"RiR Challenge - Part One: The Fokker Scourge

Welcome to the first "Real Is Real" (RiR) challenge! The concept is to form two teams of Woff'ers. One team will represent the Entente, flying the Nieuport 10C1. The other team will represent the Central Powers and fly the Eindecker EIII. Upon conclusion of the challenge there will be a part two, where the teams switch sides (and different aircraft will be used).

If things run true to history, then in the first part of the challenge the Eindecker should do quite well against the N10, which carries significantly less ammunition and isn't terribly fast. In addition, the Central Powers team will be able to feast upon the lumbering BE2Cs that are in the area (if they can find them!), just as happened in the great war. However, the EIII is finicky plane to fly with its wing-warping and heavy gyroscopic effects. The N10 on the other hand is a lovely plane to fly. Very stable and capable of doing damage...but you need to get in close, since you cannot afford to waste a single bullet!

Below are the scene-setters for both teams. Please read these, then decide which team you would like to join and let me know by posting here. We don't have to have exact equal numbers but it would be nice if we could get close.

RiR means NO FLYING AIDS. If you've never tried this before, this challenge is a great opportunity! Things are relatively quiet at this point in the campaign, but flying with no aids, no zoom and using only Lou's maps for navigation mean that you will never be bored, even during encounter-less missions. I will post a follow-on to this thread in due course, with the full set of rules and details of the scoring system (assuming we have enough interested pilots!). Pilots will also need to be running WOFF 3 and have the add-on packs installed. I'm hoping we could start things at the beginning of September.

Flying for the Entente


You've just arrived at Verdun airfield. It's bitterly cold. You remove your gloves and blow through your cupped hands in a futile attempt to warm them, before making your way to the officer's mess. It's the 21st of January 1916. You've been assigned to N67 squadron and you will take possession of a Nieuport 10C1 scout. Morale is low here. Your assignment is to lead these men and restore their will to win. You will need all your patience and cunning to deal with ever-present threat posed by the German fliegers in their highly successful Eindecker fighting machines, especially those from KEK Avillers who have begun to be quite active in the region! Look after your men well, help them to progress, and you may all eventually be recipients of the new N11 "bebe", which should help you to even the odds with your foes!


Flying for the Central Powers

At last, you've been awarded command of your own KEK - KEK Avillers based at Bechamp airfield, north east of Verdun. You are determined to inspire the pilots in your charge and ensure that each of them progresses quickly! Your Eindecker is a nimble fighting machine and you cannot wait to begin terrorizing the pathetic British 2-seaters in the region, as you lead one of the first dedicated German fighting units. You also have a personal score to settle with those damned French fellows of N67 squadron. You will be looking out for them at every opportunity hoping to deal out some revenge!


Final Standings End of Week 12

Sounds good Harry, I will give it a shot.

Sign me up for the Entente

Sounds good Stache. Thanks for being the first to step up!

H

I will make it a pair Harry. I can fly for either side, whichever you need.

Good man MFair! I'll keep you posted. We need at least 3 per side, ideally 5 or 6.

H

Yeaaah, I'm in!
I`ll park my Butt in an Eindecker, of course
Few Questions:
When do we start?
I'd fly with heavy Traffic and high Encounter-Rate, AA/Ground Guns Setting @ max. Is that okay?
Does "You just took over Command over the KEK" mean "Hauptmann" as Rank?


...wait a minute...
I can fly an E4, if I'll start with the N10?
Hmmm... Okay, I can still start with the E3, if the Central Powers Side is a bit empty, but otherwise I'd start with the N10, then...

Good you have you on board Nietzsche! You are correct: you can fly the EIII now, or start with Entente in the N10 and switch to the EIV for part 2 of the challenge I'm still figuring out what the EIV will go against in part 2.... thoughts? Heavy traffic is fine, would prefer folks to use realistic encounters but it's up to you. Max AA is good. Yes you would start as a Hauptmann for the CP, but with KEK-Avillers you will start with an EIII.

I'm looking to start this part 1 in the first week of September.

H

Well, in an E4 one usually mows down gazillions of N16s... but noone really likes to fly the 16s. Occasionally you'll meet an Ace in one of the first N17s - so that might be an idea...

oh I forgot that I already said it would be the Bristol Scout! Actually, in my testing I've only met EIIIs, and despite the awkward gun mount, the Bristol fairs very well against them. I imagine the EIV is more of a handful though, so I may have to reconsider that choice and go N17 as you suggest. TBD. Thanks!

H

OK we need more volunteers! Step up, step up, this is your chance for glory!

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/7f8LMb8zXLE?t=44m9s[/video]

this does indeed sound like a neat idea, but I can't join in due to my inability to fly in real time - I'm one of those who use time compression. I'll probably fly along unofficially with you guys, though.

I dont have Lou's maps and I do use time compression part time so guess I will fly along unofficially. I must say, its really sounds great.

Hi Carrick58, you are more than welcome to fly "off the books" but I'd love to find a way to persuade you try Lou's maps in place of the in-game map. It's much more of an adventure, so when things are quiet, you still have to focus on figuring out where you are, where you are going and where you are actually supposed to be at any given time. As you get more comfortable with it you will appreciate the "RiR" factor

Before launching a mission, I pull Lou's map up on a 2nd screen and then use the mission briefing screen to find the relevant area on Lou's map, making sure to zoom in as far as possible but still keeping a little terrain around the home field to allow for forming up (usually flights take off into the wind and then head back downwind to the field before heading off on the first leg of the mission, but since you are the flight leader in this challenge, you can actually fly wherever you want, although don't expect to have a successful mission if you go way off course!). Then I launch the mission and pause the sim while on the ground, bringing up the in-game map only to to help me mentally plot the waypoints on Lou's map (e.g. fly NE until I get to the river, then turn SE until reaching the enemy lines, etc.). From there I do not allow myself to peek at the in-game map at all during the mission. You quickly begin to get accomplished in searching out landmarks to help orient yourself. Seriously, it's a whole new game. Then add on top of this, while you're concentrating on figuring out where you are, an Eindecker sneaks up on your tail and surprises the !@#$ out of you - that's "RiR"

The good thing about this challenge is, early in 1916 you are probably going to have time to figure all this out and still live to fight another day, since encounters are far less frequent than later in the war. Why not try a few practice missions to see what all this feels like? You can do it!!!

H

All, MFair has suggested that we might be better served by delaying the start until the current DiD Campaign Revival ends in November. This also gives pilots more time to experiment with "RiR" settings... I plan to work on a help doc that lays out the settings for the challenge and gives some suggestions for how to cope with them I'll post it here when it's ready.

Cheers

H

Sounds good...but after november there will be a lot of spare pilots hanging around and not the 6 you were looking for. I'm in and I'll fly any side you put me on.

danke

Meanwhile I switched from High Encounter to Realistic. All in all, I must say that it is now more interesting... because now you know, that everyone is doing their "usual" Thing...
A high Increase in Difficulty definitely is the waiver of Zoom. It makes Identification of AC a lot more difficult, and the "usual" Search for a decent Airfield in unknown Terrain is... challenging LOL

Yeaah, good for you Nietzsche! Getting rid of Zoom and labels (no dots) really makes you look harder for things... changes the whole feel of things!!

H

OK then, we have five pilots ready to go - Nietzsche, Lederhosen, Mfair, Stache and me. We need one more for 3 per side. I'm up for starting if we can find one more that's prepared to go with RiR settings... Carrick, would you be willing to give it a try...?

H

Here are the settings pages for RiR. Note: only top aces used.

In addition, no use of TAC, or labels of any kind. Since you will be leading missions, you may use the tilde key to select a target prior to issuing an attack order.....

Here's the link to register your pilot....

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...orm?c=0&w=1

Teams as follows...

Central Powers - Lederhosen, Nietzche, TBD

Entente - Stache, MFair, Harry H

We need one more brave soul to fly the EIII (or the N10 & I will switch sides to the CP)

Hoping to kick things off next weekend. More info on flying RiR along with challenge instructions to follow (keep an eye on this thread).

H

RiR Rules

1. Fly with the settings shown earlier in this thread (add-on packs plus WOFF 3 required)

2. Fly two missions per week, advancing the campaign date after each mission by three days.

3. Use of time compression is highly discouraged!! Each mission will normally take an hour or so to complete in real time.

4. Points are awarded not just for victories - in fact, more points are awarded for successful mission outcomes and for not losing squadron members!
(One exception to the above - scoring a victory over an EA from the opposing team’s squadron will count for double points - you are allowed to use labels to confirm - but ONLY after the EA has crashed / been destroyed, and labels must be switched off again afterward).

5. No use of Zoom during missions! Set the zoom amount to whatever you prefer at the start of the mission before takeoff.

6. No use of the in-game map once airborne! Use Lou’s excellent maps on a second screen or printed out. You may use the in-game map while paused, sitting on the field at the start of a mission, to help plot waypoint landmarks on Lou’s maps.

7. No use of TAC!

8. Balloons only count to your score if specified in the mission briefing. One per mission max and only when confirmed (as with E/A).

9. For the ultimate RiR experience, try to build your TIR profile such that it is almost impossible to see your tailplane!
Use the correct map from Lou’s collection! Part 1 is set in Verdun (January 1916 map)

10. Submit an updated form after each mission - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...orm?c=0&w=1

11. First mission takes place on the campaign date of January 21st 1916 (second mission on the 24th, third on the 27th, etc.)

Central Powers join KEK Avillers (Jasta 5) on 1/21/16, based at Bechamp field - Rank is Hauptmann

Entente join ESC N67 based at Verdun field on 1/21/16 - Rank is Sous Lieutenant - IMPORTANT----- SET TO VETERAN

All pilots will fly 24 missions (assuming they have not gone off to the great airfield in the sky before then!) thereby taking us to a final in-game mission date of March 31st. So we will finish toward the end of November. Only flying two missions per week allows a) a more realistic chance for us to not use tc, and b) have time to fly in other campaigns or tackle “Honey-Do” lists, etc.

I'll keep track of scoring and report each week. Dead is dead, so try not to die right out the gate - remember, you're on a team! Don't let your team mates down (having said that I'll probably be the first to go!!)

RiR In Action - Some Thoughts

What was it really like to take on of these flimsy machines up into the skies over war-torn France and meet fellow pilots in combat? We will never really know, but we can get a small sense of it with RiR and the wonderful WOFF 3 simulation.

Navigation - it takes some practice, but this is what it was like - navigating by landmarks. A bend in a river, the ragged outline of a forest, the junction of two major roads, a rail line, an airfield, a balloon. All these visual cues are there on Lou’s maps and in-game. Get accustomed to mentally orienting oneself relative to the compass in your machine. Plan ahead of time (before takeoff) what landmarks will help you identify your mission waypoints and what to look for along the way - but also remember to check your six often! If you get turned around in a cloud, try your best to re-orient yourself as soon as you can!

Altitude - use the altitude info in the mission briefing as a guide and try to get to that height for the main body of the mission. Often there will be EA at those heights and if you are 3,000 ft below you will never see them. It really is like searching for needles in a haystack at this point in the campaign, especially without zoom!

EA Spotting - having no zoom makes this super challenging. Use the visual cues of AA fire (white smoke means enemy CP, black smoke means enemy Entente). Watch for tell-tale behavior - a machine making a sudden sharp turn toward you indicates hostile intent! Learn to recognize the types of machine, based on knowledge of the period - the single plane of the Eindecker is a give-away! So too is the “mosquito buzz” of its engine.

Blip Switch - use it for realism in these early rotary machines in place of throttle. Use it to briefly cut the engine so that you can listen to what else is making noise around you!

Bombers - listen out for the whine of bombs falling on your side of the lines. If you can't see them, then the EA are probably above you somewhere... climb, climb and find them!

Successful Missions - achieving the objective and without losing your squad members will get the highest scores. If you go “off-script”, don’t expect to get high scores!

This is going to be fun! Thanks Harry.

Hi HarryH. Finally! A full-on, no crying diaper babies, max-real challenge (grin).

OK, seriously, great idea. I only play RIR style and am looking for an excuse to get back to playing WOFF after a summer of distractions, so if you still need more players I would love to join up.

I am happy to fly either side as you might require. If have never done a N10 career but have done several in the EIII, so maybe I slightly prefer trying the Nieuport?

Let me know what works. Thanks!

77_Scout, Awesome you're in! N10 for you it is then! I'll take the EIII. Please go ahead and sign up through the link in the rules...

Na, I think I will sit this one out. If its ok, I would like to fly along Unofficially. Using in-game map, time compression, and rear guns set to less accurate. Maybe set the game to just cockpit views.

Have fun all.

what rank...as the lowest Hun starts with the EII, which also fine by me.

So some thoughts - never flown RiR before.

I have a test pilot and a second monitor up with the map up on it, learning my way around Verdun.

I see Auto Mixture is to be disabled, will need to get used to that.

I see Waypoints are turned on (will get to this.)

Big question I have is what determines a successful mission?
Is it what is stated in the details page at the end of a mission.?

I just flew for an hour as mission leader, just a cover flight over the three Verdun airfields.
After flying for an hour I did turn on TAC with instructor, It told me to fly to the first waypoint, I did.
Fly to the second waypoint, I did. Stay in the area for 21 minutes....

So clearly I had missed everything, not surprising as I really had not clue to the exact location of the waypoints.

Waypoints... if we are not using the in-game map or TAC, why are waypoints turned on?

Do I need to follow all the waypoints in order to end up with a "successful mission"?

Stache, don't know how this would score but the way I do it. Once I take off and the flight is formed up, hit "shift W". This is usually the waypoint for climbing to altitude, and as far as I can tell does not mean beans as far as a successful mission. You most likely hit the meaningful waypoints but did not hit the first one. That is why it told you to go to first one. If your mission was an "airfield strike" for example and you did damage it, you will get a "good job" no mater how you got there. Same for "patrol enemy lines". If you shoot down some planes you will get a "well done" no matter where you shot them down. Hope this helps.

One note. The briefing map, as you know, is different than the in flight map. Once you go to the field, pause and look at inflight map which will show waypoints. You can adjust your map to match. I bring mine up in paint and use a red line to mark the route.

Not a problem!

H

Doh! Thanks for catching that, Lederhosen! Start as Hauptmann! Entente pilots will start as Capitaine. You are responsible for leading missions and trying to ensure that everyone gets home safely! I'll update the rules post accordingly...

H

Stache, I think MFair is correct, but for the sake of realism I try to follow the basic guidance that's given in the mission briefing screen, especially the average altitude. As MFair says, there's elasticity in there, e.g you may prefer to climb to altitude en route as opposed to going to waypoint A and climbing to a certain height before moving to the next waypoint. But I would try to at least navigate through all waypoints to be sure of getting a good rating for the mission. It also makes for good navigation practice

The other thing to look out for in the mission briefing (as you already mentioned) is the "remain in the vicinity for x minutes" Try to do that too.

... and yes, what's stated at the end of a mission (the debrief screen) is the rating for the mission.

H

Updated Pilots List...

N-67

Augustus McCrey - Capitaine, A-Flight (MFair) ... I forgot to ask for forum names. Form updated. Guessing this is you MFair?



KEK Avillers

Gunther Behrndorff - Hauptmann, A-Flight (Harry H)

Lederhosen, all. Hopefully this helps a bit...

Here's the mission briefing...



Note details of average altitude, wait time instructions for certain waypoints or targets, etc.


Here's the in-game map (use the large one) before takeoff....




Now load up Lou's map and do a rough translation of the in-game map (see my example below). I don't actually print these out but I do makes some notes of landmarks for each waypoint....




...so my notes for this mission would be something like:

NE to rail line, SSE over airfields, SE to just past the observation balloon, SW over the lines, wait 24min, NW Home.

As you go along, use the map to determine other landmarks that can help validate that you are on course.

I won't lie. This takes practice. but the good thing is, not too many people will be chasing your tail at this point in the war

H

Yes Sir!

At ease Capitaine. You'll get an official communication regarding your new posting via pm in due course

Thanks HarryH. It certainly looks like fun. Good luck to all.

Born ignorant and relapsed! Augustus McCrey was no Frenchman. Harry, can you delete my pilot and I will register one with a proper french name? If not I will fly as the local curiosity.

Haha! Well, I thought he might be an English exile or something! Perhaps a Frenchman would be better suited

Also, just a heads-up that I may have to reduce the starting rank for the Entente team, otherwise they may end up in the N11 "Bebe" from the get-go, which might be a little hard on the Fokkers! Will clarify later today.

