over Flanders Fields, one flying for the Aéronautique Militaire, the other for the US Army Air Service. First up, it's the French service, flying the little Nieuport 11, aptly nicknamed the bébé (baby). The plane Oddly enough, pre-war Nieuport designs were monoplanes. Their first biplane was the two-seat Nieuport 10 of 1915, which set the pattern for the aircraft which were to follow: biplanes with a much smaller lower wing, joined to the upper one with a V-shaped interplane strut. These were intended from the start to be armed. The early Nieuport 10 AV had the observer in front ('en avant', hence AV) with a circular cut-out in the upper wing, to enable him to stand up and fire a carbine or a Hotchkiss machine-gun pintle-mounted on the wing in front. But the later Nieuport 10 AR, and the more powerful Nieuport 12 which followed, moved the observer to the rear ('en arriere', hence AR) where he manned a Lewis Gun on a moveable or rotating mount. The Nieuport 10 AV During 1915, some Nieuport 10s were flown as fighters on patrols, with a Lewis Gun fixed above the upper wing to fire ahead, high enough to miss the propeller arc. Their success inspired the Nieuport 11, a smaller, nimbler development. This was arguably the first real fighter aircraft; genuinely capable of air-to-air combat in a way the inferior Fokker monoplanes were not - the latter being interceptors rather than fighters, with a synchronised gun but primitive wing-warping roll control and generally not well-suited to dog-fighting. In the hands of France's emerging aces like Georges Guynemer and Jean Navarre, the Nieuport 11 was instrumental by early 1916 in reversing the German's brief period of ascendancy in the air, 'the Fokker Scourge'. The British contribution was the DH-2, but while also better than the Fokker, this 'pusher' design was a technological blind alley. By contrast the Nieuport 11 proved capable of significant further development. Later versions, the Nieuport 16, 17, 23, 24 and 27, were widely used by both French and British, and later by the US Escadrille Layfayette. RFC aces like Albert Ball and Billy Bishop also rose to prominence flying Nieuport Scouts. The type was widely used by Italian and Russian air forces as well as on the Western Front, despite a continuing and alarming tendency to failures of the weak lower wing, often killing the pilot. All in all, the Nieuport V-strutters were one of the war's classic designs, inspiring the layout of the German Albatros D III which from early 1917, largely swung the air superiority pendulum back towards the Germans. Recommended reading on Nieuport aircraft would include Crowood's 'Nieuport Aircraft of WW1' by Ray Sanger and Osprey's 'Nieuport Aces of WW1' by Norman Franks. The unit For this mission, I created a new French pilot and assigned him to Escadrille N.12 (the French gave squadron numbers a leading alphabetic designator which - though a change could sometimes lag behind a change of aircraft - indicated the principal type of aircraft flown - 'N' for Nieuport, Spa for SPAD, for example). The unit had a long and worthy combat history. There's a great online source here; even if you speak no French, the illustrations, maps and tabular information tell their own story. The unit marking was a blue and while 'fanion' or guidon with the number '12', usually in red, carried on the side of the fuselage. As you can see, it's 1 May 1916 and we are based at La Cense, near Compiegne. Happily, we are close enough to La Belle Paris for us to have some interesting and diverting 'R and R', on our days off. But that's a very different kind of mission with quite distinct objectives! The mission Here's the brief for today's mission, which takes us well away from the delights of Paris. It's a patrol along a dog-leg route, up to the trench lines, which are not too far away. I'm leading a flight of three; a second flight of two aircraft is also flying the mission, as 'top cover'. Our briefed mission height is 10,000 feet. Starting on the grass in front of the sheds at La Cense, I waited till the first couple of machines had roared off then sped after them. All of us were in green and brown 'shadow shading' camouflage, apart from one fellow who was in clear doped linen, with prominent blue, white and red chevrons on his fuselage. This was the aircraft of squadron ace Lt Pierre Dufaur de Gavardine, said in the Osprey aces book to have scored six victories with the unit, before being badly wounded early in 1917. I was quickly off the ground and climbing steadily. With the front just a short distance away, I hoped to meet the Boche in the air before very much longer and perhaps indulge the superiority of my neat little aircraft, at the expense of some inferior Fokkers, Aviatiks or the like. Would my hopes be realised or dashed? I would find out in good time. ...to be continued!

Re-living a classic WW1 memoir in Wings Over Flanders Fields! The man and the book The SE5a, low down over enemy territory, pulled up to release its last two bombs onto a German gun battery. The bombs' release was accompanied by a blast directly below and behind the aircraft, possibly a premature detonation, which ripped off the tailplane on one side, leaving it trailing behind, held by an elevator control wire. The SE dived vertically, pulling out too late to prevent the undercarriage from being ripped off as she bounced drunkenly back into the sky. Now desperately headed west for friendly territory, the pilot saw German soldiers just below training a machine gun onto him, then simply stare open-mouthed, rather than shooting. Regaining the British side of the Lines, he force-landed heavily. 'Coming to' and finding himself alive, he was briskly saluted by an artillery subaltern whose men helped him from the wreckage. On being chided for his officiousness, the Gunner officer replied 'I thought you must be at least a wing commander. You had such a very big streamer on your machine.' 'Streamer be blowed', the pilot replied. 'That was my tail-plane.' 'Wind in the Wires' was first published in 1933 and is an entertaining and vivid account of the author's wartime service, including the dramatic events I've summarised above. His record was an unusual one, because it comprised two periods 'on ops' separated by two years in a German prisoner of war camp! The book starts with an account of the author's flying training, after his secondment to the Royal Flying Corps from an infantry regiment. He trains on Caudrons and Maurice Farman 'longhorns', a 'pusher' type so named as its elevator was mounted on long booms out in front of the crew nacelle. Early on, there's a chilling account of a crash in which an experienced pilot makes an ill-advised turn to regain the airfield after an engine failure on take-off, resulting in an horrific crash right in front of the helpless students, instructors and ground-crew. Gaining his wings despite this early shock, the author is posted to France in the autumn of 1915, where he finds himself with 16 Squadron based at Merville near Armentieres, home of the mademoiselle who, as the song had it, 'hasn't been kissed in forty years'. Two of the squadron's three flights were operating the BE2c two-seater general purpose biplane, said to be of the latest type, with the new (skid-less) undercarriage and 90 hp RAF engine. The author was posted to the third flight, operating Maurice Farman 'shorthorns', a slightly-updated cousin of the 'longhorn' on which he trained. He offers amusing descriptions of the varied personalities in the unit, referring to them by the nicknames he gave them. His unfriendly and unhelpful flight commander is 'Growl'. Another flight commander - dubbed 'Foxy' - has a rather warped sense of humour: he titters at own his descriptions of unfortunate pilots burned in crashes being 'completmong carboneezey' ('completely carbonised' in his pidgin French). The highly-withdrawn Major commanding the squadron is 'the Starched Shirt', which a helpful list at the front of my revised 1971 edition confirms is no less than Hugh 'Stuffy' Dowding, who later commanded RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain. Doubtless these nicknames saved his publishers more than one libel suit! Grinnell-Milne received absolutely none of the careful mentoring and instruction that more enlightened or professional leaders like Mick Mannock bestowed upon their own new pilots. A trip up to the lines with an experienced observer to get the lie of the land and a taste of 'Archie', then it was down to 'on-the-job-training'. Until his flight's elderly pushers were replaced by BE2cs, the author soldiered on, flying mostly defensive patrols over the lines in a 'shorthorn' armed with a Lewis Gun for the observer. These patrols, left to the less experienced pilots, were designed mostly to deter any incursions by German aircraft, even though the author acknowledges that they were seldom going to be able to bring to battle the faster German two-seaters. His patrols were uneventful and they spent their time watching for German planes which never came and on their secondary function of observing and reporting enemy ground activity in or near the Lines. At the end of each uneventful flight, they dived and peppered the German trenches with gunfire. The highlight of this period was an ineffective but spirited attack on a German observation balloon. Converting to BE2cs later in 1915, the author finds the type to be stable but highly manoeuvrable, fully capable of making vertically-banked turns and looping. Flying the BE, he ventures on recce and artillery observation missions but soon finds his yearning is for combat with enemy aeroplanes. In November, he shoots down what he describes as a 'big white Albatros' which will have been a two-seater machine-gun-armed C-type. Other highlights are his fight with the infamous 'Two Tails', an Ago C III pusher credited with almost mystical prowess and his participation in an attack on a railway junction, said to be the biggest bombing raid mounted by the RFC up to that time. In May 1916, when flying the dreaded 'Long Reconnaisance', his BE's engine fails on the return journey, possibly from flak damage, and he has to force land just a few miles short of friendly territory. Taken prisoner with his observer, Grinnell-Milne is much impressed by his sympathetic reception by German aviators from a nearby airfield. Two years later, the author escapes from his captivity and joins the famous 56 Squadron, flying SE5a fighters, scoring several victories in the closing months of the war. From one episode to the next, all of these experiences are described with humanity and a dry sense of humour, laced with many details which the enthusiast of this period will treasure. 