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#4328199 - 01/12/17 11:06 PM Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report.  
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33lima Offline
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To war in a 'prehistoric packing-case' in Wings over Flanders Fields!



Having recently got under way with my German 2-seater 1916 campaign, it was time, as I had planned, to start a parallel-but-opposing one with the Royal Flying Corps. Of the types available to me in WoFF, my natural choice was perhaps the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter. Like the Roland C.II I was flying for Germany, this was a machine whose fighting capabilities made it more than just a target for the enemy's 'scouts' or fighters. However, I had campaigned in such a machine not long ago. So rather than fly 'Stability Jane' - the B.E.2c, a flying target if ever there was one - I opted to go for the F.E.2b. Like the B.E. this was a product of the Royal Aircraft Factory - in fact it used the same outer wing panels as that type - but it is more of a multi-role machine. In fact, the 'Fee' is widely credited with a part in ending the 'Fokker Scourge', and an F.E. crew may have shot down premier eindekker ace Max Immelmann.

Nevertheless, having like the more nimble DH2 and F.E.8 single-seaters adopted a 'pusher' layout to avoid the problem of firing ahead through an airscrew, the F.E.2 was also Manfred von Richthofen's first victim. And by some accounts, he refers to this and other RFC 'pushers' as 'prehistoric packing cases'. With an onserver/gunner perched in a small nacelle out in front, having to stand up, with no harness, to fire a second MG to the rear over the limited arc available, it's hard to credit that men actually went to war in such a contrivance. Which they certainly did, the F.E. having been widely used at the front well into 1917, and later in the night bomber role.

I opted to fly my 'Fee' career with No.22 Squadron, knowing that 'Twenty-two' was one of the units most associated with the type on the Western Front, as evidenced in some of the RFC's contemporary songs, like this one:

My batman awoke me from my bed.
I'd had a thick night and I'd got a sore head.
So I said to myself, to myself I said
'Oh, I haven't got a hope in the mor-ning!'

We were escorting 'Twenty-two'
Hadn't got a notion what to do.
So we shot down a SPAD and an F.E., too.
'Cos we hadn't got a hope in the mor-ning!


My campaign begins on 1st August 1916, and we're based at Bertangles, in Flanders, north of Amiens and south of Arras, which latter will next year give its name to a battle, in April 1917, which marks another particularly bloody period for the RFC. But that's for another day. For today, I'm appointed to lead 'B' Flight, and my first 'show' is a patrol up to the lines, roughly opposite Bapaume on the German-held side.



I've got two other crews with me, and 'A' Flight are putting up another four machines. It's not long before we're all merrily rattling over the grass and taking off. As you can see, most of our kites are in a natural doped linen finish, with 'battleship grey' moulded plywood nacelles. It was only during 1916 that the RFC changed to P.C.10 camouflage brown for its aircraft's upper surfaces, which has just begun to appear on some of our squadron's Fees.



As you'd expect, the pilot's view ahead is rather good, with your doughty observer providing a human windbreak in front, ahead of the small wind-shield. You can see a couple of 'A' Flight turning left across my front just after take-off, in the picture below.



The view to the sides isn't too bad; you can see Bertangles to the right here, as we sweep past on our leg up to the north-west.



I'm just using the stock 22 Squadron 'skin'; as you can see it's for a presentation machine, funded by friends of the Empire in south America, from the name on the nacelle.



I throttle back to allow my two other crews to catch up, one either side, in 'V' formation. As it's a short hop, I have reduced our fuel load to 70%, but when we start to climb for the front, it's still rather a slow haul, both horizontally and vertically.



The crew on my left have one of the newer machines, in camouflage finish, as you can see.



By the time we get close to the lines, we've reached about 7,000 feet, enough to be above most of the cloud-tops, and I decide that will do. 'A' Flight I haven't seen for some time, but looking out ahead and to the right, I can clearly make out a town the map tells me must be Albert.



I'm too far away to see if the famous statue of the Virgin Mary has fallen from the shell-battered church spire, which event is rumoured will signify the end of the war...



...but not today. Looking ahead and left, I can see the shelled ground of the front lines is beginning to blot out the pretty fields. The war is evidently still in business, and we have arrived to play our part.



...to be continued!

Last edited by 33lima; 01/12/17 11:11 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)

#4328213 - 01/13/17 12:03 AM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Great report and shots again Lima thumbsup


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
#4328381 - 01/13/17 07:57 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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33lima Offline
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Belfast, NI
Things begin to get interesting...




As our three Fees come up to the front, all seems quiet. Our briefed flight plan is just up to a waypoint over the lines, but as this is effectively a ‘Line Patrol’, as usual I will fly up and down over the trenches, not just round in circles at the waypoint.