H

Altitude In RiR

All, one further thought re altitude and RiR: both sides will most likely find themselves flying as an escort to reconnaissance flights (2-seaters) at some point in the challenge. When these missions occur, as the leader of the flight it will be even more important that you reach the recommended altitude by the time you arrive at the rendezvous waypoint. This is usually waypoint # 2, with the first waypoint being the "circle / climb to altitude" stage. If you don't do this then you may have a hard time spotting the craft that you are supposed to be escorting!

In general, escorting 2-seaters is a challenge in itself when flying RiR. It's easy to lose your charges in clouds, etc., but in order to complete the mission successfully you do need to stick with them throughout the mission if you can. Your team will lose points if the 2-seaters come to grief!

H

Rule Change - starting rank for the Entente needs to be Sous Lieutenant (changed in Rules post)

Harry, I have re registered my pilot. Augustin le Pew. Reporting for duty Sir! Sorry for the trouble. It will not happen again as surely I will be pealing potatoes for the remainder of the Challenge.

will set my guy up tommorrow

Thank you Sous Lieutenant Le Pew! We shall spare you from the pommes frites duty for the time being.

Sounds good Lederhosen!

H

More on Altitude

... if you are flying the EIII in RiR, there is no altimeter! Over time one's ability to accurately judge the current height improves.

Another thing that both the EIII and the N10 have in common is the blip switch. If they don't already, I strongly encourage RiR pilots in this challenge to use and master the blip switch, in place of the regular throttle. Not mandatory

H

Updated Pilots List

Entente

MFair - Augustin Le Pew, Sous Lieutenant, flight A - N67

Stache - Gaston Renard, Sous Lieutenant, flight B - N67


Central Powers

Harry - Gunther Berhndorff, Hauptmann, flight A - KEK Avillers

Lederhosen 77_Scout and Nietzche yet to register....

H

Yes none in N10c either I do not think.

This has been a concern to me in my test flights.
I am not sure we have the time to make the improvement in this ability especially without feedback and months of flying as a flight member learning from the leader.

Keeping track of time is also an issue, they had something called watches back in the day.

Personally I think using the Z key solves both of these without loosing or adding too much.

This seems to be becoming a lot of work.

well mission waypoints don't realy need to follow alt. When you reach the next WP it changes to the next anyway.

What I have done thus far was always click to the next way point till I had the target one (where I was supposed to be over the lines etc.) and fly to it as I wanted. Its a sim and guessing alt aint easy, but knowing how long it takes aprox may help.

Stache, Don't get discouraged! The altitude thing without a altimeter is tough for me and this child has flown without one for a while. Z key is up to Harry. Luckily, I still wear a watch, or primitive time keeping device as my daughter calls it. Dive in! You will make mistakes, but there is a whole new sim out there just waiting for you. Feel free to PM me if you need any advice. Be aware that free advice is usually worth what you pay for it.

Oh cool! Looks like an automated Points-Calculator!
...spares many of my usual Questions like: I forgot to take the two Days off for a completed Month and flew 2 Missons on one Day after that, got a medal for shooting my 5th EA but I got hit and spent 7 Days in Hospital. How many Points have I earned and how many Days do I have to advance, now? LOL

MFair, thanks for providing your voice of encouragement!!

I do think occasional use of the Z key is perfectly fine. The last thing I would want is for this to turn into something that people feel is a chore

As MFair says, flying RiR makes for a whole new sim! IMO well worth a bit of discomfort while getting through the learning curve.

H

... I am the automated points calculator Just fly the two missions per week whenever is convenient for you (making sure to advance the game time by three days after each mission) and let me know what the mission debrief screen says at the end of each mission (feel free to post screenshots if you want, or just note the general verbiage on the Google form when you submit).

I'm still tinkering with the actual scoring system. Once I have it done I'll post details.

H

Here is my "pilote" for the upcoming challenge. Hope it is all correct. I hate peeling "taters".

Excellent pilot photo Monsier le Pew!

H

HarryH, I have registered just now.

RIR thoughts: Don't get freaked out guys, it's great. Trying RIR flying for the first time just shows how many piloting skills we don't actually develop as a result of using cheats and aids. But when you truly turn everything off WOFF can become almost a time-machine experience ... worth the effort to try.

Waypoints: The tip about using Shift-W (next waypoint) is also what I do. If you use shift-w to skip any requirement to hit intermediate waypoints, then you only need to arrive at the target to be successful. If the flight plan is direct to the target, hit shift-w once (after completing takeoff) to skip the 'circle and climb' waypoint. If there is a navigation waypoint before the target (marked on the mission briefing map with a '1') then hit 'shift-w' twice after takeoff, so as to skip both the 'circle and climb' waypoint and the navigation waypoint. A practice flight or two before the challenge starts will show how it works; flip the TAC on to see what is happening while you get the hang of it. This is all from my memory ... I'll have to practice too.

Altitude: Judging altitude gets easy with practice; just look at the ground, guess your altitude then hit the Z key to see how close you were. After a few practices you can get realistically good at it ... real pilots wouldn't know exact altitude either.

Time over target ... yep, glance at your wristwatch.

thanks 77_Scout!

Hej Mr HarryH!
Still need somebody to join? Would like to participate... Either side-your choice.

Kai

Absolutely LowDrag, we'd love to have you join! I'll leave you to pick which side. Sign up at the link provided earlier in the thread.

Cheers!

H

Updated Pilots List

Entente

MFair - Augustin Le Pew, Sous Lieutenant, flight A - N67

Stache - Gaston Renard, Sous Lieutenant, flight B - N67

77_Scout - Julien Moreau, Sous Lieutenant, flight C - N67


Central Powers

Harry - Gunther Berhndorff, Hauptmann, flight A - KEK Avillers

Lederhosen - Heinz Seehase, Hauptmann, flight B - KEK Avillers

Nietszche and LowDrag to register....

H

Read more: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4291532#ixzz4IplSbRJr
Follow us: @SimHQ on Twitter | SimHQ on Facebook

.... and it seems that Lederhosen has already opened his account! Just a few days early

But never mind & no problem. The rest of us will fly our two missions for the week (Jan 21 and Jan 24) anytime starting from this Friday... that's two days from now if you're pacific time, and only one day away if you are in Europe (albeit a whole day and night away )

I will update everyone on the first week's happenings just ahead of the weekend following. Good luck Gentlemen! Feel free to post mission reports, videos etc. And for those of you just starting to master RiR, take it carefully to start with since RiR is also DiD

LowDrag, Nietzsche: I sent you a pm with the link to register

H

Really looking forward to this one Harry!

As a Sous Lieutenant we are not always the flight leader by default.
Are we supposed to to back to main menu to recycle the campaign mission until we are the leader?

Or are we just supposed to fly whatever mission comes up?

Can we choose to do only combat patrols? (not that I would).
Are they mission types being flown - being tracked?

First, do you have "Top Aces Only" selected in the workshop?

All, I added a new field to the report form: once claims are confirmed, on your next mission report following, please list the E/A types of the latest confirmed claims (make sure not to report them twice).

This won't affect scoring but I thought it would be fun to track each sides' losses as we go along.

Lederhosen - what E/A type did you bag on your 1st mission? Feel free to add it on your next report

Cheers all, looking forward to the weekend!

H

You should always be the leader with Top Aces selected. Possibly not if you have All Aces selected, so check that setting and lmk...

Awesome Just hoping I make it thru the first week!

Top Aces is selected.

Majority of time I am flight leader but not always.

Woohoo. I am keen to get started.

I have my paper map printed and am ready to navigate old-school, oh yeah! Verdun area looks to be easy to find our way around with lots of good landmarks.

I did a free-flight in the N10. Its a nice plane to fly but a bugger to shoot anything with; no gunsight and practically no bullets. Fun stuff!! It will be an interesting juxtaposition with the EIII, which has a great gun but is a dodgy flyer.

Exactly! A well-balanced scenario was what I was looking for

H

Stache, try bumping yourself to Lieutentant and lmk if that fixes it. However, N67 also gets N11s and I don't want people flying those just yet...

thx!

H

...alternatively, we could arrange to have Lt. Chardenoux shot for cowardice

Took a while to get used to flying this Ship. First mission was to defend a Balloon right next to the airdrome so navigating was easy. We didn't spot the 2 Frenchmen but the ground flak did and that realy helped, otherwise I woould of missed them all together.

Congrats, Lederhosen! Lovely screen grab. You certainly inflicted a beating on that poor chap, and right on your own doorstep, too! Did you happen to notice what Escadrille he was from?

H

... And Stache - the other thing you could try is creating a new pilot until you get one whose fellow squad members are no higher in rank than sous lieutenant. That way, you will always be a flight leader and you'll all have N10s.

I must have created 3 or 4 when testing and I never had a flight member higher than sous lieutenant with N67 - partly why I picked them for this challenge. Just shows how many little twists the OBD folk put into this sim!

H

Nice screen shot lederhosen. I hope someone can get that poor chap out of his machine before she burns completely up. Though from the looks of it, it will make no never mind to him.

Enlisted!

Hauptmann Erich Hauptmann...

Took Erich a long time in a Prussian cavalery regiment to have his rank match his surname, hehe.

Huh, I am looking forward for this...

Great screenie

If we get a mission where we are not flight leader, will it work to just back out and try again (a new mission will be generated)?

Yes, that does work, but it could take me 5-6 tries before I was not flight leader.

I will try creating a new pilot that does not have flight members - higher than sous lieutenant.

Thanks Stache, sorry this is proving troublesome. You do need to be leading every flight to be able to pick up your bonuses (and penalties!)...and yes you need to fly every type of mission that's presented. If you like though, on the day of the mission, you can change the time of day by using the advance to next flight option, before going to the briefing.

H

yes that is a good workaround... sorry for this minor inconvenience

Woot! Welcome LowDrag...erm Hauptmann Hauptmann!

OK so the Eindeckers are now superior in numbers (unless we get one more pilot joining)... however, I'm one of them, so that evens things back up a bit

Wait... Nietzsche - you were going to fly N10, right? I didn't get your sign-up yet....

.... I wonder if we'll get blessed with WOFF UE before the end of this challenge?? If not, then we should at least have it in time for Part Two... what fun to have all those old French 2-seaters buzzing around

H

So I tried a bunch of new pilots always had at least one lieutenant.

Trying different things, I finally changed from rookie to Veteran hit the jackpot on the first try.

Is a Veteran pilot okay?

Absolutely! I'll add that to the rules..thanks for figuring it out Stache!


N10 pilots take note - set your pilot to Veteran!!

Scoring.....

Not that you need to worry about this stuff 'cause I'll track and tally each week, but just so you know...

Successful Mission = 25pts

Meh Mission = 0pts

Terrible Mission = minus 25pts

Confirmed Victory = 10pts

As above, but over opposing team's squad = 20pts

Loss of flight member on mission = minus 10pts (for each member)

NB... when accompanying 2-seaters from another squadron, you are responsible for their safe return - please report any losses of accompanied craft on the form (be honest )

H

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!

... and remember, don't fly more than two missions each week, and please submit a report after each mission.

Thanks All!!

H

I predict a few people will be running a negative tally for much of the challenge (me for example )

Yeah, Scout, this is more than likely, for me aswell...

Good luck to everyone, let´s have a good time out there! (And survive longer than two weeks...)

Err.... I got wounded for 10 days, damn wingman was too slow.

Err... is that 2 missions in a real week? (not the sim week) if you get what I mean.

Correct Lederhosen. So this week we will all fly the missions of Jan 21 and Jan 24 (in-game dates) and it doesn't matter when during the week you fly them, so long as both are completed by Thursday. Then we start next week with the missions of Jan 27 and Jan 30.

If you've already flown the Jan 27 mission Lederhosen, it's not a problem. Just hold up now and wait for everyone else to catch up

H

Oh, I see you got wounded, so you have no choice but to hold up! Commiserations, Lederhosen.

Now you will have to miss some of the planned challenge flights. You'll need to work out which one to fly upon your return.

E.g.... Your pilot is out for 10 in-game days, was injured on in-game date of Jan 27, and will be back on in- game da the of Feb 4, so then he would only miss one challenge flight - the one for Jan 30. In effect then, he would miss the rest of challenge week 2 and be back in action for the challenge week 3 starting Friday 16th.

H

Depends on how you fly. If you stick to the mission briefs, since it is fairly quiet out there at this time of the campaign, you should rack up successfully completed mission points. If you chase around looking for trouble and abandoning your escort duties as an example, then yep, you'll run into points trouble. So for your teams sake, try to complete successful missions and only fight when you have to! Remember, RiR

H

Well the good news is, no penalty points for getting wounded...just lost opportunity

Get well soon!

H

Gentlemen, I produce before you: Hauptmann Hauke Hartschlag



He is already looking forward to lead Zee Kaizerrr to the apparent and well deserved Victory...

Gaston Renard - Esc 67 - 21 Jan 1916

Mission - Patrol behind friendly front lines.
Took off at 0823 with Adjutant Gauthier - Arrived over target area around 0850 about 9000 feet.
Circled around for about 10 minutes, then Gauthier took off.
After a bit, picked him up again heading for a couple dots further east.
By the time I was getting close, Gauthier had turned an made a bee line west.
I keep pursing the dots. First I thought they were ours, but turned out to be a pair of hun two seaters, looked like Aviatik's
Continuing to close the distance to the closest one, the farther one opened up from a long distance and got some lucky hits.
I felt a sharp pain in my thigh and turned away immediately heading home.
By the time I got their Gauthier was just landing.
Spent six days in the hospital - it is now 28 Jan 1916
Gaston will miss two RiR flights.

Since Nietzsche is playing a German, do you still need a Frog to help even things out?

@Lederhosen:

Sorry everyone for being a bit silent... it was a quite chaotic Week @ the Shop
I can still switch Sides to even Things up - there wasn't much going on my first Mission, anyway... burned fuel for almost an hour and enjoyed the Landscape...

Yes! Jump in, CatKnight!

H

Nope, you are good where you are Nietzsche. Welcome to KEK Avillers! With Lederhosen out, we need you!

H

Stache, sorry to hear about Gaston's brush with the Aviatiks. You really have to stay well below when closing in on 'em! Or leave 'em alone altogether

Two pilots in hospital already! Let's be careful out there!

H

Updated Pilots List

Entente

MFair - Augustin Le Pew, Sous Lieutenant, flight A - N67

Stache - Gaston Renard, Sous Lieutenant, flight B - N67

77_Scout - Julien Moreau, Sous Lieutenant, flight C - N67


Central Powers

Harry - Gunther Berhndorff, Hauptmann, flight A - KEK Avillers

Lederhosen - Heinz Seehase, Hauptmann, flight B - KEK Avillers

LowDrag - Erich Hauptmann, Hauptmann, flight C - KEK Avillers

Nietzsche - Hauke Hartschlag, Hauptmann, flight D - KEK Avillers

Did my first mission yesterday. Airfield cover with my wingman. Flying without any aids (w/o zoom and dots) was new to me. Lou's maps are great help and it feels much more like being there. Did a new setup on my HOTAS- only allowed inputs are on these now, so no cheating by accident, hehe.

The mission was eventless, after completing the mandatory time on the object my wingman signaled that it's time to leave the scene by simply leaving the formation. Never realized that your wingmates take control to end the mission in that way...

Both returned safely. Looking forward for the next one. After doing some training sorties against the Nieuport 10 I will try to avoid enemy contact as long as possible...

Nicely done LowDrag. Good that you are getting a feel for flying RiR so quickly!

H

Hauptmann Berhndorff flew his first mission with his new unit today, leading A flight, comprised of himself and his Rottenflieger, Feldwebel Augustus Gebert. Assigned to protect the observation balloon laying between the Foret de la Reine and the Bois De Tronville, the pair made their way south east, passing the airfields of Tichemon and Porcher, then Mars-la-Tour, before arriving at their destination. They circled for twenty minutes, scanning the skies around them. No enemy craft were sighted. Returned to Bechamp.

Protecting the Balloon




Blip Landing the Eindecker III at Bechamp

Lederhosen, I'm not certain, but I think that when your wingmen break off from a flight that you are leading, it can be because they've spotted an E/A that you've missed. Either that or they might be experiencing mechanical issues and have headed for the nearest airfield.

H

Gentlemen, i have the pleasure of introducing you to:




21 January

Our first mission was routine: Defend Vadelaincourt against possible attack. We couldn't have been nearer at hand if we tried.



And this was a good thing. This is one of my first tries at an RiR scenario, so I was perfectly happy to learn the lay of the land as Moreaux and his two escorts flew higher and higher. If anything, I was a little annoyed when we started climbing above a cloud bank over the forest and I could no longer track everything visually.