'Wind in the Wires' appears to be back in print again, courtesy of publishers Grub Street, and is highly recommended: http://www.grubstreet.co.uk/products/view/572/wind-in-the-wires/ The air war in autumn 1915 In this mission report, we'll be looking at the early period of the author's combat career. At this time, the concept of specialised fighter squadrons was still a little way off. Two-seater units might be allocated one or two faster machines more suited to air-to-air fighting - or less suited, in the case of the wildly-unsuitable BE 9 'pulpit' the author mentions that 16 Squadron trialled at one point. But in general, the two-seaters were expected to undertake all roles, including air fighting. Grinnell-Milne's account makes it clear that although under-powered and awkwardly-armed, the BE was not entirely incapable of effective air combat. However, the arrival from summer 1915 of Fokker monoplanes equipped with a machine gun which could safely fire ahead through the propeller arc signaled the start of a new, deadlier era in air warfare. On the ground, little had changed. Static trench warfare remained the order of the day, with the Battle of Loos, fought just to the south of 16 Squadron's sector of the front, failing to achieve the hoped-for breakthrough. The Mission As with the other mission reports planned for this series, the aim is to fly a campaign mission in Wings Over Flanders Fields which recreates as far as practicable the sort of experiences described in the book. 'Wind in the Wires' being one of comparatively few which cover the role of the 'working aeroplanes' rather than the 'fighting aeroplanes', I opted to fly a mission from the first part of the author's combat career, in the later part of 1915, when the squadron had ditched its 'shorthorns' and was equipped with the BE2c. Sure enough, No. 16 Squadron is in WOFF's order of battle in this period and I chose to start in October 1915 - WOFF gives you more freedom over start date than did OFF. Here's the 'Duty Room' for the Squadron. It describes our establishment in typically fulsome WOFF detail, including the names of both pilots and observers. We have the nimble Bristol Scout for the top-ranking pilots and for the rest, the BE2c. I'm Lieutenant Richard Growl, having decided to adopt the nickname given by Grinnell-Milne to his surly flight commander! Homing in on my own flight, I can find out something about my fellow-pilots. Obviously we are not the hottest outfit in the Flying Corps but we have a job to do and we will get on with it. Looking at the intelligence report, I can find out more about what's going on at the front in this period (this one's actually dated a month later, from a career started previously, but you get the picture as to what's available here): And so, to battle! Here's the briefing screen for the campaign's first mission. As usual, I have selected 'Always lead' in the WOFF 'Workshops', so I'm in charge of 'B' Flight on this sortie, which is to be a bombing raid on German front-line positions. The squadron's 'A' flight is said to be flying 'top cover', just as some of the BEs in the bombing raid described in 'Wind in the Wires' were assigned to escort the bomb-carrying machines. In this pic, you have a better view of the map, showing our dog-leg route out to the target and a straight leg back to our base at Merville. We are each carrying four 25-pound 'Cooper' bombs. It was common practice for BEs to leave behind the observer on bombing runs, at least if carrying the heavier 112-pound bombs, but I'm glad to say that won't be the case on this mission! And here we are on the grass at Merville, bombed up and good to go. Our BEs are in the clear doped linen scheme common at that time. The weather's quite good, although there's quite a bit of low-lying cloud around. Checking the controls, I started her up and took off, followed by the others. Turning right beyond the airfield boundary, I crossed what will have been the River Lys, said to have been canalised at this point. I didn't see the barge which Grinnell-Milne says was used for the officers' accommodation but the general lie of the land looks pretty authentic, with detail sufficient for basic visual navigation. At about five hundred feet, I throttled back and held her level to allow the flight to catch up. As they closed in on me, I opened her up again and began a long, slow climb for height, out along our plotted track to the north-east. The objective was not too far off, so instead of going to autopilot and running time compression, I opted to fly in real time and enjoy the view of WOFF's very pleasing new terrain. As we climbed, the superior WOFF formation-keeping was also much in evidence. What lay ahead I could not know. But we made a bold sight as we climbed away together, the aircraft rising and falling gently as we steadily gained height. Drawing close to the Lines, we passed to our left a large town, which a glance at the map showed must be Ypres - or 'Wipers' as the Tommies knew it. Some low-lying cloud towards the trenchlines indicated that target acquisition might be difficult, but I pressed on. I had decided to attack at whatever height I had managed to gain by the time I reached the area of our objective. This turned out to be just over four thousand feet; not very high but enough to be out of harm's way from rifle and machine-gun fire from the ground. At this point I turned on the Tactical Display or 'TAC', set to display ground targets. This shows up the front lines and in red and blue, the general locations of ground units on both sides. Given the limitations of 'MonitorVision' and the general mess of the 'shelled area' that now rolled out beneath us, I had few qualms about using this visual aid, which I expected I would soon have to use anyway, to get my flight to execute its attack. The difficulty now seemed to be, which target to attack? After dithering for a while, I tabbed to select an isolated red enemy blob, out behind the others in the big rectangular boxes along the front lines. The latter I took to be entrenched enemy troops. The isolated blobs to their rear seemed likely to be easier targets, out in the open perhaps. I gave the order to attack, then as my flight swung away, turned so as to make my own separate bombing run, throttling back and losing altitude as I did so. I failed to notice a convoy of motor transport on a nearby road running through the mud, which was actually the target I had selected; this would have been plain had I the sense to padlock it. Instead, I chose a small but prominent, dark, circular fieldwork, at the end of a trench running off the main positions. This looked important - possibly a command post or a supply dump. Whatever it was, it was about to be bombed. Letting go my load of four little Cooper bombs in two closely-spaced salvoes, disdaining a bombsight view and working from the external view looking down, I watched anxiously for the results. My expectations were, I admit, fairly low. I was much gratified to see my bombs bursting pretty well on target. That'll wake up those Huns, I thought to myself! As I banked around, my feelings were rather more mixed, as I saw the bombs from the rest of my flight explode right in the middle of the MT on the road. And noticed also that there was a second convoy just a little further down the road, which I could have attacked instead of my better-protected dugout. By now down to about three thousand feet, I turned for home, slowing down to allow my flight to close up, all the while unmolested by enemy AA fire. I must admit that in my anxiety to locate and clobber something worthwhile, I had neglected to keep a good lookout in the air around us. But there was no sign of any Hun aircraft. Perhaps 'A' Flight, somewhere up above and out of sight, had kept the Fokkers at bay, today. Thereafter, it was an uneventful flight back to Merville, this time with the assistance of autopilot and time compression, until the last few miles. Our airfield's proximity to the River Lys made finding it easy and we soon slipped gracefully down towards our base. Making my own landing ahead of the others, I swept across the path of a local freight train, put her down and ran up to the sheds, where I switched off and relaxed again. Job done! Here's the main and secondary debriefing screens, showing the level of detail you can get on how your mission went. Overall, not a bad day's work for 'B' Flight, although my own bombs would evidently have been better reserved for the enemy motor transport. This was a fairly quiet mission but then, that's typical of the real missions recounted by Grinnel-Milne, flown when the air-to-air war was just taking a more deadly turn. Many simmers will have had their interests inspired by the books they've read and I'm no exception. 