I invariably ‘fly’ without visual aids, though I do turn on the Tactical Display (‘TAC’) in two circumstances – first, if I need to begin padlocking, once combat has begun; and second, at long-ish intervals during a flight, as a navigation aid. I always set the target type to display ‘Planes’ but the range to just a mile, so as to avoid an ‘AWACS effect’. If, when I turn the TAC on for a ‘nav check’, it does display an aircraft I have not spotted by ‘Mark 1 eyeball’, I treat this as ‘Aircraft fortuitously detected, probably by wingman’.

So it happens today, when to my surprise, the TAC displays nasty red enemy aircraft icons coming up astern.



But this time, I hesitate to react. F.E.2s have very poor rearward vision. So I decide – needlessly, and foolishly in retrospect - to ignore these ‘contacts’ and press on, until either I acquire them visually, or they reveal their presence by attacking us, or I see my flight-mates react to them. In WoFF, flight-mates often break formation automatically to attack an enemy I haven’t seen, although today’s events will make me doubt this AI routine applies to two-seaters (Fees, at any rate).

So I carry on. Soon, I have something else to occupy my attention. I notice five aircraft in formation, in a row against the clouds up ahead. They’re slightly lower and seemingly on a similar course, over No Man’s Land. As I turn towards them, I see another, smaller machine, lagging behind them. This looks like a formation of biplanes being stalked by a monoplane. Which likely means it’s RFC machines about to be attacked by a Fokker. I push down the nose slightly, in an effort to intervene.



Meanwhile, the Huns behind us are likewise doing their best to close the range on us.



As the range very slowly winds down to the formation to our front, I see that the monoplane is a Fokker. He pulls up, and then I realise that, where there were five bigger aircraft in the formation ahead of him, there are now four.



Looking down and right, I can see that the fifth one is plunging earthwards, burning and trailing a long banner of dark smoke.



I grit my teeth and urge my slow Fee onwards, intent on exacting vengeance. Behind us, though I don’t officially know it, two more Fokkers are equally intent on clobbering us. None of the machines in this impending scrap are particularly fast, so it’s like everything is happening in slow motion.

The Fokker up ahead may have seen us coming, for he suddenly rolls over and dives away. More likely, return fire has hit him, or just scared him off.

I can soon make out that the four RFC machines up ahead are B.E.2s. I decide that I will zig-zag above them, for mutual support.



It takes a considerable degree of self-control to ignore the threat behind...



...especially when I make a left-hand turn to follow the B.E.s, knowing the Fokkers will cut the corner, which, of course, they do...



Things are going to come to a head sooner or later, I realise, but I plough on regardless.

...to be continued!

Last edited by 33lima; 01/13/17 08:00 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)

#4328383 - 01/13/17 08:13 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Aaaawww - come on Lima clapping


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#4328386 - 01/13/17 08:38 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Things go from 'interesting', to 'not very good', to 'really rather bad'...



Soon, we're coming up behind the four surviving B.E.s...



...and I begin to zig-zag across their mean course. We seem to be only a little faster than they are, so it’s all quite different from escorting Ju-88s in Bf-109s. As we reach them, black puffs appear in the sky nearby - Archie has let fly into the middle of the group of British aircraft which is now penetrating into Hun-land.



Officially unbeknownst to me, there are now three Huns behind us. The blighter who knocked down the 'flamer' seems to have climbed back up, to join his mates in having a crack at us. He's probably one of those mean Huns who call our Fees 'prehistoric packing cases'.



But I continue my leisurely zig-zags, regardless of all this. 'Leisurely' seems to be about the best that a poor old Fee can do.



Leisurely or otherwise, my movements are rudely but inevitably interrupted at last when the Fokkers behind finally catch us up and begin to let fly. The Fee on my right takes a burst from one of them, providing me finally and incontrivertably with the evidence I meed to do something about this bunch, other than provide them with some nice targets to practice sneaking up on.



I break left, just as my observer starts shooting. There’s no ‘stand up in nacelle and man rear-firing Lewis Gun’ animation; the weapon just moves as if remotely-controlled, so at least he doesn’t block my view ahead. But my big machine seems to hang in the sky as my airspeed quickly bleeds off as I wheel aside. The Fee to my right shoots out well in front, pursued by the Fokker. Leaving the one behind to my observer, I bank around and race after them.



But the ‘race’ is in slow motion, and I’m compelled to watch as the Hun chases down the other Fee. I’m mentally urging my observer to let fly at the Fokker, even though I know the range is still too great for effective shooting.



Next thing I know, we’re in trouble ourselves! Rounds whack into my kite from somewhere astern and blood spatters my goggles.



I bank right to get out of the line of fire, but the Fokker is hard on my heels...



I jink, reversing my turn. This is a bad move. Looking back, I get a sudden, scary glimpse of a Fokker within feet of my tail booms and closing fast. Instinctively, I hunch up in anticipation of the collision I know is coming. The Fokker sheers off at the last split second, but it’s too late. My Fee lurches from the impact and the Hun scrapes past to my right.