Apparently neither could the Germans. After 22 minutes or so my people, like Lederhosen's, decided it was time to go home. One minute they were there, the next nothing. I immediately spun about fearing they'd been jumped, but nope: I saw two specks over Verdun and followed them home.

Hey CatKnight, welcome! I noticed that you signed up as a "Rookie" - if you are leading flights then that's not a problem, but if you find yourself not leading at any time, you'll need to back out and restart the mission until you are the leader. Signing up as a veteran seems to fix the problem, so you may want to repeat the sign up process. Up to you. Your first flight will still count in the Challenge.

Cheers

H

Updated Pilots List

Entente

MFair - Augustin Le Pew, Sous Lieutenant, flight A - N67

Stache - Gaston Renard, Sous Lieutenant, flight B - N67

77_Scout - Julien Moreau, Sous Lieutenant, flight C - N67

CatKnight - Leopold Moreaux, Sous Lieutenant, flight D - N67


Central Powers

Harry - Gunther Berhndorff, Hauptmann, flight A - KEK Avillers

Lederhosen - Heinz Seehase, Hauptmann, flight B - KEK Avillers

LowDrag - Erich Hauptmann, Hauptmann, flight C - KEK Avillers

Nietzsche - Hauke Hartschlag, Hauptmann, flight D - KEK Avillers


Read more: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4293226#ixzz4JJXAW5oP
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I would like to join In, my rig seems to work now, but why to fill in how many missions, claims etc. I did reinstall Woff a couple of times so I do not have the facts from Woff1 on.

Harry:

I need a ruling on squad/flight losses.

As the French players know, Verdun airfield has a very steep incline on one side of the field - the side they're coming in on. This obliges a pilot to drop down at a sharper angle than you'd expect to land safely.

One of my flight botched it, either hit the hill or a tree, and vanished in a ball of smoke.

There is literally nothing I could have done about it. We didn't get into a fight. I didn't abandon him. In fact, I watched it happen.

Do I still take this as a loss?

Note: We'll need the ruling to cover situations like A/C failures as well. During one of my test flights from the German side I heard a loud bang behind me, whirled, and one of my friends' engine was on fire.

And this raises another issue I suppose ... with this scenario it will be tempting to end the mission before our ducklings attempt to land so they don't crash. This might not be in the spirit of the challenge. I'd be interested to know what others will be doing and will follow along.

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger Folks. On Augustin's first mission, a patrol behind enemy lines, everything went well until crossing back over the lines when some very light Archie peppered us. Just after that my #2 dropped out headed to a closer field. He must have been hit by Archie as off in the distance we saw him turn into a flaming comet. Such are the fortunes of war.

I love this sim!

Good questions. If you feel that you lost a squad mate through no fault of your own, then your commander will be understanding and it won't count against you. If you know there's a good chance that you lost someone by leaving the mission early yourself, or straying too far off course, etc., then you should report it.

H

That's great MFair! As above, I don't think this should count against you. So long as you've stayed with the rest of the flight (or the 2-seaters you are escorting)

Dutch, you are welcome to join. Just read through the rules and then sign up at the link provided earlier in the thread and fly your two missions for this week (Jan 21 and Jan 24). PM me if you have any questions. Glad your rig is working again!

H

Augustin le' Pew
Mission 1: Patrol enemy front lines west of Aisne River. No contact. Patrolled up and down for half and hour and headed home. Just before crossing over the lines, the Huns put up a pitiful display of Archie.


Debuterie must have caught some shrapnel in the engine as he signaled trouble and headed to Bracourt aerodrome. It was a pitiful sight a few minuets later when we saw his plane turn into a flaming wreck into the clouds. Fling time 64 min.

Mission 2: Patrol our airfield south of Verdun. Beautiful day and no contact. All back safe. Flying time 70 min. The searchlights over Verdun were a sight to see in the early dawn.

It's your rodeo Harry. I'm in it for the fun and fellowship. However you want to score is fine with me. Contact!

Mission 2:
January 24, 1916


Our second mission ranged a little further afield, but still close enough that navigation wasn't a serious issue: Northwest along the forest line, keep going until you hit the front, then somewhere past the Aisne River bank north into German territory for awhile: Reconnaisance around a few infantry divisions, and if the Hun sent a few aircraft to see what we were up to so be it.

They didn't. Or at least we saw none.

After a complete lap I noticed we were past our time to head home, so back along the forest line until we found Verdun. Three of us, including my ailier, completed decent landings, but Caporal Malvaissin misjudged the final leg where you dive steeply after clearing a hill. He didn't clear said hill: Puff of smoke, he must have flipped, and that was the end of that. He wasn't so badly hurt at that, but badly enough to be sent home for rest and a new squad. The Nieuport is state of the art and we can't be wasting them on bad piloting.

Crap. I am having computer problems ... computer crashing when I exit a mission and all record of my flight lost. I have been trying to fix it (fresh install etc) but no luck so far. I am going to be falling behind you all and might have to drop out if I can't get it sorted soon.

(p.s. I lost a wingman on landing due to the Verdun airfield "hill-of-death" so looks like this is going to be a recurring event for the French team.)

First mission flying the N11 same as my mate Claude Casale. 21-jan-1916
Direct after take off my engine did have a failure and I did make a crash landing, unhurt, plane is written off.

just pm'd you Dutch. You need to sign up again, this time as sous lieutenant, to get an N10..

H

That's unfortunate it sounds a bit like the Win 10 bug here.... http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4275363/crash_after_Crtl_Q_=_ending_ca#Post4275363

Hauptmann Berhndorff strolled into the officer's mess at Bechamp. He'd just returned from a protection assignment over nearby Porcher airfield. Twenty minutes of circling and no sign of any E/A. He knew this kind of thing could lull you into a false sense of security. All the more need to stay vigilant and awake up there!

The two fields of Tichemon and Porcher, south of the town of Conflans




H

A tip of the hat to you Gents who are flying "real" for the first time. This is a great time frame to teach your eye to pick up landmarks as later in the war you will have to spend more time looking for bad guys than at the ground.

Scout, hope you get your computer up again. If you are running windows 10 it can be a bit of a bugger.

Harry, you are soooo correct. Its easy to get lulled to sleep. Just before tracer fire whizzing by your head wakes you up! I heard a WWII vet say missions were hours of shear boredom interrupted by moments of shear terror!

Ok first right adjusted mission succed, wingman killed. BTW how to give orders to attack cntr tilde and A does not work?

Thanks for the link ... I have been working on this issue for days with no success so this is helpful. Will give this a try, fingers crossed!

Augustin le Pew
Jan. 27
Balloon defense. A Flight, 3 machines, defend balloon southwest of S. Mihiel. Beautiful day and no enemy in site. All landed safe. "No enemy aircraft shot down". Flying time 70 min.



Jan. 30th
Attack enemy airfield at Jametz. A Flight composed of two machines. I argued that two machines with less than 400 rounds total could not do any damage and we would need at least 5 machines to do the job. My argument fell on deaf ears so off we went. Climb up to altitude, head north and hug the west side of the river until we came to the woods. Turned east over the river and then north and there she was just over a patch of wood. We left one building smoking which to me was a good job. Got a few holes in my kite for the trouble.



Command did not think so and said the field was not damaged. Flying time 50 min. All back safe.

If this is not accurate please advise.

Looking good, Stache, thanks!

This will be especially helpful if (when?) one's pilot gets hospitalized - check your return date and see how many challenge missions you will have to miss, and how many weeks you will have to wait before rejoining... hopefully not too many!!

H

...I thought tilde on its own did work to target whatever is nearest... I will check later tonight...

H

Problem with the AI Landing is not the hill... it is the tree on the hill.

AI is a bit front of me to the left, best viewed at full screen, max res.

I do not know if it is by default, but I use "TAB" for marking the target and hit the key "A" for attack.

well found, Stache.

... maybe Entente players should use workshop settings to disable trees on the airfield!!

H

i think you are right Jara, thanks! I will test it later to confirm.

H

HarryH: Bear with me, I think I might have my computer "crash-on-mission-exit" problem beat. I have had several good test flights now with no problems, so will try to rejoin the RIR challenge. I will hopefully catch up by the end of the weekend. If you see mission reports coming in you will know I have succeeded.

Glad you may have sorted it out Scout! Have my fingers crossed.

Great to hear but what was the root cause of the problem.
In my case I still do not know, my old PSU is still running great on my sons PC and putting in an extra fan to the P67 chipset, mmmh, not sure that this was the root cause.
Well next year I'm going to the Kaby Lake i5-7xxxK, that seems to have a better single core handling then the Sky lake and the high end AMD Vcard, hope my rig will hold on.

ALL PILOTS....

Are two missions per week too few for your appetites? I see MFair already flew four, and Lederhosen five. I originally intended for us all to stay roughly in sync by only flying two missions per week, but perhaps there's an appetite to fly more? If everyone can commit, we could increase that to three... that would also have the benefit of getting injured pilots back into the air more quickly...

Please note that we will only move to 3 flights per week if everyone can commit to it, otherwise we should stay at 2 (MFair & Lederhosen, you would need to hold up for a bit to let others catch up).

I'll be tallying week 1 scores and putting out an update later today!

Cheers

H

WEEK ONE SCORING

Entente------------v---------- Central Powers

50pts ---------------------------- 45pts


A relatively quiet first week, with victories and losses even on both sides. Central Powers have yet to demonstrate their superior fire power, but I'm expecting it to show over time

Per Stache's calendar, we're supposed to be flying missions 3 & 4 this coming week (Jan 27th & Jan 30th). Some folks have run ahead of this and some need to catch up due to machine issues. Let's try to get on the same page for next week, and please let me know if you'd be able to fly three missions instead of two going forward!

H

Harry,
Evidently I got the start date wrong and jumped the gun. I flew 2 missions weekend before last and 2 this past weekend. I will sit out this weekend so as to get on the same page. My apologies Sir.

Thanks again for the Challenge. It is fun.
Mark

No worries, Mark! I'm learning that these challenges need tight organization and clear instructions - I'm getting a B- in both

I assume you'd be happy to fly three missions per week?

H

I am half retired and do not work the other half! I can fly three but realize not everyone has the free time I do. Will do whatever comes down the pike. Two real time missions seems a good number everything considered.

Yeah I got carried away. I can fly 2 week. I have stoped flying and waiting for mission week 5,6.

led

Harry: Since I work full time I'd prefer to stay at 2/week.


January 27

Command continues to give us reasonably close missions, which I enjoy while learning the RinR ropes as I'm not (supposed to be) up too long to get bored, and navigation is still pretty straight forward.

Take this friendly patrol in the rear: West to the forest, follow the forestline south then west to the airfield. The official plan called for a sort of figure 8 through the forest. I figured a circle would accomplish much the same thing.



Getting there gave me a nice chance to get a picture of the two AF we defended on our first mission.



No autopilot, no time compression and only using the blip for throttle means that flight formations are more like polite suggestions than reality.



Overall the mission goes well. I quickly realize that my proposed circle is a bit too wide, so I narrow it to stay near the AF. No way to be certain of how high we went, but it was over some rather unfriendly looking clouds. No Germans, so we turn for home.

Kinda.

Eastward and a somewhat steep dive, but I guess I was more tired than I figured as I'm kinda nodding off at the stick. Once I must of dozed for a few seconds, because suddenly my poor plane was trying for a 90 degree bank.

I broke out of the forest at low altitude. Nothing. That's when I looked down at my compass and noticed that, instead of flying east or northeast, I somehow got turned around and angled west. Crap.

I fixed my flight path and started looking around for anything like Verdun - or the Forest Argonne for that matter. No likely suspects appeared, and after a very short distance I'd somehow once more veered west.

This was ridiculous. Fortunately my crew was still with me, but they had to wonder what was wrong with me. By now I was too low to make out landmarks so began climbing at the steepest angle I dared looking preferably for an airfield, though I'd settle for a landmark.


I soon found the forest north of Verdun and correctly identified it using Lou's maps, but took the wrong lesson from it and soon I was flying through no man's land with the French trenches below me. I tried turning sharply south to intercept the Argonne, but actually came out several kilometers beyond said forest.

Flying south, I correctly identified the Argonne off my left side but once more took the wrong lesson. I found the two bridges that cross over the Aisne,and figured to use one or both roads to make it through to Verdun. Perhaps, but I completely missed the airfield and soon I was flying north of the city again.

Enough. I landed in a field and asked for directions. Total flight time - about 10 minutes to get there, 25 on patrol, and 35 trying to figure out where home was.





Scoring Notes: No feedback from CO, but landed at a farm behind friendly lines. A/C damaged one day. No injuries to squad.

OK guys, then we will stick with two per week.

Lederhosen - I'm glad you got carried away, shows you're into this RiR thing

MFair - I want your job!

H

CatKnight - great report! You really capture the learning curve challenge of RiR. Good job of getting her down safely on the right side of the lines

H

Hey everyone
I am (like most times lately) in a bit of a hurry - so here's the short Form:

In Mission 2 I was upholding our great Tradition of loosing our Wingmen
We encountered 2 N10s. My Mates took on one while I engaged the other. After a short Fight he flew away. I lost Contact to my Mates, so I landed, but kept the Motor running (blipping) while watching the Sky. Then I saw two N10s hunting a lone E3, so I took off again, climbed and got right behind a Nupe, pulled the Trigger - Nothing -... pushed the "Unjam"-Button - Nothing eihter. I counted that as a major Gun-Failure and landed.
Looked like a rare Problem (did a Test-Flight in QC after that and everything worked again. At First I thought, that something inside my Joystick could have been broken...)

3rd Mission:
Sight Seeing.

Have a great Weekend everyone

Thanks for the report Nietzsche!

Enjoy your weekend as well.

H

CatKnight, great report on the perils of flying real. Loved it! Me, never been lost. Been powerful turned around for a while but never lost!

Harry, I would be glad to give a you a position but have been thinking of laying myself off!

I've have another computer crash so my problem is not totally fixed, but now a completed mission so there is still hope.

HarryH: How do we decide our answer the final "mission outcome" section of your online report form? Is the assessment of "excellent" or "unacceptable" etc one we are to decide for ourselves or is there a place were the game tells us this?

Ok 2e febr, we have to attack an enemy railway yard, thats is situated on frienly territory?? What is wrong here, I know orders are orders, but How to attack an friendly object?

77_Scout, look at the the last line of the debrief and report the wording in the last scentence. In your mission above, it's "Good Show!"...which is plus points for your team

H

Dutch, is that the railyard on the northern edge of le Foret d'Hesse, just to the west of Charny? I think I've had that before...

BTW... we're supposed to stop after mission 4 this week (Jan 30th). You've reported 5 missions already

Also, you reported downing three balloons in one mission. Very impressive, but probably not what was required in the mission briefing! Your Commanding Officer will send you a PM later today to clarify a few things...

H

Updated Rules

Added clarification regarding balloons (see above).

H

Rules Post: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4291084/Re:_"RiR_Challenge_-_#Post4291084

OK, thanks, that helps. In my next mission I got no comment after the "x machines landed safely" sentence so on you report form I just pasted in the whole paragraph for you to assess as you see fit. Hope that works, and if there is something you prefer just let me know.

Having fun!!

Awesome, thanks!

H

Thanks Stache

H

January 30 - Mission 4

A very enjoyable flight, though still not a German to be seen. Pascale, my ailier, and I were told to head east to the lines, keep an eye on things, and of course shoot down any Huns that chose to cross our path.

Navigation shouldn't have been simpler: East to the balloon, follow the road to the front, northwest to the forest, keep going northwest until we intercepted the northern road somewhere near the Meuse River, then south until we intercepted the first road again.



Problem 1: No balloon. Either I climbed higher than I thought, or came out of Verdun in the wrong place, or what not, but no balloon to speak of. Fortunately I did see the two groves near the infantry position we were to pass along the way to the front and could bear in from there.

My ailier seemed to have trouble keeping up, so I blipped a few times and finally completed a tight circle so he could rejoin formation. By the time he caught up we'd reached the infantry position and bore east.

The roads weren't that hard to follow, though I found myself flying in a shallow bank to see them off the cowl of my engine. I also tended to fly nose just a little below the horizon, so I occasionally had to climb back up to where I felt safe - or where I felt an encounter would be a little more likely. Much as I like the fact no one's trying to kill me, I'd like to see a Hun once in awhile.

We reached the front and witnessed an awesome artillery barrage on I believe the infantry position just north of where I was patrolling. After a quick look around we bore northwest. I found my forest and off we went.