'Wind in the Wires' is a great account of one man's WW1 air war and Wings Over Flanders Fields is a great way of bringing it to life. Both are highly recommended! Mark 'Polovski' Rogers of ODB Software answers some likely 'readers questions'... - can you tell us anything about the work that went into WOFF, that's relevant to this particular mission? Not just the BE2c but across the board, all squadrons were revised to more accurately reflect the real squadrons duties at the time. It should apply to most squadrons and craft types. A vast amount of the development time on WOFF was due to the work and testing of the AI that went on. Included in the large feature list for WW1, we also wanted the AI pilots to have human like traits and qualities. One of those was a realistic formation keeping capability, including the problems of keeping up in turns, meeting up with Escorts, going to mission, and return, and rejoining sometimes after a mission. Obviously there are many things that humans do without even thinking but actually defining that in terms of an artificial intelligence is a massive undertaking. We also wanted to include faults and mistakes this adds to the human-like behaviours. Obviously we can always improve areas but we believe it's one of the best AI's out there in many areas. - any pointers as to what the Fokker Scourge or skins packs include, which would enhance the experience? The Fokker Scourge Expansion of course adds two more Eindecker types, and more squadrons using them to the appropriate theatres. Although the BE2c 'early' version is included in WOFF, it's only flyable in the Fokker Scourge add-on. The introduction of the flyable BE2c 'early,' was to allow the player to experience the earlier period fear of pilots and observers at that time of the Scourge trying to defend with just a rifle and to feel the threat more. - any plans for the future that may impact here?. We are of course hoping to add more craft across all periods so if we get good support we will of course be adding more early craft too. We hope to improve the BE2c model slightly too at some point (no promises but if time etc allows). The competition Fuller details of the competition, including the prize, will be announced soon. Current plans are that it will be a word search from this series of reports, which when combined will produce a famous air fighting maxim...watch this space! Coming next in CombatAce-WW1 - 'Sagittarius Rising' by Cecil Lewis

Flying the famous Fokker D VII in another WOFF campaign mission inspired by a World War One classic! The man and the book I believe Rudolph Stark's 'Wings of War' was first published, in English at any rate, in 1933. It was translated by Claude W Sykes, described by Norman Franks as 'among the better aviation writers of the period' in his introduction to a recent reprint of Sykes's 'German War Birds', written under the pen-name 'Vigilant' and one of my favourite WW1 air war books from my younger days. 'Wings of War' starts during 1917 with Stark a two-seater pilot, yearning to transfer to single-seater 'scouts', as fighters were commonly called in those days. His transfer comes through and he receives his fighter pilot training at Jastaschule 2 at Saultain, near Valenciennes in occupied France. There's little said about this period; he completes his training just before Christmas 1917 and the book really begins with his posting to the Bavarian Jasta 34 at Chenois, flying against the French, not far from where his two-seater unit was based. Stark flies a sleek Pfalz D III, his lilac personal colours being painted on top of the type's distinctive silver-doped factory finish. His first air combat in single-seaters is nearly his last. With two others, they attack a twin-engined Caudron but a French fighter loops onto Stark's tail and riddles his Pfalz, holing the petrol tank. Stark is lucky to escape after an involuntary spin earthwards. Racing for home, seemingly pursued by further gunfire, he lands to realise the rattling behind him is his seat-belt buckle flapping against the fuselage, the belt having been parted by a French bullet. In March 1918, Jasta 34 moves north, to Le Cateau, to participate in the German spring offensive against the British. This was designed to win a decisive victory on the Western front, using troops freed up by the collapse of Imperial Russia and the truce with the Soviets, before the arrival of substantial US forces in France swung the balance of forces irreversibly against Imperial Germany. The fighing is intense and Stark, still apparently flying the Pfalz, claims his first victory in late March, a British two-seater. In May, Stark is made temporary leader of Jasta 77, based at the same airfield, and in June, he is appointed to command another Bavarian jagdstaffel, Jasta 35, in the Cambrai area. By August, their attacks having stalled, the Germans are facing a British counter-offensive and Jasta 35 is pleased to receive its first Fokker D VIIs, as replacements for some some of its older aircraft. Supplies of the superb new German fighter are limited, though, and in September, the staffel is compelled to accept instead some more machines from Bavarian manufacturers, the Pfalz D XII, to the disappointment of those pilots who don't get Fokkers. It is all to no avail. Driven back on the ground and outnumbered in the air, the Germans are clearly losing the war. Falling back as the front is pushed east, Jasta 34 fights on, to the Armistice in November, bombed on the ground and harried in the skies above. While Stark's book covers just the last year of the war, he had an interesting and eventful time of it, flying in combat the Fokker Dr I triplane as well as the Fokker D VII and the Pfalz D III. His combat memoir is a vivid one with rather more detail on places, units and planes than you tend to get in a wartime account. In fact, most printed descriptions of the Pfalz D XII rely heavily on Stark's quoted views of the type. 'Wings of War' (mine is the 1973 Arms & Armour Press edition) also benefits from the inclusion amongst its illustrations of reproductions of several of the author's own paintings, depicting some of his fights in the air. Highly recommended. The air war in autumn 1918 By this point in the war, German fortunes were in terminal decline. In an effort to contest the increasing numerical and technical superiority of enemy fighters such as the SPAD XIII, the Camel, the SE5a and the newer Dolphin, the Germans had, in early and mid-1918, held competitive trials for fighter prototypes from many manufacturers, with frontline pilots participating in the evaluations. Anthony Fokker's entry to the trials was his company's V11, which, with a fuselage lengthened to solve initial handling problems, was the star of the show in the early trials. It was ordered into production as the Fokker D VII, regarded by many as the best German fighter of the war and a worthy match for anything in the enemy camp, with its responsive controls and relatively viceless handling. But many units had to soldier on with obsolescent Albatros and Pfalz scouts, against stronger enemy air arms which now included the RAF's 'Independent Force' carrying out 'strategic' day and night bombing and the first units of the United States Army Air Service, flying first the elegant Nieuport 28 but by the end of the summer, transitioning to the often-unreliable but sturdier SPAD XIII. The mission Here's my pilot for this campaign mission, evidently a family member of the author! I've started him off in September 1918, because this is the month from which the unit, in WOFF, is fully equipped with the plane I wanted to fly, the Fokker DVII. Previously, the staffel was said by Rudolph Stark to be flying a mix of the Allbatros DV, the Pfalz D III and (tho not featured in WOFF) unspecified Rolands. And here's Jasta 35's line-up for the campaign. I'm starting off in the second flight, with myself and two other pilots. The author himself is in the first flight. As their designation indicates, our Fokkers are made under licence by the Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (OAW). Despite the late stage of the war, we seem to have plenty of both aircraft and pilots. At this point, we're based at Lieu St. Amand, just north of Cambrai, in Flanders. Here's our briefing for the first mission. The full staffel is turning out to protect a pair of Hannover CL IIIs on a medium-level reconnaisance mission, down to the sourh-west, to an objective just the far side of the trench lines. The first flight is described as flying top cover so I'll be taking on the role of close (or closer) escort for the two-seaters. Here we are, both flights lined up on the airfield and good to go. In the briefing stage, you have the opportunity to pick a 'skin' for your plane and here, from those available, I'd chosen that of Xaver Prey. I'm not sure if this skin comes with WOFF or OFF - I've experimentally copied over the skins from OFF to WOFF using Jonesoft's mod enabler pending purchase of the official WOFF skin pack. Anyhow, you can see from the line-up that there are variations in the 'lozenge' fabric covering of our machines, as there were in real life, but we all carry the Jasta 35b unit colours of a white chevron on the top of the upper wing and a black chevron underneath the lower one. My individual marking comprises the black and white bands you can see behind my cockpit, Rudolph Stark's machine had a lilac nose and fuselage band and a black-edged lilac tailplane. Off we went, into the clear blue September skies. This was my first campaign mission in WOFF during this late period of the war. Flying for the side which was just two months away from collapse, I was more than a little anxious as to what the next hour or so would bring. With good reason, as it turned out! ...to be continued!

