Recently we had the question, what "Reihenbildzug" meant, and how they worked.

The word means something similar like "sequential photography unit".
These units did their jobs from two-seaters; the observer was a specially trained officer,
who had to make a sequence of aerial photos. These had to have no gaps inbetween them,
but had to be overlapping rather.

The images could later be pinned at a board, and the recon officers at HQ had an idea
of what was going on in the trenches or behind enemy lines.

Here is the graphic, which I found again - it seems they worked with a stop watch to get it right.
The aircraft had to fly at a certain known speed for that.

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That is the very method I use to collect the recce photos with which to build my WOFF maps.

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My issues of "Over the Front" have arrived and one of them (at first glance) has an article on the career of of German Observer, I think, stationed in Palestine.
If any tidbits are applicable to the above I will advise.

An excellent graphic! That is how aerial photography and map-making works in general. All the photo recon units did that in the Great War.

But the RBZ units were special because they had access to automatic cameras and could operate at extremely high altitudes, which made it easier to get those photos even deep behind enemy lines. The observer didn't have to manually take each photo thanks to the special camera.

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For those interested, here is a clip of a typical assemblage of overlapped photos from one off my WOFF recce flights, (right click on image and open it in a new window to see the full-sized image):



I reduced this clip by 50% of its actual working size in order to keep it a manageable image link. Area shown is just to the east of the SE corner of Paris and altitude the photos were taken from was 16,000'. From strips such as these I am able to draw in all the roads and rail lines and such and create the navigation maps I've been sharing with my fellow WOFF pilots here. As you can see, it works just as it did for our RL counterparts in WWI who were tasked with mapping the front lines and beyond.

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Neat.

Your maps are real gem, Lou. I can´t even think about to fly without them pinned on my second display.

Lou, do you really work after a stop watch, or how do you know when to make the next picture?
That means you know how much of the ground you can capture in one "photo"; and the time which you need
to fly that distance?

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Olham, I have FRAPS screen capture set to take a photo every 12 seconds. At 16,000' with an airspeed of 90 MPH and TC of 8X it gives about the ideal overlap.

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Gee - I didn't know FRAPS could be set up like that, Lou.
We must tell Hasse - it is the idea way to simulate real reconnaissance missions!

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Yuppers. Pretty much 'real' reconnaissance missions are what I fly for my map projects.

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I remember you described your method earlier this year when your released your first map to the public, Lou. Good stuff!

Olham, my dream is that WOFF will one day have working recon cameras and wireless sets for making two-seater careers more interesting and realistic. The wireless is probably a bit too ambitious to implement, but what do I know! However, I can imagine there being a camera that could be operated from the bombsight view or something like that.

EDIT: The regular recon squadrons in the German air service were the FA [number of the Abteilung] Lb (Lichtbild, photograph) units. For example, FA 3 Lb. FA(A) units were artillery spotters.

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Hasse, I'd be right there with you flying WOFF recce campaigns should a future version allow us to do so.

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I find it interesting that Olham's poster specifies ground speed. Now how the dickens is the poor pilot supposed to know that? Even on calm days there can be winds aloft at different speeds and directions...

Hey Louvert, since WOFF doesn't have a camera, this is a cool idea to implement in WOFF photo recon missions.

So, basically, if I wanted to follow my own waypoints during one of these missions, I would travel along certain trenches in NML with plane speed and height according to Olham's chart taking pics every minute or so for about 15 minutes, then fly back to base, exit WOFF and see how I did in the screenshots folder and write my AAR. I guess this would let me know if my mission was a success or not.

Ok. Assuming that it seems to temporarily satisfy the "real" factor in photo recon missions, then how could I play out those arty spotting missions?

I'd be glad to hear others way on how to play photo recon and spotting missions without the games default way of letting you fly in circles around the same area for 20 minutes.