I did abandon the idea of continuing all the way to the Meuse - I think sometimes the patrol legs the flight planner sets up are a little too long, and I wanted to get back to the front. South at the forest, intercept the roads near the Meuse, back to the front. And again.

Third time around, and I spend the last few minutes of patrol flying north to see how the artillery battle is going and whether any Aviatiks or Rolands are helping out. Nope. I even wandered east a little bit before deciding enough was enough.

I wanted to try something a little different, so rather than stay on course I flew north along the Meuse until I ran into the rail running roughly from my airfield past Etain. The most dangerous part of this maneuver was that, determined not to follow the wrong road or get lost, I dove down to about 100-200 meters altitude and followed the tracks at near tree-height level.

Correction: The most dangerous part was when I reached the junction in eastern Verdun and followed the south fork. Realizing my error I performed a turn not far from a Hammerhead to spin around in front of my startled wingman. No harm done.

We were just reaching home when I spotted smoke in the distance. I don't know why, as I'm more or less indifferent about them in real life, but in WOFF they give me a simple, quiet joy. I always have to break off and say hello to my favorite ground vehicle.



This time finding the airfield and its cursed hill wasn't a problem. CO didn't have much to say but hey, we did our job.

Catknight, another great report. I really enjoy you sharing the experience of building your navigation skills.

The E/A are about, for sure! But, with RiR, they may not see you as often, and it certainly takes time to develop one's ability to see them! As an example, I was flying a test mission today for N67 (actually I was looking at the allied rail depot that Dutch was sent to attack!!). I was flying along, scanning the skies, when up and to my left I just caught a glimpse of two white specs and decided to investigate. As I got closer I began to see the outlines of the black crosses - a pair of Aviatiks! Then I heard the whistle of bombs falling and knew I had to give chase....

H

oh, I recognize that train picture from the WOFF Facebook page - nice job!

H

Current Situation...

We're a little out of sync, so let's try to get onto the same schedule. This is week 2 and we shoud be flying the Jan 27 / Jan 30 missions. This coming Friday is the start of week 3 and we will fly the Feb 2 and Feb 5 missions. Some of you need to catch up and some of you need to hold up for a bit.... Here's what I have from your reports thus far....




Dutch is nailing it with the successful missions but I'm being stingy with his balloon busting escapades

Come on Fokker pilots! We need to raise our game!

Cheers all!

H

Ooops, sorry Dutch, I have you as Belgian. Clearly "Pays Bas" is the Netherlands (and you are Dutch, of course). I'll change that unless you tell me otherwise.

H

Perhaps a separate thread with announcing the week and the scores thus far is needed. As you can see, this one one has 17 pages already. A thread that no one but you should be able to use.

Or update page 1 with a summary of the scores and a notation of which week and missions we're on.

Agreed. Let me think about how best to do this.

H

Well, my Sight-Seeing-Tour continues... but I was able to make some marvelous Landscape-Pics.
Guess, I'll swap the Fire- and Screenshot-Button LOL
...will post them tomorrow.

Gotta admit it's an entirely different game when you turn off all the aids. I fought a few 1:1 QCs trying to train my eyes to see them coming a little better. In one fight I must have done something to the enemy's stabilizer, because he kept climbing/stalling/diving/climbing in a quick circle around me until he finally lost it. I'd never seen that before.

('Course I died also, going into an irreversible spin while trying to follow his nonsense, but...)

Yeah, it is a completely different experience flying without all aids, but much more rewarding. Especially flying with a seperate map leads to more immersion.

Actually I am at a halt with this campaign, because I had to return my new monitor for rectification of some gliches in the visual-hope to be able to catch up soon... Glad it is only 2 missions a week, so I do have a chance.

Bruup Bruuup. Sound of my Nieuport on the field waiting for the next mission while I am blipping the engine.

Hehe, well week 3 is almost upon us, so not long to wait MFair

I'll add an updated stat chart before EOD (added into post #1).

Tomorrow is the start of Week 4 - missions on Feb 2 and Feb 5.

I'm delighted that people are enjoying (and getting used to) the RiR experience and thanks everyone for making the effort to get on the same schedule. Of course, we'd all like to see a little more action... just make sure to be ready for it when it comes (perhaps this week!), and keep scanning the skies in the interim.

Lastly, I've been playing with JJJ's mission editor. It's very cool! I'm trying to construct a couple of "Lone Wolf" missions that we could use in the challenge... anyone up for beta testing them? It would be good practice for the real thing

H

Nice to hear that, HarryH. Check your PM box for the latest version of editor.
Jara

I have it Just added a post to the ME thread... I'd love to be able to add flights as well as delete them. Deleting is working!

Not much to report, here. The Enemy seems to neglect the Area a bit for the Moment. Since the Aviatiks are busy taking Pictures of the Trenches, I borrowed one of their Cameras and took some Pictures myself...

Great photos; it's beautiful but cold up there on a January morning!

I think the German team might have a bit of a disadvantage ... there are no French 2-seaters in-game so perhaps you guys will have as much action and less ability to get kills?

Well, there's the Morane-Perrier Veuve Clicquot, the Noob 12 and some Time later the Sopwith St-st-stutter. They just play hide-n-seek currently...

During testing of the EIII in this scenario I was seeing plenty of N10s. But WOFF, I imagine just as it was in RL, is unpredictable in terms of flight activity. Also, without dots and zoom, I think it's that much easier to miss E/A that otherwise you would have seen and chased. For me that's a big part of the interest in flying RiR - learning to look harder a smarter.

Maybe once WOFF UE has shipped we should replay this challenge, and stuff ourselves full of Caulderon G4s

H

Honestly I'm not sure not having 2-seaters available to fight is a disadvantage for the Germans. With the exception of the Aviatik C.I those things are brutal.

5-2-1916 last weekend mission , we have to break up the mission for a safe way back home, both plane damaged, we both got traped by 2+2 flight of EIII. My flight mate went after the fight direct to the home front and I followed him after He disapeared from my eye view. Was hoping he did make a turn to complete the mission, but he has right if we did that we both would be dead.
No claims and no support from Aflight.

result mission is not completed!

Guys beaware by the end of February we get an ace in this escadrille.

Just to be sure... the usual Phrases in the Mission-Summary count as Neutral, right?
Positive Missions explicitly need something like "Well done!" "Excellent!" or "...you successfully..."

That's how I've been playing it. I'm usually successful in my missions, my CO just doesn't see the value in thanking me for what I'm being paid (hah!) to do. No wonder French morale is so low through most of the war!

Correct!!

Dutch, you're seeing a lot of action compared to the rest of us!! Good decision to run for home

H

February 2: Mission 5

Unfortunately only two pics because I clicked the wrong button on my graphics program and shut it down when I was trying to save everything off. Too bad, I had some beauts, but let's see how well I tell it.

It was a beautiful day, sun already somewhat high in the sky and no clouds below 10,000 feet / 3 kilometers or so. My ailier went and got himself hurt without my help the day before, so I went up with Sergent Sennegaud. Despite his low rank, Sennegaud had a solid reputation as a pilot: 'Aggressive, determined, good morale.'

Our CO must have decided he had enough of playing defense, because today we were to fly to Sivry-sur-Meuse and see if the Germans wanted to come out and play.



Navigating wasn't too bad. Once more I had trouble finding the Hun sausages, and even the railway threw me once or twice, but forests are hard to miss. After letting the gunners at the balloon SW of Sivry-sur-Meuse take a few potshots at us we arrived at the airfield. Two airplanes sat on the ground as if they were getting ready to go up, but no other activity. We began circling with distant air raid sirens in our ears.

One lap, one and a half. Twice I broke off thinking I saw distant company, but it was only distant balloons and they weren't going to cause any trouble. I was just promising myself that if nothing happened I'd strafe their bloody field on the way home for the fun of it, when Sennegaud vanished.

It was a subtle thing, the high pitched whirring sound that joined our engines, and it was some time before I noticed. When I realized my wingman was gone, I began a slow, lazy circle to let him catch up. Then the whirring got much louder and penetrated my consciousness. Hun! I tightened my circle.

Sure enough, a single Fokker eindecker hove into view behind me. He must have been trying to sneak up in my blindspot beneath my fuselage. Keeping pace, but so far unable to do any harm, was my sergent.

The three of us spun around each other above the airfield. Twice Sennegaud and I nearly collided, but he was the better pilot and arced out of my way like I wasn't there. The Eindecker pilot seemed quite willing to fight at 1:2 odds and had a particular interest in knocking me down. Fortunately tight turning fights is one of the few things the Nieuport 10 is good at.

After at least five minutes the Eindecker pilot decided he'd had enough of chasing us around and turned for home. I think Sennegaud agreed and simply left, for I wouldn't see him again. As for me, I chased him. Twice he tried to pass under me, but each time I found him again. Mindful of the Nieuport's pathetic ammo count I fired carefully into his propeller at point blank range.

After the third volley I heard a horrible tearing sound as the Eindecker's back broke. He plummeted straight into the earth, by some coincidence no more than 100 yards/meters from Sivry-sur-Meuse. We must have kept getting turned around as he tried to get away.

After climbing away from the airfield's return fire, I did notice a biplane at my altitude, to my right, at very close range and apparently indifferent to my presence. I figured it was Sennegaud and rushed over to form up. Then I noticed the aircraft had silver wings. And black crosses. Aviatik!

The Aviatik was coming in to land, and though his pilot continued to deny my existence, his observer soon figured it out. I got off a short volley before I heard the chunk-chunk of return fire on wood frame and broke off. Recovered, found him again, and thought I'd take a second pass.

My second pass consisted of maybe one bullet before my gun ran out. I spun away from the confrontation. His observer fired a few shots as parting gifts - again, nothing important hit - and I broke for home as the Aviatik pilot banked in the other direction to land.

Again with the indifferent navigation, but between compass, front line and forest I found my way easily enough and landed. Sennegaud was there waiting for me.

After filling out my after action report, which Sennegaud was happy to sign off on even though he hadn't seen much of what transpired, the CO gave us a "Well done."




I'll take it.

Catknight, another gem of a report! Congrats on your victory! Good to see someone getting into a dustup and living to tell the tale. I was a little concerned when you went after the Aviatik as well!

H

suppose it had to happen. I didn't like this bird anyway. The downwards view is just terrible. And the flight characteristics are poor too.

Still, I have found this sort of RIR flying the better way to go in the future...sure would cut down those claims forms.

danke

Mission #5
Augustine and his wingman were assigned a railyard attack at Jametz Junction. Partly cloudy. Navigation was easy. Take off and climb out. Go northeast until you hit the river and follow it to the wood. Go through the slot and hit the tracks to the junction. Actually I overflew and noticed we had passed it. Had a good attack and return only to watch my wingman hit a tree and crash into a building on landing! We left one big warehouse burning but the CO said, "the railyard was not seriously damaged."



CatKnight, Good story and congrats on the victory.

Lederhosen,sorry to hear about your pilot. What happened?

2 vs 2 low alt turn fight that we could not win. esc.38

I have now switched over to full real for my centenary campaign and had a damn good scrap with a Roland. This Sim is so much better using trackIR only. The combats are just so much differant (harder). I know some cant afford this type of gear but if you can then do so.

Led

Lederhosen, I am both saddened by your departure, yet happy that this challenge may have gotten you into flying RiR full time in future Thank you for giving it a shot!

Lowdrag, Nietzsche, that leaves us three and we are trailing badly! Lowdrag, I only have one flight logged for you. I think you were having machine issues as I recall. Hope you are able to catch up some this week!

Cheers,

H

CatKnight: Great report. These posts are fun to read.

Lederhosen: Too bad about Heinz. I guess someone has to be the first to die ... I am just surprised because usually its me!

MFair: Your eyepoint in the video is rock solid. Do you have the X, Y, and Z axis turned off on your TrackIR or are just a very stiff fellow ? I noticed because I flop all over the place (mostly side-to-side) in the cockpit, which is great for visibility but lousy for aiming the gun!.

Feb 5th 1916

Hauptmann Behrndorff went on a long patrol of the enemy lines, circling la Foret de Puvenelle which lies south of the lines, to the west of Marbache. Aside from a few futile attempts by the archie units on the ground, Behrndorff and his rottenflieger had no contact with the enemy. On the way home, Behrndorff had a momentary rush of adrenalin as he spotted a craft below and to his right. Moving in to investigate he saw that is was one of their own. An Aviatik going about its business.

Nice vid Harry, thought you had an easy one there for a moment.

Scout, I had to laugh out loud. I would not know how to change my xyz axis or anything else in my TrackIR. It is stock. As for being a stiff fellow, I have 3 ruptured disks and 5 bulging disks and all the vertebrae in my neck are fused together. So, yes, you could say I am a little stiff!

Well that explains it! Several good reasons there to keep thinks planted and stable, yep!!! Your flying looks great so keep up the good work

Lederhosen: Oh! I'm so sorry. Though I guess I'm not surprised - the Eindecker in a turn fight is a joke.

MFair, Harry: Nice videos! MFair, I especially liked your rail attack. Usually on those missions their gunners tear me apart.

Know what you mean Catknight, you usually get a free run until they "wake up". I nearly croaked when I came in on the first run and saw all the tracers coming my way. Not uncommon to get wounded or fuel tank hit and have to land behind the lines on those missions.

Sorry have not put up much for reports. Real life stuff and getting ready for Dayton has been consuming.
BTW I have had some Lt.s transfer in, so I am back to recycling the missions so I am the leader.


Mission Reports
Gaston Renard
2 Feb 1916
Patrol behind friendly lines.
Just to the west over Vadelaincourt.
Wingman Durand, had engine issues shortly after take off, tried to return home, but set her down hard a bit short. While the craft was destroyed, Durand was only shook up a bit. After making sure he was okay, I continued the patrol. Near the end I caught site of a couple of specks, but they were way up above me. During the climb I heard bombs falling, by they time I was getting somewhat close they had finished and turned for home. Being alone, I too figured it was better to call it quits.




5 Feb 1916
Patrol friendly fron lines.
To the north, Sector VF734.
Early patrol was uneventfull. Clouds were scattered but heavy. After finishing the patrol while returning to base, caught site of some explosions outside of artillery range. Figured someone was bombing, took my flight to investigate. Again caught sight of some specs, but then lost them in the clouds. By the time I located them, they were far to the West, so we returned to base. Caporal Drouith hit that darn tree on landing. Someone should chop it down.

February 5, 1916 - Mission 6


I didn't stop to think about it until now, but our escadrille is actually at about half strength. Of the 9 pilots, 5 are active, 1 is on leave, and 3 are in the hospital due to incidents fortunately not involving me.

So, no A flight for the second straight flight...or is it third? Honestly I've had too many issues to care much about them. Today's issue, for example, involves me taking up Sous Lieutenant Dubrulle and Sergent Sennegaud on a front line patrol.



Technically my mission only encompassed that infantry unit in the middle, but with no other landmarks the odds of finding them were virtually nil, so I extended our range to something I thought more fitting.

Nothing happened until we came home. Three circuits to the Aisne and back and no activity. At one point I thought I lost both wingmen and spun around to face any hostiles, only to have them both soar past me. I must have just not seen them.

So we came home over the Foret d'Hesse to Verdun's north. Significant blipping on my part brought us to something closely resembling formation.



We were almost dead on to the field, and as I turned for what I expected to be a short two leg jaunt on the field I took a picture of the hill I hereby dub Widowmaker. (Grey contour line added for emphasis)



Honestly maybe that's too harsh. The drop off from the hill to ground level is unexpected, but not hard to plan for. Anyone properly prepared can make that descent.

Not me for example.

Immediately after that picture, while facing the top of the hill head on, the engine died. Fortunately I still had momentum and just enough altitude to restart the engine and begin my final leg, but the RPM was wrong. I couldn't climb. In fact, I couldn't do anything but turn the engine off again, raise my nose, and then jam my tail skid into the ground as hard as I could.



Nice try, Widowmaker.

Fortunately, our CO chose a generous definition of 'airfield' in our dispatch to command.

Nice reports Gents. Good job on the landing CatKnight!

CatKnight, hope you don't mind me using your template for my mission

Augustine Le Pew
Mission 6
Proposed Mission Route in Red
Actual Mission Route in Blue

I led a three plane flight to patrol the lines North northwest of Commercy. My two mates were obviously having problems keeping up and I had to constantly blip and do a fly around for them to keep up. In all the flipping around I went too far south and overshot our patrol area. Realizing my error I turned northeast and saw Archie bursting ahead and above us. Great me thinks! My first contact. Started climbing and soon saw the two Aviatik heading for home. My two mates were lagging further and further behind but I kept going. Coming up below and behind one of them I opened fire. As soon as I did my chosen victim's wingman opened up on me and did he ever let me have a good one. I dove out and my engine sputtered and stopped. I switched everything off and my two mates passed me headed toward the Huns. Lucky we were at altitude and and I came down on a road east of Commercy.