Bringing Arthur Gould Lee's classic WW1 book to life with Wings Over Flanders Fields! The man and the book 'Thursday, January 3rd. Ferrie has been killed. He led his patrol out this afternoon, had a scrap, came back leading the others, then as they were flying along quite normally in formation, his right wing suddenly folded back, then the other, and the wreck plunged vertically down. A bullet must have gone through the main spar during the fight. The others went after him and steered close to him in vertical dives. They could see him, struggling to get clear of his harness, then half standing up. They said it was horrible to watch him trying to decide whether to jump. He didn't, and the machine and he were smashed to nothingness. I can't believe it. Little Ferrie, with his cheerful grin, one of the finest chaps in the squadron. God, imagine his last moments, seeing the ground rushing up at him, knowing he was a dead man, unable to move, unable to do anything but wait for it. A parachute could have saved him...' So wrote Arthur Gould Lee in 'No Parachute'. Lee learns to fly in the late summer of 1916 in the Maurice Farman 'Shorthorn', having been commissioned into the Sherwood Forresters. He misses being shipped to Gallipoli due to a motorcycle accident, then has his (third!) application to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps accepted. He then flies the Avro 504 and BE2 with 66 Squadron, still in England. Lacking proper instruction, he crashes an Avro after an engine failure. His injuries delay his posting to an operational squadron in France until May 1917, enabling him to gain more flying hours, including eighteen on the Sopwith Pup he will fly for most of his spell at the front. His posting is to No.46 Squadron at la Gorgue, which has just transitioned to the Pup from the obsolescent two-seater Nieuport 12. He flies through the summer and into the autumn, fighting many battles against the formidable Albatros V-strutters, with which the Pup can compete only at higher altitudes, outgunned with what Lee describes as 'our pop-pop-pop gun' against the German's twin Spandaus, which by contrast he describes as making a sound like calico being ripped. During November, the squadron is finally re-equipped with the Sopwith Camel. Although the pilots are looking forward to flying their offensive patrols with an aircraft that will enable them to meet the Albatros on more equal terms, they are instead diverted to 'ground strafing' duties for the Battle of Cambrai, making very dangerous low level gun and bomb attacks on German troops and positions in and near the front lines. Lee is shot down three times in nine days. In January 1918, with the rank of captain and the appointment of flight commander, he's posted home for a well-earned rest. After a period as an instructor, he joins a squadron equipping with the sopwith Salamander - a ground-attack version of the Snipe - but the war ends before he is deployed to France. Looking at his logbook at the conclusion of his combat service, he finds he's done 386 hours solo, 260 of them in France, including 222 over the Lines; he's made 118 patrols and ground-attack flights, had 56 air combats, and claims 5 victories and another 6 shared. Lee's book 'No Parachute' was published in 1968, but was written at the time, comprising extracts from the many he wrote to his wife, supplemented by some diary extracts. It's a veritable treasure-trove of accounts of air fights, ground attacks and squadron life (including the lyrics of many classic RFC songs) with many snippets of information about aircraft performance and markings of the sort that enthusiasts in particular love to see. Lee rose to senior rank in the RAF after the war and profited from his experience to add to the book appendices criticising the dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in aircraft supply, the RFC's persistence with deep patrols and standing patrols, and of course the failure to peffect and supply parachutes to aircrew. It's certainly my favourite WW1 aviation memoir. Lee followed it up with an equally good sequel, 'Open Cockpit', which covers his whole wartime career. Both are highly recommended. The mission This was originally planned to be a mission flying the Sopwith Pup in mid-1917. But that year was getting a bit crowded and to better illustrate the development of fighing aircraft, I decided instead to fly the Camel later in the year, and to finish this series of reports as planned with Rudolph Stark's 'Wings of War', but flying the famous Fokker D VII rather than the Pfalz D III. I enlisted in 'Forty Six' as Lt Richard Lee, starting in late november 1917, by which time WOFF has us entirely equipped with Camels. Here's the briefing for the first mission. We've been summoned to the front to deal with some reported aerial intruders. I'm leading 'B' flight with four Camels, whose pilots included Arthur Gould Lee himself. The second flight ('A' Flight, shown in the panel on the right below) includes Ferrie, the pilot whose sad and dramatic death is described in the excerpt from the book quouted at the start of this mission report. Air defence systems being rudemintary in WW1, I knew there was every prospect that the Huns reported over the front might well be gone by the time we got there, and so it was to prove. We started optimistically enough, roaring off the grass from our aerodrome at Filescamp Farm. I had chosen the skin for Victor Yeates, author of the famous 'Winged Victory', although I'm not sure he served with 'Forty Six' at this point in the war I turned for the target area, disregarding the planned dog-leg route so as to arrive faster; if this throws off 'A' flight, well, there were only two of them and that was a chance I was prepared to take. My own flight soon caught me up. I opened the throttle and began climbing hard to the south-east. I didn't trust the briefed mission height of under 4,000 feet and climbed to nearer nine thousand, reluctant to be jumped from above by marauding V-strutters and thinking that if the enemy were indeed low down, I would be able to pick them up from the whitish British anti-aircraft bursts they were more than likely to attract. So much for that plan! When I arrived over the trenches, dodging warily around the large clouds hanging in the sky, there was a lot of shelling going on down on the ground, but not a soul to be seen in the air, apart from our good selves. Up and down the front we flew, getting intermittently Archied for our troubles. But of the Hun fliers, we saw not a sign, high or low. It began to look like we would have to make our own entertainment. ...to be continued!

Recreating the career of Canada's most famous ace in Wings Over Flanders Fields! The man and the book 'I dived at him from the side, firing as I came...I pulled my machine out of its dive just in time to pass about 5 feet over the enemy. I could see the observer evidently had been hit and had stopped firing. Otherwise the Hun machine seemed perfectly all right. But just after I passed I looked back over my shoulder and saw it burst into flames. A second later it fell a burning mass, leaving a long trail of smoke behind as it disappeared through the clouds. I thought for a moment of the fate of the wounded observer and the hooded pilot into whose faces I had just been looking - but it was fair hunting, and I flew away with great contentment in my heart.' So wrote William Avery Bishop in his book 'Winged Warfare', written while on duty with the British military mission to Washingron DC after home leave in Canada in late 1917. He was describing the first machine he shot down in flames, on 20 April 1917. Billy Bishop arrived in France in 1915 as an officer in a Canadian mounted unit but, frustrated with '...the particular brand of mud that infests a cavalry camp', he applied for the Royal Flying Corps and was trained as an observer. He spent four months 'on ops' in France in that role, from early 1916 with No. 21 Squadron, operating the RE7, a multi-purpose biplane whose speciality seems to have been daylight bombing. Recovering from a knee injury in a crash-landing, he was able to learn to fly and after a short period flying the BE2c on Home Defence duties, he returned to France in March 1917, posted to No. 60 Squadron flying Nieuport Scouts in the fighter role. The squadron converted to the much-superior SE5 over the summer and Bishop flew on until the autumn, mixing conventional patrols with 'lone wolf' missions and steadily increasing his score. After his leave and service in the USA, he returned briefly to the front as CO of No.85 Squadron and before being posted home again, raised his total of victory claims to 72, including five on his last patrol, another solo effort. Nowadays, Bishop's record is a source of controversy, due mainly to the to high number of claims that were accepted without witness confirmation. In particular, in June 1917, still flying the Nieuport, Bishop staged a solo dawn raid on a German fighter airfield, claiming to have shot down three aircraft attempting to take off. Controversially, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for this attack, despite the fact that the VC was generally never awarded unless the act of valour was confirmed by witnesses. The belief in many quarters - including some of his comrades and contemporaries - seems to be that Bishop's squadron commander actively promoted his protégé who also had some influential friends in English high society; and as his fame mounted, his value as a national hero fed a tendency to unquestioning acceptance on the one hand and exaggeration on the other. However, whatever the truth, Bishop was undoubtedly a very brave man, having more than once pushed to get to the front when he could have lived out a safer existence on other, less dangerous duties. As for 'Winged Warfare' , it covers the whole of his combat career and is full of many accounts of the operations and air fights in which Bishop and his comrades participated. It's very much a product of its wartime origins, often extolling the courage and virtues of his own side while disdaining the enemy for trickery or implied cowardice. His openly-expressed preference for shooting down enemies in flames - because the sight made the victory certain - is also rather distasteful, particularly to modern readers. However, he does credit the Germans with ability and courage when he recognises it - for example, when a single enemy two-seater skillfully repells an attack by an entire flight of Nieuports. And as a forceful and vivid account of the career of one of the most famous of World War One's aces, 'Winged Warfare' deserves a place on any