Please excuse this naive observation on my part, but to me, it seems that WOFF requires at least 2 to 3 hours to fully play a single mission to its optimum potential. About 1.5 hours for flying the actual mission and 30 minutes or more for the AAR.

Learn something new everyday in this forum.

Reminds me of my old RB3D days where I would do what Lou did along the trench lines. I'll start that again now for WOFF.

As for the Arty missions I still do the old RB3D-Flander in flames rule..which was, take flares if able to, fly over a friendly infantry position, fire a flare, fly over to the enemy infantry and then fly back to friendly infantry....send a flare for correction.

Do this three times and consider the guns as being on target and mission complete.

OldHat, just remember, you asked. Now get comfortable.

In order to have proper arty spotting missions in WOFF you would need artillery in the sim. As this is not the case, at least not for now, the method I use, (and one which has evolved since I first came to OFF), is as follows.

When I am assigned an arty spot, I begin by setting up a mission map on my second monitor. On this map I mark a location about two to three miles behind the front lines that will serve as the location of the imaginary gun battery I am spotting for, (2-3 miles assumes the use of standard artillery, for heavy guns you would go 5-7 miles back). This location should be more or less straight across from the target point indicated on the in-sim mission map, i.e. the enemy target that is to be shelled by the imaginary battery. Once I have my own mission map completed I begin the flight. As I create a more realistic direct route to and from the target I ignore all in-sim waypoints other than the actual target point, using the ‘next waypoint’ command in the sim to do this, (in this way you are more likely to receive credit for completing the mission). Before passing over my battery I climb to a working altitude of around 7,000’ to 8,000’ which historically was the average altitude for this sort of job. Once I’ve ‘located’ the guns I am to be working with I signal them by tapping out a Morse code message, all imaginary of course, (however, as I worked with Morse code in the service I actually do tap out the message with my finger on the desk). Keep in mind that beginning in early 1915 the RFC used radio transmitters in their recce aeroplanes to send Morse code signals to the gun batteries they were working with. To the best of my knowledge the French and German air services began using the same technology shortly thereafter.

OK, I’ve located my battery, signaled them to fire their guns at the target so that I can be sure they are in fact my battery, and I now fly across to the target to watch as the next rounds are fired, paying attention to where they land. Remember, this bit is all imaginary as all you can really do in the sim is watch as a barrage is being laid down by invisible guns somewhere behind the lines. None-the-less, I watch as dirt is being hurled skyward by the incoming rounds and then send messages in Morse code back to my battery telling them to make adjustments. I do this for the time required by the in-sim mission outline after which I send a parting message to my battery and then fly back to camp and land. As I am all about historically-based immersion I use the following targeting protocol:
Corrections are transmitted in clock code. First, a letter is used to indicate distance from the target. The letters Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E and F represent distances of 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 yards respectively. Next, a clock number of 1 to 12 is used to represent the direction from the target, with 12 indicating due north of the target and 6 indicating due south of the target. As example, if the shells were falling roughly 50 yards due east of the target you would send the correction of “A 9”.

Now then, all this supposes you were not interrupted during the course of your arty spot by hostile scouts, Archie, and/or mechanical trouble, any one of which can send you packing. But then, that only adds to the fun, eh what?

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Working cameras, actual artillery spotting, contact patrols, and visual recon - nicely implemented in WOFF - might be enough to get me out of the fighter seat for a while.

I can see me putzing over the front in my RE8 trying to accomplish missions while dodging the evil Hun.

Ok. Imagination juice is starting to ooze from my brain cells, so thanks guys.

I'll follow contact patrol missions as described in Sagittarius Rising and for line patrols, I'll fly for 20 or so minutes (as in the mission briefing) along the line looking for EA then return to base.

Well, all this extra stuff should fill up those empty missions where there's no EA contact.

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Just be mindful OldHat that all this extra stuff doesn't fill your attention so much so that you fail to see that EA bearing down on you from on high. Not that such a thing has ever happened to me ... much.

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