Note: Knowing bad things happen to your flight when you exit mission over the lines I hit 8x compression until one of my flight came back over the lines.

Back at base my wingman had been reported missing. The other member of my flight had brought down 1 of the Aviatik's. I felt the mission was a total disaster but the CO said "Good Job!"

Mission No 2 of Hptm Erich Hauptmann.

Flight of 3, EIII/EII mixed, Patrol of Enemy frontline, area to the south, forest de la Reine and forest de Puvenelle, T/O at 0830.
Flight time 1:15, no sightings of E/A, shortly intercepted by Archy, no losses.

HarryH: The dog ate my homework...

Well actually, my 'computer crashes on mission exit' problem is back with a vengeance, so I have been unable to get my 5th mission completed (or more correctly I have flown it three times but all results get lost in a black-screen-of-death).

I will either have to wipe my computer and reinstall the works over a fresh Windows, or get WOFF running again on my old computer.

Either way, I hope to get caught up in a few days.

Computers eh? So frustrating! Good luck getting it sorted!

H

LowDrag, good to see you back in action!

H

...so we're coming up on week 4 starting tomorrow - missions on Feb 8th and Feb 11th. Some folks still catching up due to machine issues but most of us in sync now... nice work! The Central Powers are down a man (and were one short to begin with!) so they have it all to do. I'll put the latest chart into post one later tonight!

H

Yep, my N10 is ready.

I am alive once more, running on my old computer. Mission 6 just completed.

Marcel and I finally got approval to cross the lines into German territory. The C.O. sent us off to shoot up the enemy airfield at Spincourt. I signalled Marcel to initiate the attack and I would follow him in (gave the 'split' command 'S' once over the target). I made two passes of the field and sprayed bullets into the line of hangers, probably not doing much damage. Marcel was more ambitious and made multiple passes, which I thought foolish. I waved to him to head home (shift-w for next waypoint) but lost sight of him and headed home myself. In our debrief the C.O. seemed to be sceptical that we had even attacked the field, let alone done any damage. I don't think he likes me.

(I am curious how you guys are commanding attacks ... are you turning on the TAC to select a target and then hitting 'A' to tell the AI to attack, or are you just attacking and hoping the AI will join in automatically, or do you use the split command like I did to have the AI become their own mission boss once at the target?)

Glad your back in the skies Scout. I don't command attacks. Just let it play out. On ground attacks I do use "return to base" when I think we have done enough.

Ahh, so you just attack and your wingmen will also attack without any instruction? I will give that a try MFair. Hoping it works as that is much better than ruining immersion by having to turn on the TAC (even momentarily).

8 febr, Ballon mission and I got killed. Think it was the AA that set my plane on fire. According the details the ballon has been destroyed by me.

Sorry guys I did not made it towards the end.


I will start this sunday an EIII campaign 11-2-1916, only to fly with you all, but I guess it does not make any sense in a registration on the Googleboard.

They will attack on their own. It would be nice to tell them "what" to attack with TAC but I do not fool with it. it might have to do with flight experience but in another campaign I could not find the rail junction we were to attack but knew I was close. All of a sudden my flight of 4 peeled off. I wondered where they were going until they dove on the rail yard!

well done to all you guys and great reads! I've been flying similar missions off the record, and (unfortunately!) Dutch reminded me that I haven't heard of anyone, you or flightmates, going down with those early spontaneous burning engines - it happened to one of my guys on the very first flight.

scout, every time I have a computer issue, I damn to eternal hell every instructor I ever had who said "a computer only does exactly what you tell it to!"

Gaston Renard
8 Feb 1916
Another short reconnaissance patrol just to the north west over the lines near the Aisne River. Weather was heavy broken clouds again. Was another uneventful patrol till near the end. Sighted some aircraft off in the distance, in the direction of home. Looked like they were heading our way but could not quite make them out. Getting closer I saw there were two seater Germans. I made the decision not to engage and we fly past each other at a very close distance. My young wingman thought otherwise and he gave chance. By the time I noticed they were well away. I turned and gave chase. Before I got close, Audrain had turned away. Guess he got stung a bit and made for home. I swung in behind him to make sure he made it home okay. Turns out he never even fired his guns.


11 Feb 1916
Longest patrol to date. Patrol Enemy Front lines to the North West past Varenned-en Argonne. Weather was horrid. Heavy snow was coming down the whole flight. Visibility was only a few miles at best. Snow had started building up on the ground and any landmarks I could see now no longer looked the same. We took off for the designated area, but never actually reached it. The Commandant understood our problems and was just happy we made it home okay.

Okay, Hauke Hartschlag's Mission 5 was the usual Sight-Seeing-Tour, but Mission 6 is something to talk about:

The Objective was to escort two Aviatiks on their Survey-Mission over enemy Territory close to the Lines...
well, we circled for half an hour... no Aviatiks in Sight. That was a bit embarrasing... I wasn't even able to find our own Planes within a small Area @ perfect Weather-Condition
So, we headed to the Area, the Aviatiks had to observe - I was hoping to finally catch up with them, there.
After another 1/2 hour we went home, again. Then I suddenly saw a black Puff of Smoke over our own Airfield, quite low. I dove down in a steep U-Turn, identified a lone Nupe 10... and blasted it into a thousand Pieces @ a Firing Distance of less than 10 Meters
Big Fireball, Wings came off, I was so Trigger-Happy, that I totally forgot to make Pictures of that
So, this was my first "Excellent!" Mission.
Now for the Problems:
The 2 Aviatiks were both shot down somewhere, some time in between (maybe very early, so that might have been the Reason we didn't find them) and the Claim was not confirmed afterwards

...but at least I've taken some more gorgeous Sunrise-Pics ;-)

Great reads, everyone!

Yeah, your AI wingmen will happily attack without your command. In one of my practice QCs I tried to command my wingmen to attack airplane x and I just ended up confusing myself.

Great reads indeed! I can't remember who but someone said to use the tab key to target and that does kind of work, but I haven't been able to figure out the logic for what it chooses. Perhaps it the closest legitimate enemy target? Too often I was sending my wingman to attack troop formations on the ground when actually I wanted him to attack a balloon, as an example....

H

Oh no! Sorry to lose you Dutch! I hope you'll jump back in flying an EIV in round 2!

H

Great report Nietzsche, sorry you didn't get a confirmed victory though. Sadly it's also penalty points for the Aviatik losses. Salt in the wound, I know!

H

February 8, 1916: Mission 7


Today, for the first time in awhile, we have two flights. The Lieutenant took A flight, while I led a flight of four in an attack on Sivry-sur-Meuse.

Though I haven't set the workshop to do so, I'm glad WOFF is sticking to close missions: I'm getting to know the terrain pretty well. I prepped a map just in case, but I knew right where Sivry-sur-Meuse was.



I all-but dead reckoned to the ballon SW of the airfield (off map), then rolled in from there.

My teammates had trouble keeping up, even with a few 360 degree turns and blipping, but at least one succeeded at the last minute. I thought they all did, but the AAR would show that only two of us even fired on the airfield.

I managed to get off two passes before emptying my guns. My plane took alot of hits, fortunately nothing vital. While flying away from the second pass I saw something much more important to French intel than just damaging an airfield. New planes!






I ran back home with the information and again all-but dead reckoned right to the airfield. The landing was a bit rough - came in too fast to make sure I cleared the Widowmaker, but I managed to land and skid to a stop.

The same could not be said for S.Lt. Auguste Perrolin, who met his match. I got to watch it all.



I asked the CO about cutting the damn tree down, but he said he'd have to fill out a form and send it to the French City Beautification Service and I shouldn't hold my breath. With some solid evidence, I've appealed to a local forester named Polovski.

----------

I didn't catch what the CO said, but I doubt it was complimentary. The other man who shot at the airfield didn't do any damage, and I greatly doubt I did, so this is probably a mission fail. My pilot's okay, though Widowmaker struck again.

Nice report CatKnight. Those German aircraft look a bit advanced for 1916, eh? Has me a bit worried.

My Mission 7, Feb 8 result: "Gentlemen, our mission for today was to patrol the designated airfield behind enemy frontlines. B Flight progress was as follows: A total of 2 pilots took off and started out for the designated area. 2 machines landed safely! No enemy aircraft were shot down.;"

I need some help here. I am reaching the patrol area for sure (this mission I followed A-flight through the whole mission so no doubt) but the CO debrief rarely says that we did reach it. Once airborne and above 500 feet I am pressing shift-w (next waypoint)three times, which I determined in test flights should move the next waypoint position to the target area. Doesn't seem to be working for me any more.

Any tips?

Usually I wait a few minutes before changing my waypoint so my squad has plenty of time to clear the takeoff sequence. If a few minutes have passed, or I can see they're trying to turn in my direction, it works.

I don't always press thrice though, so I wonder if you're taking the waypoint off the target. I'll look at a map, and see how many legs I have before reaching my target. The 'climb to altitude' sequence is including in the first leg I think.

That said, if you were following A-flight and they were on the same mission (make sure they were! A flight likes to wander) then you should have gotten credit.

I'm flying complete missions and making sure to fly through each waypoint and I'm not seeing any mentions in the debrief of "good job" or "mission completed successfully", etc. I suspect these congrats messages only come up when there's been enemy casualties of some kind during the mission.

H

OK, Harry I will wait untill I get the signal for entering the Fokker EIV campaign, it was fun btw.

Thanks for participating! I will let you know. Meantime, you have the top individual score thus far

H

I think you're right. That, or if there's a definite victory condition such as damaging a rail depot or airfield.

The only time I've really seen the CO say 'unacceptable' is if you abort the mission far too early, or for whatever reason (engine trouble, got lost, etc.) you didn't make an effort to fulfill the mission objective. I'd lump in any warnings about shooting at your own team in there as well.

Augustine le Pew
Feb. 8th.
Airfield attack. Nothing much. Light Archie, nice weather. Usual outcome. "The airfield was not damaged."

Feb. 11th, 1916
Railyard attack. Set off with wingman in crappy weather. Luckily over the rail yard the weather was better. We dove in for an attack and set one warehouse on fire. Made 2 more attacks on the last large warehouse and climbed up signalling to return to base. While flying along looking for my wingman, BAM!!!. I am suddenly a flaming fireball with no wings headed to earth. Augustine le Pew is dead.

Note: I will put the video up tomorrow. I had to go back and look to see what happened. My wingman T boned me! We both died.

Sure hate to bow out so early Harry. I will be ready for the next one and will be keeping up with you survivors.

I have had debriefs in the past mention that we had reached the patrol area, so when I didn't get that feedback I was thinking I was doing something wrong. Thanks for the feedback guys .. I guess it isn't always mentioned so I can carry on.

MFAIR: Bad luck my friend. It's a shame to get taken out by a random accident ... accidents and war are never far from one another.

Oh no!! Another brave pilot lost! Sorry to lose you MFair. We may be starting part 2 of this challenge sooner than later at this rate!

H

I can wait, must first, try to cope with the EIV behavoir.

I really want to play this but I'm missing all teh add ons

Interesting thing about collisions Mfair. In recollection, I have never been damaged by flying debris from other aircraft and I have had many opponents planes blow up in front of me sending debris my way. Makes me wonder if this is not modeled in. I suspect that technically the debris is no longer treated as an AI item looked at by WOFF as a craft or fired object from an AI would be. This is just my speculation though.

Best Regards;

I have the same opinion Robert. In this case though, he actually fly straight into me at a perpendicular angle as I was flying straight and level. Guess he was looking down. Either way, we are both dead.

Bechamp, Verdun, Feb 11 1916.

Hauptmann Behrndorff surveyed the room. Heads down, the pilots looked weary and forlorn. The CO had just given all flights astern talking to. The big German offensive was just over a week away and high command wanted a thorough reconnaissance of the area around Verdun carried out before the guns opened up on the French positions. If they thought they were due some rest, they could forget about it. Things were going to get busy for them all.

Behrndorff had just returned from an escort mission accompanying a single Aviatik, to see what was happening around the large forts located to the east of Verdun. The weather had been atrocious, driving sleet and rain. Winter was descending and all hell was about to break loose on the ground!

Hello, can I enter the fray? I ordered teh missing add-on and it should be possible to download them in days.

Looks like you need a german pilot, right?

You bet! assuming you've read all the rules, jump in at the registration page and start flying... we need you! Missions this week are for Feb 14 and Feb 17. Welcome to the fray zifnow!

H

Bechamp, 14th Feb 1916.

More disgusting weather. and to make matters worse, Hauptmann Behrndorff and his Rottenflieger August Geber had been ordered to patrol the friendly airfield at Giraumont, far to the north and away from all the action, outside of Arlon. In bloody Belgium for goodness sake!!!

"What's the point?" thought Behrndorff to himself as he slipped a bottle of schnapps into his flying jacket. He certainly didn't intend to fly back again in this weather, so he needed a bribe to ensure he would get a comfy bed for the night we he finally got there!

H

Okay, now I can finally toss some Positive Points into the Central-Powers-Pot
Mission 7 was an Escort Flight, again, but:
-The Aviatiks both survived
-my Wingman wasn't shot
-I downed a confirmed Nupe10 of Esc68
-and I recieved the Ehrenbecher


Btw:
I plan on flying Mission 8 tomorrow, but I cannot report the Results before Tuesday. Is that okay with everyone?

Nice work Nietzsche! Congrats to Hauptmann Hartschlag!

Report whenever you have time, that's fine.

Good luck!

H

Mission 9:
February 14, 1916


At least we weren't attacking friendly rail depots this time.

Today I went up with the new guy Sergent Paischa Massinac. He joined yesterday and the CO asked that I keep an eye on him and show him the landmarks. Our nearby fields for example.



My initial plan was to give him a tour of the Argonne, but the second I stepped outside I knew that wouldn't do. This was the dawn patrol and you weren't going to see many landmarks up high, though someone far to the south - I never found out who - seemed willing to help. Either that or they left the lights on.



Greyish mist hung low over the ground. That, coupled with the play of sunlight on my screen and instruments, made it hard to see. As it turned out we were approaching Lemmes aerodrome when I saw smoke billow from one of their hangars! Huns!

At first I thought it might have been a stray cloud that flew between me and the warehouse, but the tell-tale whistling sound began, and soon something exploded against one of their tents.

Massinac was having a hard time of it - whether due to a flaw in his engine, or he didn't care for one of my turns, he'd had to cut in front of me, veer away and then return to formation. His Nieuport didn't like climbing any more than mine did, yet I pushed us upwards, higher and higher looking for the Germans in the grey-blue sky as we shoved through the mist. Slowly the sky brightened, which as you'll see isn't the best thing that could have happened, but still no Huns.

I was about to turn back in disgust when I happened to look towards the sun and saw two tiny dark silhouettes just emerging from the solar glare. Success! I chased them over Verdun (city) with Massinac in pursuit. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Either sensing their danger or due to their natural course they flew further away from the sun. Deprived of the contrast I lost them. After a few minutes of hopeless pursuit I turned back.

That's when the bright light turned into a problem. The Argonne was still dark, the sun not having penetrated to its depths yet, and between that and the glare on my windshield and instrument panel I quickly grew disoriented, like flying into a fogbank. Once the plane shuddered and I realized I was descending *too* fast, but it ended well.

By the time I could fully make out ground details again I was only a few thousand feet over my two airfields, Lemmes and Valdelaincourt. Massinac and I completed a few circuits where I checked out the damage wrought by the Germans: Not much.



We then flew home. I'm not used to coming in from the south and nearly lost my way, but then saw my old nemesis sliding away to the left. Widowmaker. From there I angled in and we both landed safely.

Catknight, another wonderful report. You describe the same kind of things that I've experienced in WOFF in a way that makes me say to myself, "yeah, that's exactly right!"

Great stuff, and thanks for being a great contributor to this challenge!

H

Bechamp, Feb 17th 1916.

A very lucky escape for Hptmn. Behrndorff! In fact I am surprised to still be in this thing. More foul weather for another reccy support mission as our Aviatiks try to gather photographic documentation of the French positions defending the forts around Verdun. I fly with my rottenflieger August Geber, and Monkh of A flight flying top cover. We are still looking for the Aviatik, well over enemy lines, whem suddenly both of them get picked off by several members of Esc 38 who then come after me. I have a height disadvantage and the first volley of shots takes out my ability to manouver. More rounds splinter the hull and struts as I try to dive away. I'm lucky to get her down in one piece, as my assailant gloats above me, surveying his "victory". Bruised but not wounded at least, I am dragged from the cockpit and thrown into a makeshift jail behind the French trenches. Two days later, as I am being transported by lorry to a new prison deeper in French territory. I seize the opportunity to make a run for it. I eventually make it back across the lines in the dead of a freezing night and make my way back to Bechamp. I am pretty shaken up by the whole experience! Geber and Monkh both lost presumed dead or captured.