enthusiasts bookshelf. I would strongly recommend reading it in conjunction with Alex Revell's history 'No. 60 Sqn RFC/RAF', published by Osprey, which adds much valuable and interesting detail, in covering the fascinating story of one of the most successful British fighter squadrons, including the period when Bishop served with the unit. Bishop's memoir itself is available online here. The air war in spring 1917 Bishop arrived at the front just before the Battle of Arras and 'Bloody April', when the damage wrought upon the RFC by the German Jastas and their sleek Albatros scouts reached its peak. The arrival of better aircraft in subsequent months - not least the SE5 that replaced 60's Nieuports, but also the Camel and the RE8 - meant that better times lay ahead for the British. The leader of the RFC in France, General Hugh 'Boom' Trenchard, knew perfectly well that the inability of the British to supply aircraft which would close the gap with the German Albatrosses meant that a high price would be paid, but his job was to support the Army whose lot was no better, and he did not shrink from asking his aircrew to risk all in support of the troops for the offensive at Arras. For the Germans, this was the hey-day of pilots like the von Richthofen brothers, Wolf, Voss and Schaefer, who racked up many kills, cutting a swathe through the under-powered and poorly-armed BE's and the obsolete 'pusher' fighters like the DH2 and FE8. In the Nieuport Scout, 60 Squadron were flying one of the few planes that, though under-armed, could even hope to compete with the best of the German fighters. Even so, the squadron suffered heavily during 'Bloody April', according to Alex Revell losing eighteen pilots during the month- a loss rate of 100%! The mission For this 'Winged Warfare' themed mission, I could have chosen the summer of 1917 or spring 1918, flying the SE5/SE5a. But I've always particularly enjoyed flying the Nieuport scouts in First Eagles, coping well with the Huns (except when outnumbered!) and I was keen to fly the sleek little French machine in WOFF; not least as most of the book features Bishop's experiences flying this type. So 'Bloody April' it was! Naturally, 60 Squadron is included in the WOFF order of battle for this period. Here's the squadron's 'enlistment screen' for April 1917, which shows us correctly based at Filescamp farm. Note that the squadron roster includes historical aces from the time, although at 1 April, Billy Bishop had yet to score, and neither he, nor 'Grid' Caldwell nor 'Moley' Molesworth had yet made Major (the rank generally held by the squadron leader, alone). Although I neglected to save a screenie of the mission briefing, it was a patrol up to the Lines, to the north-east. I'm leading one flight - just the two of us! - but the rest of the squadron is along for the ride, flying 'top cover'. I wondered if me and 'Jock' Scott are providing the bait on this mission! Here's the loadout screen for my little two-plane flight; this provides the facility to select flight formation, though that's hardly worthwhile on this trip, as there's just the two of us! And here we are, lined up on the grass at Filescamp. If I recall right, the aircraft next to me is the machine of 'Moley' Molesworth, no less, who's leading the second flight. I let most of the others take off first, intending to formate on the other flight rather than go hareing off on my own with my own solitary flight-mate. Once airborne, I throttled back to allow Scott to catch up. Soon he was tucked in, to my right rear. The weather was fair, with quite a lot of low cloud but bright and dry. A good day for an air fight! I orbited above and behind the other flight, then followed them as they climbed up along our route to the north-east and the Lines near the town of Lens. About half-way there, they veered off to the left. As far as I was concerned, this wasn't in the plan. If they had been distracted by some enemies, I didn't see them and there was no sign of friendly AA fire. Perhaps they had decided to orbit to gain height, before getting any closer to the Lines. Impatient with trying to guess the un-guessable, I decided, sod it, I'll carry on and trust them to find their way to the patrol zone later. So on we went, up towards 9,000 feet, leaving most of the scattered cloud below us. Soon, we were over the shelled area, which was getting a fairly regular pasting from artillery fire, although the start of our offensive was still several days away. It wasn't long before the anti-aircraft gunners were also in action; the first black bursts of Archie appeared around us, exploding with a 'crump' that I could hear above the buzzing of my le Rhone rotary engine. On the ground ahead of us lay a large town, which I took to be Lens. Much of the place was a wasteland, devastated by shellfire, with only its eastern margins looking to be relatively intact. At this point, happening to look around, back towards my flight-mate, I saw a rather strange thing. One moment Scott was in formation to my right rear, then he swung suddenly off to the left. For a second I watched him, thinking perhaps that he had decided to go off hunting on his own, and looking in his direction of travel, to see where the Hun might be. Seeing none, the penny dropped and I broke hard right, after Scott. The Hun was obviously behind us. One look confirmed I was right. ...to be continued!

Recreating the Red Baron's early career in Wings Over Flanders Fields! The man and the book 'When he had come down to about three hundred feet he tried to escape by flying in a zig-zag course... That was my most favorable moment. I followed him at an altitude of from two hundred and fifty feet to one hundred and fifty feet, firing all the time. The Englishman could not help falling. But the jamming of my gun nearly robbed me of my success. My opponent fell, shot through the head, one hundred and fifty feet behind our line. His machine gun was dug out of the ground and it ornaments the entrance of my dwelling.' Such is the description in 'Der Rote Kampfflieger' of the end of the famous air fight on 23 November 1916, in which Rittmeister Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen brought down the DH-2 flown by foremost Royal Flying Corps ace Major Lanoe Hawker VC. Their dogfight heralded the start of a long period of German technical superiority in the skies over the Western front, culminating in 'Bloody April' the following year, when the RFC was made to pay a high price for its support of the Army in the Battle of Arras. Manfred von Richthofen, the renowned Red Baron - probably the most famous fighter pilot, then and always - personified that superiority and 'Der Rote Kampflieger' is his wartime account of those days long ago. Well, sort of. According to William E. Burrows,* the book was mostly written during von Richthofen's extended leave after 'Bloody April', at his East Prusssian home, with the help of a female stenographer. Sent in sections to the Air Ministry for editing and censorship, The Red Battle-flier was essentially a propaganda effort for public consumption. How much is in his own words, or how accurately it conveys his own thoughts and feelings, is debatable. Burrows says von Richthofen's family '...insisted privately that Manfred's writing had been re-worked and made into the diary of a killer' and that Jasta 11's Hans Georg von der Osten '...says emphatically that Richthofen did not write any of the finished product, but he has no idea who did.' Compared to similar works by Billy Bishop and James McCudden, the book is certainly lacking in technical detail. However, it's still a fascinating and oft-cited picture, painted at the time, of the career of one of the world's greatest fighter pilots. * 'Richthofen - a true history of the Red Baron' by William E Burrows The book starts with early days in military academies and, once the war begins, cavalry service on eastern and western fronts. There, frustrated at the immobility of trench warfare, von Richthofen applies for the air service and flies as an observer on both fronts. He develops a taste for air combat and inspired by the successes of early aces Boelcke and Immelman, trains as a pilot. His big break comes in the late summer of 1916 when he is chosen by Boelcke as a founder-member of the newly formed Jagdstaffel 2. Operating the deadly new Albatros D I and D II fighters under the keen eyes of master tactician Boelcke, the new fighter squadron is soon reversing the tide of British air superiority, despite the death of their leader in a mid-air collision in late October. Von Richthofen scores steadily, his victories including Lanoe Hawker. In January 1917, he's posted to command Jasta 11, flying the V-strutted Albatros D III, although he reverts to an older Halberstadt for a time, while lower wing failures on the new aircraft are sorted out. By this time awarded the 'Blue Max' - the Order Pour le Mérite - his own Albatros is soon painted in the Baron's trademark red. Under his leadership, Jasta 11 builds up a first-class combat record and soon has a bevy of aces. Jasta 11 - in cockpit: Manfred von Richthofen; standing, left to right: Allmenroeder, Hintsch, Festner, Schaefer, Wolff, Simon, Brauneck; sitting, left to right: Essler, Lothar von Richthofen, Krefft. The story continues through 'Bloody April' and on to early July 1917, when von Richthofen is shot in the head, temporarily paralysed and blinded, in a fight with FE2s of No. 20 Squadron. Spinning down, thinking 'this is the way it looks just before death' he recovers just enough to make a forced landing, before clambering out of his red-nosed and red-tailed Albatros D V (seen below after the event) and collapsing into a thorn bush. 'I had quite a respectable hole in my head', his account of the fight ends, 'My thick Richthofen head once again proved itself. The skull had not been penetrated.' There were apparently plans to update the book to cover von Richthofen's subsequent career but his death in action in April 1918 left such possibilities in limbo until after the war. I'd recommend the 1933 edition, which includes some of von Richthofen's letters home, a little material he apparently wrote for a second edition, and post-war contributions by brothers Lothar and Bolko. While the preface to a 1918 English wartime translation (available online here) described it as giving '...the general impression of the writing of a gentleman prepared for publication by a hack journalist', 'Der Rote Kampfflieger' can't help but convey something of the essence of the experiences and feelings of the great fighter pilot. The air war in autumn 1916 Flying for the German side in the last few months of 1916, as the Battle of the Somme ran its course, is surely one of the classic scenarios for a simulated WW1 fighter pilot career. The best French or British fighters - the Nieuport scouts, the DH-2 'pusher' and later the superb Sopwith Pup - can turn tighter. But flying the Albatros D II, you can mostly out-run, out-climb and out-dive your opponents; and you have two machine guns to their one. As for your natural prey, the two-seater 'working aeroplanes', these were vulnerable enough to the indifferent Fokker monoplanes of 1915-16; compared to the much-superior Albatros, one can really speak of predator and prey. And it was at this time that Oswald Boelcke established and taught systematically the basic principles of air combat and squadron tactics, setting the pattern for years to come. 