Will the RAF BE8 be the next plane on the list? Looking forward to fly it in combat.

The BE8s a 1914-15 era plane with no fixed armament. (I had to look it up) Less than a hundred were built, very few were sent to overseas. I think you might wait a while for that one.

The BE2, now there's a good chance you'll see one of those, or the FE8, that's a bit like the DH2 but a bit faster and less flammable.

I think he meant the RE8 ...

Gee, even the RE8-some of you guys have a death wish as it sounds like it was a flying turd!!!

Agreed. I'm sure I read somewhere that the top speed of a BE2 was only around 10 mph faster than the stall speed. I might give that one a miss.
I'll give the Fee a once over though, if only to play out some early Hornet Squadron type missions

Ah yes, but the BE2 series (c through e I think) lasted almost through out the entire war. I hate to agree, it won't be popular on the pay-per scene, but if RoF is to be a great WWI sim then it has to be made if only as a target for German pilots (bit'o exaggeration there). I hope it comes along sooner than later, we need all the 2-seaters we can get.

We need all the two-seaters we can get that don't have LCOS on the rear gun (either that, or pusher two-seaters so I can attack from 6 o'clock without getting a bullet in my face).

(From Wikipedia)

So, not real much use for ROF's main time frame at the moment, which is 1917-18.

Hopefully ROF will expand to 1916 though, sooner rather than later.

A 1916 2 seater for each major faction would make the 1916 careers playable. Albatros C, Farman F40, BE2, as I keep suggesting

We can return to 1918 for a few more select additions when those are in.

The Fee had a front mounted Lewis on a rail and a rear mounted lewis on a post. The gunner would stand in the front cockpit (sometimes on the front mount rail) and shoot over the pilot and top wing.
No escape from the inevitable Nimits

Some FEs also had a fixed forward firing gun for the pilot. I'd like to see that version.

Way to destroy a young man's optimism!!!

Don't get me wrong-as someone mentioned earlier, I'd love to see it in the sim as well as any other two seater they can think of as it's more targets for me!

Not quite a pic of shooting back over the top wing, but even this much looks pretty mental.
Respect for those guys !

Hmm . . . shooting dead astern looks like the bullet stream would be going through the prop arc . . . there's hope for me yet!!!!

FE2`s are pretty cool, and those audacious gun placements were actually rather deadly as proven by Immelmann`s Eindecker most probably getting Nimits`ed by one (To the point of catastrophic structural failure)!

Sorry Nimits, I couldnt resist!

Yeah, but how many did he take down first?

It's just a new paradigm for me. I'm used to seeing a D3A, Ju-87, or Pe-2 flying flying singlely or in pairs, unescorted, and thinking "great, two more kills today." Just not the same thing with WWI two seaters.

That said, I do think there is something a little off between the difficulty of downing a single seater vs a two seater, at least as flown by the AI. Single seat fighers were developed for a reason, but if one were to go be RoF exclusively, it would seem that the two seaters could have won the air war single-handedly . . .

The BE2 and most of the pushers were helpless if you could get behind them. The BE2 gunner was in the front, surrounded by struts and wiring, firing over the pilot's head. If you look at the pic posted you can see how bad the FoV was for the Fee gunner shooting to the rear.

Fees could be deadly if encountered in groups. They had superb forward field of fire and, if flown aggressively, could provide great mutual coverage. The British pilot's weren't stupid and understood this quite well. They would fly very defensively if they were in groups (circles,weaving, etc.) or would go completely aggressive if they were caught alone (bring the front gun to bear). The good ones did, anyway. It would be an AI coup if 777 can make the two seaters fly in proper defensive formations.

Some interesting stats:

Number of BE2s produced: ~3500
FE2s: ~2000
RE8s: ~4000

Number of BE2s claimed by MVR: 17 (most during Jan-Apr 1917)

FE2s claimed by MVR: 14

RE8s claimed by MVR: 6


So these 3 types account for nearly half of MVRs victories.


I'm not saying that we should be flying BE2s in ROF rather than DR1s. It wouldn't be fun for long. The BE2 was a dog, kept in service long past obsolescence. But the BE2 was most certainly very common over British sectors of the western front, through early 1917 at least (sadly, it was they and the FE2s that in large part did the bleeding in "Bloody April"). The BE2, FE2, and RE8 were the workhorses of the RFC/RAF. They will need to be modelled at some point, at least as AI, if we ever want to fly historical scenarios in career mode or online.

There's no reason those planes can't just be AI. The only thing that wouldn't need to be modeled would be the cockpit.

In saying that, if you're going to do it why not go the whole way