Wow my first mission, yet extremely punishing:

February 14th 1916: Patrol behind friendly lines.

Route: Bechamps to Brullin Higny airfield, 7500ft, then Depot stations east of Bechamps, then landing.

Lift off with wingman Rademacher, an experienced flieger with 4 victories and flieger Alexander Holtaus as high cover.

About 7500ft over Brullin airfield we got engaged by 2 EA Nieuport, from above. In the ensuing evading maneuver I could see Rademacher diving , followed by one of the EA. I chased this last one to cover, but I had to pull back off the dive which was too step. Turning back over the area I could see 2 smoking wrecks on the ground, I guessed they both crashed.

Keep turning and climbing to try to spot the second EA. After few minutes a trail of black smoke was over Spincourt aerodrome woods area. I closed in and spotted a biplane burning, and slowly descending. Could not identify it because suddendly again two Nieuports were closing on me. I was able to evade, and noticed they both EA heading West. I chased the closer one, and put some bullet on it from distance. It turned back to face me, and his leader did the same. This time I took some bullet after few seconds combat, then they both disengaged and I lost track of them. I proceeded with the patrol.

On landing I had news both Rademacher and Holtaus were killed, probably the first two wrecks spotted. No idea who was the plane burning.

Good grief zifnow, that's more excitement in one mission than some here have seen the whole campaign (me included!). I think things are heating up ahead of the great battle!

Great work and well done to survive. Sorry about your flight mates. Maybe they were the smoking wrecks you saw

H

Oh, you already said that

Great reports guys. You Eindecker pilots have it a bit rough compared to us Nieuport jockeys I think.

Well, that depends, Scout. My 8th Mission was another Fuel-Consumption-Test behind our Lines @ beautiful Weather.
Fantastic Shot, CatKnight. This majestic Sunrise with Searchlight Pic looks awesome

February 17th 1916: Patrol enemy lines.

Route: Bechamps SE to Flyres enemy lines, 4500ft, then SE to Depot station in Foret de Puvenell, then back and landing.

Lift off with wingman Von Liebau, a veteran flieger with 1 victory confirmed. Flieger Lechleitner as high cover.

The patrol proceeded normally, apart some heavy cloud cover which made me shift far too east, over Pont-à-mour. Regained contact with top cover over the Depot station, where we were targeted by a low intensity AA fire.

Lost contact again with Kette Lechleitner, and regained only on landing. The front looks quiet and with very low intensity shelling.

Mission 10:
February 17, 1916


Does this map look familiar? It should.



This was the same mission from a few weeks ago. My actual target was the infantry unit in the middle, but since there are no real landmarks I just patrolled the front line from the Aisne to the forest.

Today I went up with my ailier, Allesandro Pascale. Pascale was badly injured several weeks ago and is only now returning to duty. We took off on a cloudy morning, though it seemed a little brighter than last mission. I could clearly see the searchlight to the south from our airfield and the sun peeked out from behind some low strato-cumulus clouds.

The good weather wouldn't last though. As we reached our station it began to rain. Hard. I went through the motions, but figured there was no way I was going to spot anything in this mess. I was wrong.

After a full lap I looked down and saw two shapes moving low over the front. Over the next few seconds I convinced myself it wasn't part of the ground clutter and had nothing to do with the rain pelting around us. I dove down to see what they were up to and almost immediately heard tearing canvas.

What I didn't realize for another minute or so was that these were Eindeckers from Jasta 6. I singled one of them out while descending more carefully. What followed has to be one of the strangest duels I've been in.

For whatever reason - perhaps he took damage from our AA - the Eindecker did not want to climb. Following a second ill-timed dive when, despite blipping to slow my engine, I heard my wings cracking I wasn't too keen on descending. The two of us therefore circled each other some five hundred feet apart trying to bait the other person to come up/down to their level.

This slow wheeling continued. I could feel my Nieuport behaving sluggishly: All this turning wasn't doing my speed any favors, and I wasn't turning as fast as I'd ilke anyway. Nonetheless momentum slowly drove me down to his level some hundred yards above no man's land.



I should have had the advantage, and in fact I did get several good shots off, but nothing decisive and I just couldn't turn fast enough with my damaged wings. Finally the Eindecker pilot decided he'd had enough and simply... left. Climbed up and away from me, and after a few seconds on the edge of stalling out I gave up the pursuit.

I landed at the aerodrome perhaps five minutes ahead of my ailier. He claims to have shot down BOTH eindeckers! Our CO said 'Excellent work'.

Mission 9 is in the can. A simple patrol over our neighbouring aerodrome at Vadelaincourt.

No action seen with poor visibility due to snowfall.

My wingman ate tree-bark on the landing. Curse you killer tree!

Oh well, nice catch Thought time for eindeckers.

Mission 10 completed.

Mathieu and I were instructed to carry out 'close ground support' to support our troops at a German army installation just behind the lines. Apparently I slept through the training class were we learned what 'close ground support' means because I was just providing air cover.

When I returned to base the C.O. asked how many ground installations we had damaged ... "um, we were supposed to attack ground installations Sir?"

My C.O. is now threatening to send me back to basic training. Well at least stupid Mathieu will be with me because he didn't attack any ground targets either!

Interesting. Were there no 2-seaters for you to escort, as part of the mission brief? Any chance you can make a copy of the "OFF_Camp_Mission.xml" mission file found on your hard drive here...C:\OBDSoftware\WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\missions\historical\ (assuming you have the default install path for WOFF) and pm me with a link to it on Dropbox or Google Drive?

H

I think that tree has more confirmed kills than the rest of us combined!

It wasn't an escort mission, so I assume I was to shoot up the German army installation. Next time I will head down and see if there are some tents or whatever to machine-gun. Mission waypoint was the German army installation SE of Sivry-sur-Meuse airfield.

...and some more Points for Zee Kaiser:
Hauke Hartschlag's 9th Flight was another "Go burn some Fuel"-Mission with my Wingman, but this Time, 3 N10s arrived.
He shot one down (confirmed), I shot one down (confirmed), the last one escaped.
The Mission was rated: Good Show! and I recieved the EK 2nd Class for downing an Esc67-Plane.

I'll post pics later - had Problems with my USB-Sticks...

Nice work Herr Hartschlag! You are keeping things respectable for the Central Powers. Congrats on the victory and the award!

H

good work dat mann!

Mission 11, Feb. 20 1916: Marcel and I patrolled the front lines east of Verdun. No enemy aircraft spotted.
Mission 12, Feb. 23 1916: A nervous patrol deep into enemy territory to look for trouble around Stenay airfield. No enemy aircraft spotted.

Gaston Renard
Sorry, been a while for updates.
Real life and Dayton intervened.

Missions: 14 Feb 1916 and 17 Feb 1916 - again bad weather. Heavy rain. No enemy sighted. Not much to write about.

Mission 20 Feb 1916 - Finally good weather. Heavy broken clouds 6-7000 feet, but no rain or snow and some sunshine. That was the good news. The bad news is we have a long patrol way behind enemy lines, north to the Steney Airfield.


Uneventful flight out, got some good looks at the airfields.



Continued patrol. After our second loop over Steney noticed a dot coming up.
(youtube does not have at hi resolution yet.)



We did a bit of a dance for a little bit. I was trying to call my wing-man down to assist, but the darn cone keep coming on every time I targeted the enemy which was a Fokker Eindecker. Taking pot shots in-between, just after I got that figured out, I spent the last of my ammo and got a lucky hit. He spun down out of control.



I headed south and took my flight home.

Checking out the enemy balloon positions for later reference.




Got my first Excellent Work! from the Commandant.



Put in for the kill and received credit even though my wing-man ran into that darn tree.



81 minutes.

Which are next missions after 14th and 17th february?

Feb 20 & Feb 23. Just add three days to the last mission flown each time

H

Excellent work Renard! Congrats on your victory!

H

Lederhosen, glad to see you keeping an eye on things from your 2-seater Nice idea!

H

Just landed from a terrible patrol:

February 20th 1916

Patrol enemy lines: from Bechamps airfield to SE enemy Infantry unit, 7300feet. Then south to Infantry unit NW of St.Mihiel. Then SE to Foret de Hasoy observation ballon. North and landing.

Early in the patrol had problems to keep my Fokker stable for strong winds. Later, south of Commercy I spotted a plane, which ended to be a lone german Aviatik. This point my wingman turned back with some smoke out of his engine.

Continued the patrol alone, about above target I spotted two planes. Quietly approached, ended to be two more german Aviatik. I head north with them. Above Thiaucourt aerodrome my engine stopped working, minutes after an AA blast bursted somehow close. Force landed in Thiaucourt. My wingman engine caught fire and he was killed.

Gaston Renard 23 Feb 1916

Today is another day of good weather and too boot we have short mission close to home, just over the lines to the North. This was the first mission with two additional flight members instead of just one.


Just as well as it did snow and now all the terrain looks different.
Our home airfield looks almost camouflaged.


This was my first time flying with full snow cover.

Started out as a normal flight, arrived at the way-point over the crossroads to start circling for altitude. Look behind me and my flight is no where to be seen. I turn back and eventually see some planes doing their dance. Getting closer I see it is my flight engaged with a pair of EIII's. I give it full throttle and catch up to one, put a few rounds into him but Echard finished the job. Turn to find Giard and see him off in the distance but before I get close, he finishes off his adversary.

After that we form up, finish our normal mission and head back home.
Everyone lands safe. We earned another Excellent work from the Commandant.

February 23th 1916

Patrol friendly lines: from Bechamps airfield to SE german Infantry unit, 9400feet. Then south to Infantry unit around Thiaoucourt. SW to Toul. North and landing.

Lead a patrol of three Fokker E. Not much to report: overcast sky, snow on the ground. Bad visibility. Intercepted once more two german recon planes.

I was satisfied to be able to come back to our aerodrome, despite the visibility.

Sadly Hauptmann Behrndorff went to his grave on Feb 23rd 1916. On a rare mission into enemy territory to knock down a pesky balloon, he got into a scrap with a lone N10 on the way which ended in a stalemate. However, with his left plane riddled with holes, Behrndorff unwisely decided to continue his hunt for the sausage. He found it and made one successful pass, filling it with holes. Just as he was turning for his second pass, the sound of ripping canvas warned that ground fire was shredding his plane. Moments later he lost control and plunged to earth.



I will update the scoring chart in the first post and will continue to follow the progress of our remaining pilots! We are about half way through the challenge. Sorry to have left you all so early. Like Lederhosen, I will follow along in a 2-seater

Cheers

H

Ouch ... bad luck HarryH. Herr Behrndorff was too brave for his own good.

Oh well, heroic choice on trying to go ahead with the mission. But you know Fokker E is not that good sustaining damages, myself had to land after very few hits with a rough control.

Hard to trace a line between bravery and foolishness, but maybe this time it has been crossed. RIP!

Thanks chaps! Definitely did cross the "foolishness" line on this occasion

H

Grmpf... the Fokker-Crowd is getting smaller - sorry to hear that, Harry.
For Hauke Hartschlag:
Mission 10 was a Balloon-Busting, either. First pass was nice, then (like with Harry's Mission) a lone N10 appeared. It behaved very well, permanently trying to lure my Wingman and me down into the Balloon's Ground Support. After some Time (and some Holes in his Kite) he finally ran away - and we continued shooting down the Balloon... only to get informed later that we apparently downed the wrong one.

I got a corroborated Balloon-Kill, which I don't list for the Points-Score - we only list 'em when the Mission was rated Success, right?

Mission 11: Weather was fine, Engine ran well. Not much else to mention.

Nice work, Nietzsche. Correct on the balloon - it would have counted if it was the right one

H

I am going to be grounded for the next two weeks.

Will have to play catch up.

Happy Hunting.

February 26th 1916

Patrol friendly lines: from Bechamps airfield to Porcher aerodrome, and SE to the factory, 4800feet. I lead a flight of 2, plus we had 3 Fokker EIII high cover patrol.

Intercepted three Nieuport 10 very low on Porcher aerodrome. Two immediatly disengaged, me and my wingman were able to encircle one. Top cover ignored us. The EA was able to evade us by speed. We put few bullets into it, but when I was crossing the enemy line I heard my Fokker being hit by ground fire, so I turned back East to home. It was too fast for me to chase.

On the snow cover, a french Nieuport is not easy to spot.

Good effort Zifnow!

Week 7 of 12 coming up! Entente still with a sizable lead. Missions on Feb 26 and... March 1 I'm guessing - haven't checked but I don't think WOFF has leap years.

I'll post updated scores tomorrow night. Good luck all!

H

While my N10 campaign pilot is dead I like to go in the meantime on a 2seater. Any advice to a 2seater escadrille or the German counterpart and which date to use.

FFA 19 (jasta 9?). it s in the same area too

Hi Dutch, I think your only option would be to fly for an FFA.... at least, until WOFF UE comes out, and then there should be some French 2-seaters stationed around Verdun at this time of the war. As it stands with WOFF 3, I don't think the Entente has any 2-seaters in the area. There are some BE2s further north in Flanders, but that's far away from our area of action

H

March 1st 1916

Balloon Busting: from Bechamps airfield W to Verdun forts, 10000feet. Then S to the Aisne spring waters. Locate the balloon and destroy it.

Leading a flight of two Fokkers. Cover provided by a patrol of three. We reached the target slightly later than the second flight, who didn't waited on us and destroyed the balloon. Few minutes later I spotted a plane approaching fast, on my patrol same level. Ended to be a french Nieuport, I managed to get behind it seconds later, only to find one more behind me, very close.

Turning hard I was able to get rid of it, received some hit in the process. Almost lost control of the plane at a very low level. I lost sight of one of the EA, and when I pointed my nose east the last Nieuport decided to leave too. My patrol was safe, apart an AA burst on my wingman which caused him to lose some canvas.

After landing I heard one of the second patrol man has been killed by enemy.

Mission 13 completed, Feb 26, 1916

Seems we have transferred to Vadelaincourt airfield. I guess Verdun field was a bit too close to the fighting, what with the Germans launching a major ground offensive last week.

The C.O. is pleased ... Adj. Thenault downed an Eindecker within sight of our airfield.

Nice work 77_Scout

Challenge Scores updated in post 1. Entente still holding a significant lead.

Question for all pilots: who intends to purchase WOFF UE as soon as it comes out??

Chhers

H

I intend to get it the minute it comes available. I like the idea of having everything together in one neat package, plus the new content of course.

+1

February 20, 1916
Mission 11


After a very hectic week I found some time to relax and fly. As it turns out I should have stayed in bed.

Today we flew to the rail station near Jametz. This was by far our most complex navigational attempt: Northeast or so to the Meuse River, fly along the river until the forest to the west juts across, northeast past Jametz aerodrome to the eastern forest line, then north.



And I nailed it! Once I'd climbed high enough it was easy to follow my map. Nonetheless I felt a sense of relief when I passed Jametz aerodrome. Even though they were shooting at me.



I saw the railyard from a few kilometers away. Nonetheless, I would have had to dive too steeply to get even a partial shot out, so I banked east, sighted along the rails themselves, and zeroed in for my first attack run.

The fools left crates right out in the open. I dove, firing at it. And kept firing as it came closer and closer. At the last minute I yanked hard on the stick to pitch up.

Too late. I hit the boxes and/or the ground, climbed in a nice parabolic arc, then crashed and exploded.



At least they gave me a nice funeral. And I DID damage the crates!



Adieu, mon ami!

Oh no! Another brave pilot lost. Sorry to hear this CatKnight...

If WOFF UE ships prior to the end of the challenge, what do people think about the idea of letting DiD pilots rejoin officially as 2-seater pilots using WOFF UE (there should be 2-seaters for both sides at that point)? Perhaps if they survive for 2 weeks / 4 missions in 2-seaters, then they get to jump back into the fray in scouts as low ranking rookies.... thoughts?

H

As long as its specs are not much too demanding.. I got yet some difficult WOFF. Generally speaking, I would like to have it.

I will be....eventually

Supposedly the performance is actually improved with UE - more offloading of processing from the main CPU to the graphics card (I suppose that means you need a decent graphics card to get the improvement).