'Der Rote Kampfflieger' vividly conveys the excitement of 'Boelcke's Cubs' as they take to the skies and cut a swathe through the ranks of the RFC and it's an experience I was looking forward to re-creating in Wings Over Flanders Fields. The mission Sure enough, Jagdstaffel 2 is in the WOFF order of battle for the Luftstreitkrafte and I opted to begin a career at the start of October 1916, by which time the Halberstadt has disappeared from the WOFF squadron line-up and we are fully equipped with the sleek, twin-gunned Albatros. Here's the enlistment screen, showing we are correctly based at Lagnicourt. Note that the squadron's roster not only includes our real-life Commanding Officer, the famous Oswald Boelcke, but the man who was his most famous pupil, Manfred von Richthofen himself. And here's the briefing for our mission. It's a defensive patrol, up to and behind our own lines, fully in keeping with our defensive strategy, whereby we let the enemy come to us! Having de-selected 'Always lead' for this campaign in the WOFF 'Workshop', I'm pleased to find that today, I'll be flying in the flight - 'Schwarm zwei' - led my the great man himself, the illustrious Boelcke! There are four of us in the flight, with another six pilots providing 'top cover'. Woe betide the Tommies today! And here we are, lined up on the grass at Lagnicourt. I'm in the middle of the line, in the Albatros with the darker, reddish finish and a white hoop painted on the nose, aft of the spinner. This is the 'skin' for the machine flown by Manfred von Richthofen himself, which I had taken the liberty of selecting for my own plane during the briefing phase. This was the period when the Germans had adopted camouflaged finishes, but before it became fashionable for units or individuals to paint their aircraft with prominent or brightly-coloured markings. Taking off promptly so as not to be left behind, I sped off with the others and (using the labels to confirm the plane of my leader) slotted into position on the right of our vee formation. Boelcke is second from the left; you can perhaps just make out the black and white quartered wheel hubs on his otherwise factory-finish Albatros. Soon, we were climbing steadily, flying a loose orbit just to the north of our airfield, presumably to gain a respectable altitude before turning for the run south and up to the German reserve trenches. Above and behind us, our comrades kept watch and my confidence soared, buoyed up by the impressive spectacle of this pahlanx of German hunting machines sweeping the skies for the enemy! ...to be continued!

Bringing another Great War classic to life in Wings Over Flanders Fields! The man and the book '...air fighting required a set steely courage, drained of all emotion, fined down to a tense and deadly effort of will. The Angel of Death is less callous, aloof and implacable than a fighting pilot when he dives.' So wrote Cecil Lewis in his classic aviation memoir, 'Sagittarius Rising'. First published in 1936, this book - by the man who later became a founder of the British Broadcasting Corporation - is one of those 'must read' pilot autobiographies that's often quoted in other histories for its many dramatic accounts. Lewis enlisted directly into the RFC in late 1915 and trained intitially on the inevitable Marucie Farman 'longhorn', moving on to the Avro 504. Posted to 22 Squadron flying the relatively-new FE2b 'pusher', on arrival in France he finds plans have changed. While he's able fo get in some extra flying time, mostly on the BE2c, he's posted ultimately to No.3 Squadron after a short introduction to its mount, the Morane Type L Parasol. This aircraft he describes as '...one of the recognised death-traps which pilots in training prayed they might never have to fly...Pilots trained on ordinary Avros and 2c's, when turned loose on Moranes killed themselves with alarming regularity.' The main problem was apparently the lack of a fixed tailplane, resulting in an incredibly sensitive elevator: '...the least movement stood you on your head or on your tail.' Nevertheless, Lewis says that he '...did come to love the Morane as I loved no other aeroplane...Good old Parasol!' Lewis flies the type throughout the dreadful Somme battle, on whose first dread day the British Army suffered approaching 60,000 casualties, including nearly 20,000 killed, devastating in particular many communities whose young men had signed up to fill the ranks of the 'Kitchener's Army' battalions which bore the brunt of the fighting. In the air, Lewis flies the new infantry contact patrols as well as photo recce missions and artillery spotting, and has some inconclusive air combats. By this time, Lewis has seen trials of a captured Fokker monoplane which have shown it to have little or no advanatge over most RFC types, beyond its synchronised machine gun. Posted to 'Home Establishment' after winning the Military Cross, Lewis has a spell as a test pilot. Spring 1917 finds him joining 56 Squadron, formed to introduce the potent new SE5 fighter to combat. Back in France, he sees much action, including the fight during which the great ace Albert Ball is lost. Wounded after narrowly escaping being shot down by '...one of the latest Pfalz scouts: the SE was no match for that machine', he's posted back to England on Home Defence duties. His last operational posting is to a new night fighter unit, designed to operate in France to intercept enemy tactical night bombers in modified Sopwith Camels, but sees no action before the Armistice brings the war to an end. Lewis's book is sprinkled with insights and anecdotes aplenty. These include an air combat demonstration with the great French ace Guynemer, not long before the latter was killed: 'In his hands the Spad was a marvel of flexibility...nothing I could do would shift that grim-looking French scout off my tail.' 'Sagittarius Rising' is currently in print and deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in WW1 in the air. The air war in mid-1916 By this time, the 'Fokker Scourge' had already been eclipsed by more modern French and British aircraft dedicated to the air-to-air role, like the Nieuport 11, De Havilland DH2 and RAF FE2b. By the time of the Battle of the Somme, the aerial boot was firmly on the other foot and the British and French air forces were enjoying a period of increasing ascendancy, which would last only until the autumn, when the arrival of the Jastas and the Albatros D-types marked the start of another German resurgence. The mission As expected, Wings Over Flanders Fields allows me to fly with Cecil Lewis in No.3 Squadron in the fateful Battle of the Somme. I opted to start on 1 July, the opening day, and here's the squadron 'Duty Room' which shows our roster, aircraft strength and disposition. And here's 'B' Flight, which I'll be leading. As well as the author of 'Sagittarius Rising', another notable pilot is no less than 'HK' himself - Hubert Harvey-Kelly, the first RFC pilot to arrive in France in 1914, who as CO of 19 Squadron was shot down and killed by Kurt Wolf in a disastrous fight with Jasta 11 during 'Bloody April', 1917. And here's the briefing screen for our mission. It's another bombing raid, this time to a railyard just behind the German front lines. 'A' flight is not involved in this mission (there's no 'C' flight on WOFF missions, I believe) but perhaps to make up for it, there are no less than six Moranes along for this particular ride. And here we are lined up on the grass in front of the sheds at la Houssuoye, each carrying four small bombs down between the wheels. The weather is fine with only scattered clouds, mostly clear blue skies. I was soon up and away, leaving our airfield behind. It seemed quite well-equiped and sensibly-located, on a nice clear area of open ground, the only hazard some stands of trees on the airfield boundaries that would have been better cut down. But I managed to miss these and off I went, slowly getting the hang of my unfamiliar mount, whose elevator was quite sensitive but whose rudder needed quite a bit of deflection to effect any kind of a decent turn. Settled onto my course, I levelled off and throttled back, to let my flight catch up. They did so slowly, about as fast as you could expect on their 80 hp Le Rhone engines. Finally the formation was complete and I opened her up again. Climbing as hard as we could, we came up to the Lines. Zero Hour for the offensive was past but there was still a certain amount of shelling going on, well underneath our clear doped linen wings. I levelled off at four thousand and in the clear conditions, was able to pick out our target visually, just the far side of the shelled area. As the range wound down, I called up the tactical display, selected a series of targets in the railway complex and issued 'Attack' orders. Leaving my flight to get on with it in their own way I then made my own bombing run. Everyone's bombs seemed to hit at about the same time so I wasn't sure which were mine, But overall, we seemed to have had much the desired effect. A good start! Sure enough, a certain amount of damage had been done. Not bad at all, considering that out bombs were so small. I banked around for home, porpoising a bit while trying to balance the turn in the awkward big parasol. Rolling out with plenty of coarse rudder, I levelled her off and headed for home, gratifled to see that the flight seemed to be losing little time in getting back into formation. It was only at this point that Archie showed up. There was a muffled 'crump!' and then another, as the black bursts of German AA fire started unrolling in our wake. A bit late there, you Huns! Well, you can do your worst, now. We have knocked about your little railway station and we're already well on our way home! My confidence was a little premature, as it turned out. The Huns hadn't finished with us yet! ...to be continued!