My attacker’s nose drops and down he goes vertically, bursting into flames!



I await the same fate, but as the seconds pass, I realise that by some miracle, we are still flying on, seemingly intact.

I feel and hear my engine failing, and before long, my propeller has spun to a stop. I’m a short way over on the enemy side of the lines, so I let the nose drop as I haul my Fee around till we’re pointing westwards, back towards friendly territory.



Down we go. The muddy brown of the shelled area seems to stretch far ahead, and I realise with a sinking feeling that we are unlikely to make it to our side. If we can at least make No Man’s Land, we may be able to escape on foot, back from between the opposing trenches. So I press on, leaving the other machines to disappear amongst the clouds which close in behind us as we fall away. My poor kite is trailing smoke as we go down, but there’s no fire, thank goodness.



One of the Fokkers has seen us go, however, and is determined that we shall not escape. We’re attacked again from behind. My machine responds only sluggishly to my efforts to get out of the line of fire. More blood spashes onto my goggles.



The Hun overshoots and is raked by return fire from my observer. The Fokker slips out of view and doesn’t come back; serve him right if he goes down now, too, I think, savagely.



This leaves me to concentrate on making as much ground to the west as I can, before the inevitable forced landing. I try to ease back on my rate of descent. But to my alarm, I find that my elevators are not responding to any control inputs. Down we continue to slide, at an angle which looks too steep for much hope of survival when we reach the ground.



I try to re-start my motor, in the hope that a bit more speed will increase lift, enough to cut our rate of descent. The engine splutters briefly, then dies. No good!



Secondary effects of neither ailerons nor rudder, the controls I do have left, include pitch. I forget that I might try CFS3’s trim controls – very few WW1 aircraft had these, but - if they still worked - they could legitimately have simulated my ordering the observer to ditch the Lewis Guns and ammo, pushing my centre of gravity aft and possibly the nose up. But all I can think of now is the impending crash.

The ground rushes up, and I hope against hope that we will survive the crash that we can see is rushing up towards us. The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming, as our last seconds in the air slip by.



Then our shadow appears and rushes to meet us. This is it!



Crash! And we’re down. And out...



The debriefing confirms we’ve both been killed. My two flight-mates are down too, shown as crashed rather than shot down, with pilots wounded and both observers killed. It’s been a bad day for ‘B’ Flight. It's little consolation that the RFC’s ‘no empty chairs’ policy will ensure that fresh faces will sit at our places in the mess tomorrow.



I’m assigned two claims – the Fokker who collided with us, and the one who attacked us on the way down, I suspect – but there seems no point in a dead pilot filling in combat reports for confirmation. So I let that go, and with it the campaign.

Next time – and I will be back for more, in the Fee! – I will remember the trim option; will not rely on Fees disclosing spotted enemies by breaking formation to engage; but will revert to treating as ‘spotted’, Huns revealed by the occasional TAC ‘nav check’.

For all its short duration and bloody ending, this was a vivid and immersive mission, full of visual impact and violent action. It was like being there, living out a story from one of the better-written WW1 air combat books. A more darkly convincing recreation of flying and fighting in one of the RFC’s ‘prehistoric packing cases’ I don’t think I’ve ever had, or expect to have. Top notch stuff!

Last edited by 33lima; 01/13/17 08:42 PM.

SimHQ Battle of Britain II screenshots thread
CombatAce Mission Reports
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." (attributed to Marcus Aurelius)

#4328722 - 01/15/17 05:15 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Super write up 33lima thanks


Regards,

Polovski,
OBD Software, developers of immersive flight sims;
Wings Over Flanders Fields and Wings Over The Reich
http://www.overflandersfields.com
http://www.wingsoverthereich.com
#4328733 - 01/15/17 06:03 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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BWOC Survivor!...So Far!!
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Lima, I too enjoyed your story. I particularly like how you spaced out the screenies througout your story, as well as the fact that you included nice little technical snippets on the features of WOFF (TAC use, Trim ...).

Very cool mate!

Best Regards;


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#4328734 - 01/15/17 06:13 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Brilliant as always Lima cheers


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
#4328747 - 01/15/17 08:09 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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Very nice report sir! reading

#4328882 - 01/16/17 04:59 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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...wonderful stuff, from the man that first brought WOFF to my attention a couple of years ago with his excellent mission reports. I owe you Lima smile

H


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#4328895 - 01/16/17 05:56 PM Re: Fees over Flanders Fields - a mission report. [Re: 33lima]  
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High over the Front
Love the Fee and always have a career rolled up and ready to go however, despite this, I have never spent a lot of time with it.
Stupid real life and stupid job.
Gonna have to see if I can "one up" you now!


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