H

I have a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, nVidia. I have no idea how good or bad it is

I think I bought this machine back in 2012 or 2013!

I already started as an 2 seater pilot on German site.

me too. But I'm not scoring any points or keeping track of # missions flown. Just flying the same mission dates as everyone else.

H

... but once there are French 2-seaters in the area in the same time period, then we could let both sides "officially" rejoin the challenge... I'm hoping that will be the case with WOFF UE.

H

Im flying in FFA19 as been adviced by LH.

No problem with doing that Dutch, but any scores by 2-seaters don't count right now.

H

I think some mechanism for letting people rejoin is good. Half the pilots are out and it will get a bit lonely around her for whoever hangs on till the end.

I wouldn't even wait for WOFF UE ... we could all be dead by then

That is a distinct possibility the way things are going I'll give it some more thought, although right now, personally I'm happy to just fly a 2-seater and watch you remaining pilots fight on.

H

Mission 14: March 1, 1916

Picture: Regrouped and heading home after shooting up Thiaucourt airfield (barely visible in the background). Lt. Valmomt and S.Lt. Guillaux coordinated expertly; attacking on my hand signal (A=attack) and rejoining as pre-agreed when they saw me break for our lines (R=rejoin).

Our attack seems mostly intended to harass the enemy ... we can't carry enough bullets to really do much damage to an airfield.

Has nothing to do with this little campaign, but I gota post something or go mad while waiting for this phase 1 to finish.

Man great! Can I have the original template?

check your pm

WOFF UE HAS SHIPPED (and it is amazing)- INVITATION TO REJOIN!!

In celebration of WOFF UE, for pilots that are DiD, starting tomorrow (week 8), if you want to jump back in as rookies / low level scout pilots for your team, go ahead and do so! Entente players join as a Sergeant, Central Powers as a Flieger. Successful mission scores not in effect for rookie pilots (only victories score points). Try to stay alive to the end of the challenge

... and if you are flying an Eindecker and you have UE, you will hopefully find some of the new French 2-seaters!!

I will post updated scores later tonight in post 1, and hope to see some renewed action tomorrow!

Cheers

H

err can I get back in with Woff 3? and the actual starting date...bitte bitte

you certainly may

H

starting date March 4 followed by March 7, to be flown this coming week

New rookie pilots coming in...don't forget to register them at the link...

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQ...orm?c=0&w=1

Hi Gents
Sorry for being in a bit of a Hurry again...
Mission 12: Snow! Looked like my Wingman, me and the Snowflakes were the only flying Objects that Day...
Mission 13:
We had to escort 2 Aviatiks, again - and guess what - we haven't found them, because they were apparently attacked, before we had a Chance to meet them. One was destroyed, the other was pumped full of Holes, but managed to land on a grassy Field on our Side, both Pilot and Gunner are well.

Mission 15: March 4, 1916

Result: Gentlemen, our mission for today was to attack and destroy the designated observation balloon. B Flight progress was as follows: A total of 2 machines took off successfully. 1 machines landed safely! Regrettably the designated enemy observation balloon was not destroyed in our attack!;

Oh really Sir? Pretty sure I got the balloon ...

Ah yes, the balloon that refuses to accept its defeat despite the obvious evidence! I think we'll need to raise the matter with high command (aka OBD). I've heard of similar occurrences. This is the balloon just to the north of Lac de Madine, correct?

H

... cancel that... it's the one further north in le Foret de la Reine.

H

Mission 3, Hptm. Erich Hauptmann, Jan 27, airfield protection. Flight of 3, A flight supports.
Weather cloudy. Patrol area around the airport of Brullin Highy. No sightings of enemy aircraft during our assigned patrol time. No losses.

Good to see you back in action LowDrag!

UPDATE: if you are rejoining with a rookie pilot for the Entente, you will need to select the rank of Adjutant with N67 (not Sergeant as I originally stated - unless you don't mind flying the N12 2-seater!)

H

Mission 4, Hptm. Erich Hauptmann, Jan 30. Escort of Reconaissance a/c, operating from Spincourt, target area frontline north of Verdun.

Missed our assets at the rendesvouz point. Headed to the target area, hoping to help them there. Patroled between Verdun airfield and eny dug in positions north of Verdun. On our first pass of Verdun airfield we heared the scramble sirens there and observed two a/c on the ground, ready to go. But they did not move. The next time we went by, they were gone, finally airborne... But no sightings of them now.
Finally found our people on their way back to Spincourt and guarded them home. No losses.

Edit: Thanks for the warm welcome, HarryH, glad to be back. Finally got my monitor returned, much more fun to fly with this one...

Mission 5, Hptm. Erich Hauptmann, Feb 2. Patrol of friendly frontlines. Flight of 3, A flight supports. So we are total 4. Took A flight as our navigator, thus assuring local air superiority...

Target area between Sivry-sur-Meuse and the forts east of Verdun. Navigation was easy today out of several reasons: Weather was good, meanwhile quite used to use the local landmarks aswell, following A flight... BUT- it was even more comfortable today with this new champagne WOFF UE! What a crispy look on the landscape even towards the horizon! Normally the landmarks were clearly markable when already below the own airframe, making navigation and situational awareness difficult. But now- as if the goggles would have always been foggy before and now I realized they can be wiped clean!! Recommend UE very much, really...

The mission was eventless until crossing the frontlines first time southbound. Black puffs of archy-there must have been enemies near-but no sightings yet. Went together to the forts east of Verdun, turned northbound again. Crossing the front once more-black puffs again! Realized that my flightmates were not following properly when turning to the next waypoint, obviously distracted... and here they came, Nieuports 10C1´s, at least 3 of them, flight was breaking apart, everybody fighting for his own. Was engaged defensive aswell, my opponent came with great smash and turning better, I had to change direction frequently to stay out of his guns, while diving to the ground. He finally did not follow all the way down, maybe to avoid fire from the ground, he turned southbound to his own lines. Followed him, gaining altitude. Realized that we already were on the french side of the lines, as I was shot upon from ground fire... Jinked to throw their aim, uncomfortable situation. My opponent went further southbound, obviously unaware of my presence, the ground shooting stopped, I was out of their range now, so I continued to follow and sneak upon him... Don´t take the shot too early... When he fills my complete vision I pull the trigger... and he falls down immediatly. Poor guy. First victory!

Turned towards our own lines and egressed.

No losses today. My wingman has been wounded, though.

The victory was confirmed two days later.

Congrats on the confirmed victory LowDrag!! The Kaiser needs the points badly! And yes, isn't UE AMAZING???!! I just did some poking around and flew a Caudron G4 out of Vadelaincourt in early March '16. Can't wait to encounter one of these beasties in the challenge

Correct!

I'm still flying the Aviatik C, and I did have a fight with an loney N10, just turning to the left, so the front seat gunner can make an clear shot at him and then chasing him while I'm flying in an angle to the N10. rears end. Could not catch him up because my plane is much slower so eventually he escaped.

Mission #16, March 7, 1916

Patrolled enemy lines east of St. Mihiel, near the lakes. No enemy activity but a beautiful day to fly and enjoy the snowy scenery.

My first time landing on a snowy airfield and the sound and feel is noticeably cushier and softer. Cool!!

Mission # 15/01
March 4, 1916

I have returned! Er..I mean...I've never been here before. Nope.

I might as well be new. Under WOFF UE the world has changed. For one thing, we're no longer at Verdun and no longer have to deal with Widowmaker. We're at Vadelaincourt, which is in the Argonne to the west. Furthermore, whereas before Vadelaincourt and its neighbor, Lemmes, were separate airfields now they've been beat into one. This is good as it gives me a huge 'runway'.

We also have a mission I've never seen before:


Now I can support A flight as well as they've supported me all these years!

Our mission flies over comfortable ground. North of the forest north of Verdun. Easy enough.


Of course it's not quite that simple. For one thing, I'm supposed to keep an eye on A flight, which consists of 2 Nieuport 12s.



So how did we do with babysitting our friends in the driving snow? Not very well. I lost them.

I don't mean 'I lost them while they were on patrol' or even 'I lost them enroute.' I lost them seconds after takeoff. I climbed up. My wingman joined me. I looked for the N12s to lift off....nothing. I spun around and flew over the airfield expecting to pass them. Nope. They were gone.

I hung around the airfield for a few minutes trying to spot them....then flew on to where they were to spot artillery. Once we arrived on station I stayed for thirty minutes waiting for the two-seaters to show up. Nothing. No Huns either.

After a very frustrating time of it battling the snow and wind, I landed and waited. 20 minutes later my charges flew in completely unharmed. Hopefully we won't have to do that too often.

Protecting A-Flight ... that's a new one! I wonder what other surprises UE has in store for us?

March 4th 1916

Patrol friendly lines, 5200feet. Patrol heading SE, to the river Petite Seille and back. Two wings of 2 Fokker EIII each.

Nothing to report, heavy snow. Had an engine failure which forced me to land in Ars on the way back.

No enemy spotted, no losses.

Nice reports gentlemen! Keep 'em coming! I'm out of town for the week but I should be able to update the scoring chart before the weekend and will be back in the air during week 9 as a lowly flieger!

Cheers

H

I do not know if you start a new campaign, for the next round, but I'm currently in the upgrade phase from an i5-2500k to an i7-6700k, Think I will need one week until everything does run smoothly.

I hope you can wait and for the new camapign fase are we going to swap to the opposite site?

Here are some Pics of the Where-the-Heck-are-the-Aviatiks-Mission:

We had Weather. Lots of it.



After a while we spotted a Couple of Planes, far away. So we caught up - thinking, that must be the Aviatiks - and met:
A-Flight


This Collage sums up Mission 14:

Turns out, Command is absolutely sure, that we shot the wrong one... again...

This mission almost made me resign from my position.

Mission nr 9 - March 7th 2016

Balloon Busting. Intercept and destroy the Observation Balloon SE of Verdun.

I lead B in flight, with Brecht as wingman. A flight (Gerber and Burr) to cover.

Upon reaching the target, Brecht crashed to ground during the attack. Probably hit by ground fire.



I successfully got the target in flame after the 4th attack. It's very hard to keep my nose on the Balloon, the Eindecker keep turning.



During the flight to home, I met A flight, and joined them. Shortly after I found a Nieuport on my tail.




I brought the Nieuport as close as possible to A flight, which ignored me untill it was too close and I had to evade because it was firing me. I was very upset at them. Received several hits, I just placed one or two when it crossed my nose. Then luckily for me he decided he had enough and withdraw. I couldn't keep behind it with my lower speed.



Landed some time later, I found that for the HQ I destroyed the wrong target (something is seriously wrong here, there is only one balloon SE of Verdun). Right, now that I think about it... maybe the HQ wanted to destroy the NE one.

Claim: 1 balloon, first claim. Let's hope it will be confirmed.

Sorry about your wingman, zifnow. War is hell.

Mission 17, March 10, 1916

We downed the enemy balloon above Bois de Grand-Failly but my valient comrade Sous Lt. Thenault died in the engagement.

We tangled with an Eindecker as well and my wingman Marcel downed him. The higher-ups wouldn't give Marcel credit even though I witnessed the whole thing.

Mission nr 10 - March 10th 1916

Patrol enemy lines, north of Verdun, 1800m.

I lead a flight of 3 Fokker EIII. North of Verdun my engine failed over the lines. I had enough momentum to get in friendly territory and made a land which ended into toppling my Fokker. I come out alive but injured, sent 11 days in the hospital.

I'll be back on duty from March 22nd.

Hi Dutch, still a few more weeks left of this one. Then we move to part two where we will swap sides - EIV versus Bristol Scout! Should be perfect timing for your new i7 machine

H

Hi,

Hi, hope to be back in the air today - flying with WOFF UE.
I missed some exciting time - anxious to see how good it is.

Gaston Renard 26 Feb 1916

Railyard attack - two flight members - WOFF UE - Full snow cover.
No Enemy sighted - Snowed for a bit but then stopped, weather did not hinder mission.
Made two passes on the Railyard, got one building burning, figured that was enough.
Did not want to use up all our ammo and I had dove a bit too fast, got some over speed damage.
Called for the flight to rejoin and headed home.
Was good enough for an excellent result.

Gaston Renard 01 Mar 1916 (missed leap day)

Patrol behind enemy lines to Bechamps
Heavy broken clouds - no enemy sighted.
All returned home.

Mission 18, March 13, 1916

Disaster of a mission! Airfield attack. Both wingmen lost in a dogfight heading home, while I had to put-down in our trenches due to engne damage. This is not going to look good on my record!!

Mission 15 & 16 were not very eventful, exept: Mission 16 was an Escort-Flight, again... but this Time we indeed found the Aviatik!

Nice work Nietzsche!

OK I'm back! Catching up now on all your reports. Will update the scores in post one in a few min...

H

Mission 6, Hptm. Erich Hauptmann, 05th Feb 1916. Close Air support, target infantry emplacement at Aisne river, West of St. Mihiel, flight of 2, together with an Aviatik from Spincourt, and flight A was supposed to assist.

After departure we spotted a single biplane passing our aerodrome southbound-our man? Was a single Aviatik, would have fit well, so we followed. The Aviatik was doing cross country navigation flying and zigzaging over NML, between Bechamps and St. Mihiel, but never turned to our target.



So as he turned again Northbound, we left him and proceeded to our target region at the Aisne river. Did not found our collegues there, either...
But a flight of N10´s crossed our path head-on... Unable to avoid them we found ourself engaged in no time... And they turned much better then we were able to.



Saw my wingman tumbling from the sky above, spinning, one Nupe in chase. Engaged his opponent, last thing I saw of my wingman was that he regained control of his aircraft. I was attacked by the other Nupe and had to do a series of hard breaks to avoid being shot at... Always defensive I tried to make it to our lines, doing everything to make me a tough target. Eventually the Nieuport´s pilot had enough and disengaged.
I refused to follow him, had enough, and I was looking for my wingman... no success, but I did not see any wreckage either-has he made it back to safety?

Returning to Bechamps I found a sole Aviatik and two Eindeckers on the ground-one with our green painting... Wiesemann?


Had to learn it was not him, he did not make it back... Poor Frederich...

Mission 7, Hptm. Erich Hauptmann, 08th Feb 1916

Reconaissance.

After liftoff found my Eindecker behaving strangely. The flight controls were a kind of jerky, and induced an uncommanded nose down input! No go for this mission! Gave the split signal and entered a pattern to return. Got this nose down input again, at the worst moment, during flare! Touched down hard and- flipped over! Nooooo!
Dead? No, I was lucky, very very lucky! Had to spent 9 days in hospital, though...

P.S.: The flight control problem wasn´t a WOFF thing- it was induced by a badly trimmed toe brake signal of my rudder pedals- the axes of the toe brakes have a bad influence on the y-axes of the stick-would be the best to have them deactivated all together. Will do the flight control check more carefully next time (in either order, Lou...)!

13 March
Otto von Diesel
Jasta 5

I can't claim anything myself officialy but... on the last mission to patrol the lines, we (4) spotted 2 x N10 over St Michiel. They were lower so we got ready... however the two Frenchmen must of argued as to which direction to go, and the next thing they crashed into each other, flamed and crashed !! and not a shot fired.

Next we find another two over Broussey who turn for a fight. I end up with one on my tail and we dive .... only I'm the only one able to pull and avoid the ground...N10 #3. In the end it turns out to be 1 for 1 and we land on a forward airfield. Infact its so forward that enemy railheads plaster landing aircraft with Flak.

If I may sujest this, then no personal claims but 3 for the squadron. All aircraft crashed ourside and within 2km of friendly positions.

ouch!! At least Hauptmann lives to fight another day

H

Wow, exciting mission Lederhosen! Are you using UE and did you crank up the air activity level? I think we all should do that now if we have UE

Only individual victories count for this challenge, but I like the idea of counting them all. Maybe for the part 2 we will do that.

H

Still no PC, for me. I hope I will be in the arena next week.

I will bump my air activity up to "heavy" from the original setting of "medium" then ... curious to see if my machine can handle it.

I fly medium and as long as bugs are being reported my campaign flying is still on WOFF3.

Good luck for week 10 folks. Missions on March 16th and 19th.

Latest scoring updated in post 1.

H

Harry when are you going to release part2 for the dead pilots.

I think the first week of December. It will be the EIV on one side. Not sure about the other side. I had originally planned for it to be the Bristol Scout. I may also add the DH2 as an alternative, since it was an important part of the Entente's gradual superiority in the spring and summer months of 1916. The challenge game date will start May 1st 1916.

H

.... and we will be moving to Flanders.

H

Got things to do this week so I got these out of the way.