A CombatAce and OBD Software special... Bringing classic WW1 memoirs to life in Wings Over Flanders Fields! This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. To help mark this centenary - and to recall the courage and sacrifice of those who fought in the skies of WW1, for real - CombatAce, in partnership with OBD Software, will feature a unique series of mission reports. Each article will take a look at one of the classic pilot autobiographies of the First World War and will then report on a campaign mission inspired by the book and flown to bring it to life. For this, we'll be using OBD Software's great new sim, Wings Over Flanders Fields, whose realistic orders of battle make it particularly well suited to this particular mission! The books and the aeroplanes featured will be chosen to illustrate both the development of combat aircraft and the progression of the air war, from 1915 through to 1918. The titles and the planes we currently plan to cover are: - Duncan Grinnell-Milne's 'Wind in the Wires' (BE2c, 1915); - Cecil Lewis's 'Sagittarius Rising' (Morane parasol, mid-1916); - Manfred von Richthofen's 'The Red Battle-flier' (Albatros DII, late 1916); - Billy Bishop's 'Winged Warfare' (Nieuport Scout, early 1917); - Arthur Gould Lee's 'No Parachute' (Sopwith Pup, mid-1917); - James McCudden's 'Flying Fury' (SE5a, late 1917); and - Rudolph Stark's 'Wings of War' (Pfalz D IIIa, mid-1918). To accompany the series, we are pleased to announce that OBD Software will be offering a prize to the winner of a competition based on the reports; details will be announced soon. We plan to begin the series in early April, so watch this space!

In an effort to keep the peace on the official WOFF forum and still be able to talk about alternative flight models and share ideas I thought I would have a go at starting a WOFF FM thread here in neurtal territory on CombatAce. FM arguments are never resolved, so the intent of this thread is to fiddle around with the FM's and get them the way each of us wants them, share and compare notes and hopefully have fun So here is the first effort. This is an Albatros D.V FM created by Hellshade with data from Elephant and Jim F. Miller. It makes only two changes to the WOFF Albatros D.V flight model. It reduces the weight from 680 kg to 620 kg and the horsepower from 180 to 170. According to JFM at least 742 of the 900 Albatros D.V's were built at this weight and horsepower. The one change to Hellshade's original file that I made was to pair it down to just the .xfm files and make it JSGME ready. Simply download this file and install it using JSGME from your Mods folder under the OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields folder. If you don't like the FM, then simply uninstall it using JSGME and you're back to the stock WOFF FM. Bucksnort Alb DV 620kg 170hp.zip

Wings Over Flanders Fields - the CombatAce Review, part 4 The View from Hellshade's Cockpit Wings Over Flanders Fields (WOFF) goes against the grain in almost every respect. Where the video game industry is fast moving away from simulations and towards MOBAs, MMOs and FPS, WOFF embraces being a sim wholeheartedly. Within the tiny niche of the gaming market that sims now occupy, WOFF isn't even one of the most popular types of sim settings, such as ARMA III's full modern combat settings or even the ever-popular World War II. WOFF is a World War I air combat simulator. It's probably one of the smallest niches within the already small niche of sims. On top of that, while the rest of the market focuses on multiplayer aspects of their games and sometimes throws in a single player experience as an after-thought, WOFF is unashamedly designed to be an immersive single player experience. No multiplayer component at all. One has to wonder why any developer in their right mind would choose to invest so much time and energy into a game that would seem to appeal to such a tiny segment of the market. The answer becomes apparent the longer that you fly in the world of WOFF. It's passion. OBD Software, the developers of Wings Over Flanders Fields, have a genuine and seemingly never ending passion for WWI history and have made every effort possible to turn that passion into details that bring the world of WOFF alive. While it's just about impossible to cover every aspect of WOFF that is new and improved over previous versions, LIMA has done an excellent job of hitting many of the high points. I couldn't have done nearly as good a job as he has and I'm not going to try. I just wanted to highlight some of the aspects of WOFF that I feel make this sim worth investing your time into. Developer support OBD Software offered the previous version of WOFF, Over Flanders Fields: Between Heaven and Hell, excellent support. With WOFF, they have continued their history of excellence in support after the sale in numerous ways. First, they have pushed out 21 updates to the sim in about 3 months. It wasn't all just about the bug fixes though. Many of the updates included NEW FEATURES that were implemented due to player feedback. Things such as optional visual feedback that your pilot had been shot through bloody goggles and Dot based labels that let you see aircraft too far in the distance to be properly drawn out by the sim. They also corrected Flight Model issues when they found the Morane L Saulner was flying too fast. No sim is ever going to be perfect in everyone's eyes. There will always be a new feature someone wants or a change to the way things work in the game. WOFF, like every other sim out there, will never be all things to all people, but the outstanding developer support and attention to detail means that you can be sure the sim is never forgotten or abandoned. OBDs passion for World War I history doesn't stop with shipping the best possible product that they can. If they think they have the ability to make it better, they do. It's a feature you won't see listed on the box, but to me it's one of the best aspects of the sim. Community experience Hop onto the Wings Over Flanders Fields forums and you're going to find a bunch of virtual WWI pilots who have nearly as much passion for history as the developers themselves. And they are helpful, too. Perhaps because WOFF isn't a multiplayer game that pits people against one another, there's very little in the way of ego clashes on the forums. Yes, there are Flight Model debates but the majority of posts are about the experiences that players have had while flying in the sim. People take the time to create "letters to home" and post After Action Reports to help bring the experience more to life. WOFF can very easily become almost as much a role-playing experience as it is a flight simulator experience. They also share combat tactics and trade war stories about how they managed to survive...or not. Technical problems are handled not just by the Devs but usually by a number of community members who enjoy helping others get the most out of WOFF. Again, you won't see the Forum Community listed on the box as a Feature of WOFF, but make no mistake, it's one of the very best experiences of the sim and not to be missed. Modding community For such a relatively newly released sim, WOFF already has had some very enjoyable and useful mods created for it by its growing fan base. ArisFuser is a renowned modder from other games and has created a stunning Cloud Mod for WOFF that really is quite impressive. There is a Pilot Backup Utility Mod by RJW that keeps your pilot "safe" and restorable in the event something bad happens to your hard drive or install. Given how attached people get to their pilots in WOFF, this is almost a Must Have utility. Bletchley's Mission Types mod offers a variety of different kinds of missions to fly above and beyond what's already included in the dynamic campaign. RAF_Louvert has created an excellent Verdun Region Map to print out and help you fly, while 77_Scouts News Mod (v2.0) adds to the in-game immersion with a greater variety of historically accurate news stories for you to read between missions. There's even a JSGME WOFF Mod Builder Kit that helps users make JSGME friendly mods that are easier for everyone to install and use. Not to be left out is the mod from AnKor. It is the D3D9 Self Shadowing Mod, which not only adds some incredible self shadowing effects to WOFF, it also "magically" adds frames per second to many of the users' experience, making the sim fly smoother than ever. It really does need to be seen to be believed and it adds an incredible new level of immersion to the sim. All of this in just a few short months since release. Considering how "against the grain" WOFF is, in terms of the audience that it appeals to, it's clear that many of the users are just as passionate about getting the most out of WOFF as the developers are about putting great things into it. The AI As one of the lucky few who got the chance to fly Wings Over Flanders Fields before it was officially released, I have to repeat what I said when I first flew it. The AI alone is worth the price of admission. It's not a bunch of fixes to the scripts of the previous version of AI in OFF. It's completely re-written from the ground up to have the AI pilots take into account an entire range of factors and then actually make a weighted decision about what to do next. No random "dice rolls" telling them what to do. Just a few of the things the AI takes into account is how much ammo they have left, how much fuel, the state of their plane (is it damaged, etc), how far behind enemy lines or their own lines are they, do they have an altitude advantage or disadvantage, what is their skill level (Novice, Veteran or Ace), the morale level of their squadron (poor, normal, elite, etc) and so much more. No longer does every fight end up being "A Fight to the Death". The AI wants to complete its mission, but more importantly they all want to make it home alive too, which is much more realistic. If things start going bad for them, they look for a way to exit the combat and head home if possible. They don't usually give up altitude without a good reason. If the fight does make it down to the deck, they know how to fight effectively there too. Yes, you will run into rookies who freeze and make dumb mistakes when the shooting starts. You will also run into highly skilled pilots who use their plane's abilities to best effect. After all of these months flying WOFF, each encounter is still different. I can't just look at an enemy plane and say "Okay, when I attack he's going to do this, then this and then that." I literally don't know how he will respond, and that keeps every combat air patrol mission exciting. I don't know who I'm going to meet or how they will respond. It's a big war up there in Wings Over Flanders Fields and you'll find rookies and aces alike. But unless they are an Ace with a distinctively painted aircraft, you really won't know who's who until the shooting starts. Time The last thing that I want to talk about is something that the people who fly WOFF regularly are already keenly aware of. Getting the most out of WOFF requires an investment of your time. The planes are not easy to master. They all have different flight models and the conditions around you can change in a hurry. If you are planning on going out and "winning the war" Call of Duty style as a one man destroyer of air forces, be prepared to start a lot of new pilot careers. It's just not easy. It takes time and patience to truly master what WOFF has to offer. In fact most of the regulars on the Community Forums for WOFF will tell you that they are only good at just a few of the huge stable of planes that WOFF ships with. Making it a year in WOFF is a real feat to be proud of. As an Allied pilot during Bloody April in 1917, surviving for even two weeks can be a major challenge, especially if you don't "cheat" and use any of the visual aids like labels to see other planes far off in the distance. WOFF has a Quick Combat mode to just have the fun of instant dogfights in, but the real glory and power of WOFF is in its huge, dynamic, single player campaign. Take the time to learn the planes and fly the missions. It won't be long before you start to wonder how anyone survived the real air war of 1915 - 1918. Many of them didn't. In closing... From my cockpit, given the huge number of planes that can be flown right out of the box, the massive time frame of the war in which to fly them in, the incredibly large number of squadrons to choose from and the variety of dogfights from a "thinking", non-scripted AI that really does fight to survive, Wings Over Flanders Fields offers an amazing amount of "bang for the buck". I expect that I will be flying it for many years to come, especially if the Developers keep adding expansions like the recently released "Fokker Scourge" (rumor has it that Gothas are on the way!). All in all, for anyone that loves World War I air combat and history, Wings Over Flanders Fields is tremendous value, potentially costing mere fractions of a cent per hour for you to enjoy its rich, detailed and dynamic world. When you find yourself flying along on a patrol in your umpteenth hour in WOFF, trying desperately to keep your pilot alive yet still searching for that next kill even as you struggle to complete your mission, that's when it will probably hit you like it has me. This is where developers who are insanely passionate about their sim truly pays off. The depth of immersion is hard to describe. It just has to be experienced and that's exactly what Wings Over Flanders Fields is for anyone who loves WWI aircraft: an experience not to be missed. My personal rating for Wings Over Flanders Fields is: 5 - Must Buy The View from Adger's Cockpit Modders and more modders I just wanted to mention that the OBD developers actively encourage 3rd party mods. AnKor's self shadowing mod is highly recommended (and it's going to be implemented into WOFF in the near future). Sweetfx works well. Arisfuser's HD Cloud Mod is also excellent; then there's Bletchley's Mission Mod and 77 Scout's News Mod. I think that the modders should get some recognition somewhere! Patches and skins We've also (so far) had 21 patches: improvements made, FMs changed etc. The Official Aircraft Skin Pack # 1 available here - it REALLY adds to the atmosphere in WOFF (especially the German Jasta squadrons). To be flying with some of the war's aces, all with there own individual aircraft skins, is just breathtaking. Arto "Paarma" Karttunen,Terry "Makai" Kerby, Mike "Sandbagger" Norris and last but not least James "OVS" Romano deserve massive credit for the incredible skin work. Performance I've been running WOFF on a Phenom 2 955 processor o/c to 3.5 GHz, 1 GB 5770 ATI GPU, 4 GB of DDR2 RAM, on workshop settings 5,3,3,5,5 and getting more than adequate frame rates (with sweetfx and Ankor's mod). In closing... I love the new medals and awards. The AI has had a massive overhaul since OFF and HITR. I love waiting on the field to see if my flight returns and lands! Matt Milne's music is brilliant. The graphics are phenomenal and what the Devs have done on the CFS3 engine is incredible.Take an early dawn patrol in the Alsace region...breathtaking! The interface is cleaner, Workshop and key bindings screens are smarter and easier to navigate. WOFF also seems less prone to CTDs compared to OFF (I've had 2 in over 100+ hrs of flying). Looking back, in comparison I'd rate OFF Phase 3, 7.5/10, OFF Phase 3 and HITR, 8.5/10. I've also flown Knights of the Sky, FE1 & RoF and WOFF batters them all into submission. It's not just the greatest sim I've flown...it's probably my greatest game I've ever played, a mindblowing piece of work My personal rating for Wings Over Flanders Fields is: 5 - Must Buy The view from Dagger's cockpit Getting started I am a WW1 nut, and will try any flight sim that has this type of flight in it. I cut my teeth for this era flying Red Baron 3-D and became hooked. There have been several titles released that fit this era, but most fell well short, BUT there were a few that made it. After setting it up and getting some seat time, Wings over Flanders Fields seems to be one of those that do a great job at filling the void left by RB3D. I found installing this sim was easy, just a few clicks and I was ready to go. Nothing but the usual, So time to set everything and make it the sim I want. This was very easy. There were many options to choose from, and even dynamic weather, we’ll get into that more later, to options for careers and more goodies. I double checked my stick commands, and made some notes for commands and was on my way. Quick missions and on the campaign trail Launched the game, and decided before anything, to take a quick mission. This is a fun way to start. The scenery was pretty good all things considered, and the planes themselves were a lot of fun. The enemy AI were set to be easy to get my kills, so they weren’t very good, but they did try to evade and engage me some. I flew around some, checked my controls and looked around to see where I was. I decided I was ready to become a WW1 flying ace! So I jumped into a campaign. There are many choices in the campaign; again I like this. I started and was flying a recon mission. I did noticed the control seemed sluggish in the early planes. I wasn’t sure if this was intended, or just my stick,. But I liked it. I am no expert on flight models but they seemed pretty good. I did notice I could set the trim on my aircraft, which I doubt any WW1 flyers could do. I also liked the fact the German AA didn’t start as soon as I was in the air, and while it was there and I had to be careful the gunners weren’t exactly expert shots. Landings were fairly easy after some practice, but without care you’ll end up on your nose, or worse. The Verdict Here’s my take on the game, so far: not complete as I want to do a better review after completing a campaign. First I tried it on several different machines, and got decent frame rates with the settings tinkered with on all of them. So you won’t have to run out and buy a huge gaming machine to have fun and see the detail in the sim. The graphics are decent, better than RB3D even with the Promised Land mod, but not quite as good as some of the newer games. I didn’t expect it to be, using an older game engine, but was surprised by the detail I did have. I also liked the fact I could set the weather and amount of detail I wanted to help with frame rates on lower end systems. From the user point of view, it is a great sim to learn WW1 flight sims on. There are many options the user can set to customize the game to their machine. There are a few things I noticed, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Over all I give this sim a big thumbs up. Simmers don’t have to have a top of the line machine to run it and get a great gaming experience, and if offers many planes that are extras in other games. Also I like the fact it is a WW1 sim, did I mention I am a sucker for anything WW1 and this one will be on my system for a long time! This is one of those "Have to have it, right now" sims. On my gaming system it looks beautiful, and takes an older sim to a new level. This will bring a tear to the eyes of us older Red Baron players. The cool thing is nothing more to buy, you don't have to pay for planes you really want, and getting to see the front from the air is pretty cool! The only thing missing is the caster oil in your nose, the wind in your face, and the feel of your scarf flapping in the wind behind you. It's great. I give it a: 5 - Must Buy This concludes the CombatAce review of Wings Over Flanders Fields! All screenshots in part 4 are courtesy of Hellshade's Screenshot mod.