16th..... he got away




19th.... brutzel brutzel

Mission 19, March 19 1916 : Patrol enemy front lines.

I came THIS close to getting my first kill ... Eindecker damaged and smoking, and I run out of bullets. It's the N10's curse.

Gaston Renard 3 March 1916

Patrol Behind Enemy Front Lines to Martincourt.

Lucien Echard only flight member.

Heavy broken clouds aroun 7-8K feet.
Flying though snow from time to time.
Patrolling around 8-9K feet, was hard to navigate.
Could not really make out much in the way of RR or Roads.
Had to rely on Rivers/Lakes/Forest.
Managed to find our target - started patrolling - the huns lobbed up a few archie shells.


On our third patrol loop, notices a pair of hun two seaters, a bit below us, I gave the order to attack and started down.



Completed the first pass, did not score any good hits.
As I turned away, I felt a stinging in my left thigh and knew I'd been hit. The engine RPM dropped a bit, but I did hear any really bad sounds.

I gave the order to RTB and immediately headed south.
I had lost sight of Echard was not sure he saw my signal.
I kept watching for him and after a bit, I saw him coming up.

Echard beat me back to base and upon landing found, he had managed to down one of the two seaters.

That was good enough for another excellent from the Commandant.
However, my wound kept me in the Hospital for five days.



(Missed the 6th March Mission)

Still working on catching up... RL, work, vacation and sickness have been taking a toll..

Mission #20, March 19 1916,

Today we transferred to Brocourt-en-Argonne.
Nieuport 11 Bebes available for all our pilots upon arrival. Things are looking up!
Navarre has transferred in ... our first historical ace.

Thanks HarryH.

My stats show loss of 2 comrades, but I am pretty sure I have actually lost 3 (one in a balloon attack, then two more in an airfield attack). Go ahead and knock my score down to match that when you do the next update.

Yikes! More bad news for the Central Powers. Looks like the wane of the Fokker Scourge will begin even before part 2 of the challenge!

Is Navarre flying his all-red Nupe?

H

I may have ruled that the loss should not count. I salute your honesty but I don't think we're too worried about the scoring being 100% accurate anyhow. The real fun is flying RiR with no aids and trying to survive!

Cheers

H

That allied aces squadron few miles away in pestering my dreams in the hospital. I am almost good to fly again and get back to support my wingmen in the effort.

But oh, those Fokker Es start looking old.

Gaston Renard 10 March 1916

Was an easy patrol right over Verdun.

Flew in circles for half an hour - was all set to turn for home,
Looked around for Echard and saw him starting a banked dive.

uh - oh I thought - something is afoot.

Sure enough we were soon messing with a pair of Eindeckers.
Twisting and a turning, I could do no better than some very bad deflections shots.

Dived down after one, thought the other had turned tail....
He had not and soon I heard some unwelcome sounds.

My controls turned mushy, had a heck of a time keeping her straight.
Was already close to the ground had to find a place to set her down.

Did so and managed an okay landing but could not stop and ran into one of them darn fences...
Amazing how those survive so well in a bombed out area..

Anyway Gaston perished instantly in the collision which is just as well as his craft burst into flames.

Though dead... the commandant still said it was an Excellent Work.





Somewhere along the line I had turned on AI Never backs down.... I wonder...

Oh no Stache! Very sorry to hear this. Yes that AI setting would have made things tougher, no doubt!

You are welcome to come back in as a rookie for the remaining 2 weeks / 4 missions, starting this Friday (if you want to).

H

OK into the penultimate week, starting tomorrow! Missions on March 22nd and 25th. I'll update the chart now...

H

err 22nd 23 24 are all bad weather days, so we loose one day this week.

The red one is from Jean Navarre, the guardian of Verdun.

Well, I wish I could report anything interesting to you.
The Weather had become a bit better, but on Mission 18 it was raining again. Not as strong as last week, more a foggy kind of Rain.


Don't be confused by the Score:
There are two wrong Balloons (don't count) and a rejected Nupe in it, so my official Score still remains 2 Nupes.

March 22nd:

I am back from the hostpital and ready! The squadron assigned me a Fokker EIV! But the mission is cancelled for bad weather.

March 25th:

Patrol behind friendly lines. Two kette of two Fokkers each, I am the only one with a EIV which makes my wingman remain back. From time to time I fly large S to both slow down and make him reach me, and for looking around. Nothing to be concerned, all 4 planes landed safely. Moderate artillery activity east of Verdun.

Hi all, sorry about the bad weather for this week. I guess it gives some others the chance to catch up in the interim. Ok I'm off to see if I can catch a glimpse of the Guardian of Verdun in his spiffy red Nupe

H

err, NO .... you'll find out why

Mission 21, March 25, 1916, Patrol Behind Friendly Lines

After being grounded for bad weather, Amaud and I were back in the air.

Hey! Those Nieuport builders forgot to put a compass in the N11. Had to navigate using the sun as a compass.

We tangled with two Eindeckers and downed both. We each put in a claim and but both got rejected. Two wrecks behind our own lines and we can't get a confirmation? Sacre Bleu!!

77_Scout really unlucky My only confirmation (and actual kill) come from a balloon behind enemy lines and my wingman was killed too. Probably some infantry division confirmed that.


Aside "roleplaying", why there is such a low two-seater meeting occurrence? All of us report of clashes between scouts, or balloons. We are more than one month yet in the campaign and we didn't got a two-seater? This is strange to me.

Zifnow, I usually spend some Time in J-Mode after Missions. There are indeed very many 2-Seaters in the Air... a lot more than 1-Seaters. They simply are good at Hiding - I haven't found any while Flying, neither.

Yes, unlucky 77_Scout!

Nietzsche, using the J key after the mission is great idea! I've used the mission editor just to explore the general situation in the Verdun region at this time period and before UE, WOFF 3 had very few Entente 2-seaters. Just the odd N12 around. Now there are Caulderons, but I suspect they are up at high altitudes. I have not yet seen one in the challenge. Maybe we'll see them in part 2 but more likely it'll be BE2Cs up in Flanders.

H

what is J mode guys?

I hope in mean time somebody could make an mod to make the Be2 gunner sit in his chair.

Ah, you haven't discovered this "beta" feature yet....

At any point during a mission you can hit the "j" key on your keyboard and the game will pause. You can then use your right mouse button to click through every currently flying craft as well as all the active ground units (inc. trains, trucks etc.). You can also un-pause at any time, e.g. when viewing an enemy 2-seater to try to figure out where on the map it might be. This is definitely not RiR, so I wouldn't advise using before or during an RiR mission, but at the end of a mission, before you exit, is fine. It will give you a sense of just how much you missed up there

H

March 28th - looks like I survived another day:

Support two Aviatiks on an offensive flight over Verdun forts: after about 30minutes flying, upon reaching the rendez vouz point, my engine failed: FTL close to a friendly trench. Didn't even see the german 2-seaters.



So nothing had happened, I took the chance to depart with the afternoon patrol flight. Which I spent all time trying not to get wrecked by the gust. Visibility was terrible, lost track of kette A before reaching the first waypoint. Also I nearly destroyed my plane in the air, when I lost asset into a cloud and I come out almost vertically diving, over G, lots of creepy sounds, but I recovered it.

I was terribly happy to land, despite my face was frozen. Look there my wingman landing, can you see it? I mean, I could barely see him, how could I have spotted an enemy craft I have no idea.




I'll register this day as a single mission.

The weather has been dreadful for these final missions. Oh well, that's RiR I guess

So, you've jumped ahead a bit... are you going to save your last mission on the 31st until the final week (starting this Friday?

H

Yep, sorry for that. I tought this week was for 28th and 31st.

oh, no problem.

H

I just read the current Score...

I'm... the Leader of the Pack Tralalalala
Cool
Fokker rules

I'd be careful here... Parschau, Wintgens, Immelmann were as successful with Fokker E as you

Oh, I'm quite sure that I'll not be able to catch up with those Guys... look like I'm just @#1 because, I somehow fly around most EA - and watching the Landscape instead of being in potentially dangerous Situations...
But not this Time:


Somewhere behind the Lines...


Hauke Hartschlag's brand new FOKKER E4 arrived at the Field.


"The first Mission in this new Plane brought us near some Aviatiks, bombing the Lines. Our Task was to patrol the Area, but we thought, giving those 2 Seaters some Company, sure wouldn't hurt."


"That was a good Idea, because we engaged two of those new N11s, that were trying to attack the Aviatiks. One of them quickly disengaged and went home, the other one was... not so smart. My Wingman Merkl and me made sure, that this N11 won't threaten any more Aviatiks in the Future (Player's Comment: Damn Kill-Stealer LOL)
Merkl got his first Kill confirmed and recieved his Goblet shortly after."

Nice work Hptmn Hartschlag!

Into the last week of the challenge part 1 - I'll write a summary at the end of next week and then we'll prep for part 2.

Have fun flying RiR!

H

BTW:
How many Missions in Total are we flying? I'm not sure if I may have skipped a Week or so...

that was not an easy plane to shoot down!

Nice job Lederhosen.

I have finished my 22nd mission ... airfield attack. Not enough damage done to get kudos from the CO, but brought back both of my wingmen alive at least.

One more mission to go!!

March 31st:

Escort a flight of two Aviatik on a bombing run S of Verdun. Two Kette of Fokker EIII/EIV.

The weather was bas as previous days. I was able to meet the bombing squadron only thanks to the enemy AA burst:



After escorting them back, I got a report that the "target didn't sustained any serious damage". We don't have the same payload which land on trenches.. look here.



I mean, if a damn trench element is still undamaged the Kaiser should quit trying!

All planes get back to their base.

24 in total, minus any missed while in hospital!

H

Ok my new rig i7-6700k seems to be stable now, still do prefer my old i5-2500k setup, so I want to rejoin the Verdun group, as I did see some ex-DID are starting over

Still like to know:
Is it possible to start on the Caudron plane or the Aviatik-C, or do we stay to the N10/EIII
At what date to start as an re-starter

Mission 23: March 31, 1916 Railyard Attack

We shot up some rolling stock, but not enough hits to do much damage. The C.O. remains unimpressed; mon Dieu, what does he expect us to do with a single drum of Lewis ammo?

So, I think that is me done for Phase 1. Only 23 missions because we had one cancelled due to weather, yes?

Will stand by for Phase 2, unless countermanding orders come in from HarryH.

Correct sir! I've been busy with RL this past week but I will sit down during the Thanksgiving holiday and have one final phase 1 flight and tot up the final scores. I will also set the scene and provide the details for part 2. Let's take a one week break before we start. I want to see if any of the DiD pilots want to try their hand at RiR, now that their campaigns and the war is finally over!

H

Hi Dutch, we're now in the last week, so by all means hop in and fly any 2-seater you want, but you won't get much flying time before it's all over! Might be better to restart as a scout pilot in part 2... details to follow later this week.

H

Ok, like to report the last part of my first RIR challenge...

After spending 8 days in hospital and thus missing missions 8 and 9, H. Erich Hauptmann reported for duty on 17th of Feb., a Recon mission, flight of 2. Reccon flight was composed of 2 Aviatiks. Weather was good, did longtime patrol of the northern part of the front, no enemy sightings. The Aviatiks diverted to Sivry-sur-Meuse aerodrome, quite hilly surrounding there. They seemed to have felt uncomfortable with their approach and did a go around. Smart decision. Stayed with them until they managed to land safely with their second try.




My wingman had enough, left me and returned to base. Followed him. Spotted 2 specks on my way home. Avoided them and returned to base. No losses.

Mission 11, Close air support. Escorted 2 Aviatiks, they bombed an infantry camp south of Verdun. No serious damage, but no own losses either.



Mission 12, Balloon busting, B-Flight of 2, A-Flight supported with 3 Eindeckers. Battle of Verdun was raging meanwhile, a lot of action on the ground. Weather formed lots of clouds enroute, snowcovered ground. Went towards the target as a formation of 5. After having lost our comrades of A-Flight in the clouds we continued towards the target area. Spotted the balloon, and started our attack run. Before coming into range, the balloon was tumbling from the sky-and some specks in the vicinity - A-Flight has completed the mission!
Joined them when they egressed. But they were only 2 now...
Returned to Bechamps, signaled to my wingman to land here and entered a landing pattern together with A-flight. My wingman had other plans, lost sight of him. Flew around some time but was not able to find him.
After landing I learned that he was lost. The mission was rated as excellent, balloon destroyed, but we lost two of our brave men by enemy fire. Our squadron is down to 4 pilots now and we are awaiting replacements.

Mission 13, 26th of Februar. Still battle of Verdun. Flight of 4 Eindeckers, composed of A and B flights, the last pilots of our squadron, replacements are due for tomorrow. Went to the rendezvous point, did not find the Aviatiks and went on to the target area, north of Verdun.
We were engaged by 4 Nieuports head on, unable to avoid. Soon everybody was on his own, trying to survive. Was able to put some rounds in one Nupe, spinned out of sight. Looked for my men. Spotted a single Eindecker tangeling with a single Nupe. Went on to help him. The Nieuport began to feel uncomfortable and disengaged, but I saw my fellow pilot loosing control of his plane and spinning into the ground. Poor chap. Was looking for the rest of my flight but did not find anyone.

Went towards the friendly sides of the lines. Got sighting of a speck at my 2 o clock, co-alt. Biplane. Nieuport 10.
Should have turned left to avoid. But did not, took the fight, "no gutts, no glory, hehe" (silly me...). He soon had the upperhand. Was hit several times, tried to disengage, lost control, overspeed damage, crashed into the ground, on the enemy side...
Debriefing reports our entire flight was wiped out, total loss, one survivor, don´t know how he did this... "But we shot down enemy aircraft, who tried to attack our Aviatiks-Good show". What kind of definition of success is this!

My first RiR campaign is over, Hptm., no Rittmeister (meanwhile) Erich Hauptmann is dead. I am sad, but it was great fun. Thank you HarryH!

LowDrag, Commiserations, but kind of good timing if one has to die... at the end!

Also, good to see you being an attentive shepherd to the 2-seaters. It will be something you'll do quite a lot of in part 2, assuming you will be able to join

H

Thank you, HarryH. I am willing to join the next part of the challenge and looking forward to it.

Thank you everyone for participating in this little challenge! It's been great fun watching all your pilots progress and battle with these flimsy old machines and flying with "RiR" settings. As 77_Scout put it so eloquently.... "A full-on, no crying diaper babies, max-real challenge".

Sadly, no "aces", except possibly the killer tree outside of Verdun. Lederhosen's junior pilot went on a charge toward the end however, notching 3 victories to lead that category.

The highest points scorer, by a nose, was Dutch, with an early flurry of successful missions. He was closely followed by Stache. Highest points scorer still alive at the end was Nietszche. The only pilot to complete all 24 flights was... well nearly, with 23...77_Scout.

Overall winners were the Entente team, thus bucking the historical trend. That said, I wonder if we'd been a little further north whether the Central Powers might have had a few more 2-seaters to prey upon! The N10 is a lovely plane to fly, despite its limited ammo, and it won out in our little challenge. Congrats to all the Entente pilots!

Next up will be part 2 - Bristol Scout vs Fokker EIV

The high-powered EIV comes with double the firepower of the EIII. Hit fast and hard and then get out of there is the way to go with this machine. The Bristol is a very balanced craft, an ex-racer, so quite fast in pursuit. However, you have to lean out of the cockpit to sight the gun on your target which makes things quite challenging! These two are a pretty interesting match!

We will start on Saturday December 1st. Look out for more details in a new thread sometime next week.

Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

Harry,
This was great fun! Congratulations to all who participated. Count me in for phase II. I will be ready.

Great one, I survived

Thanks count me in.

That was great fun, and nicely short too. We might run into a bit of conflict with x-mas, but I'm willing to start now. Perhaps a christmas break between x-mas and new year.

Nice summary HarryH. This was great fun to participate in.

I will definitely be in 'round 2'.

Congratulations, Dutch
Grmpf... I wasn't aware, that the Competition is already over LOL
But I'll continue Hauke's Career for Fun, anyway... the E4 is cool and there are more interesting Planes in the near Future. The 3-Days-Skip was a good Idea.

Okay, let's go Scouting, then

Thanks, but lets be fare on this a dead pilot is, not a good pilot, the ones that survive are the best. For next campaign mode I will trying to survive and avoid the risk . The EV is not my kind of plane, while the N10 does fit like a hand in a glove, but I will try it, guess in real WW1 pilot life there was also no choice.

any news about the next one start

Hi Lederhosen, I'm hoping we can kick off this coming Saturday. I'll be working on it this week and will post details in a new thread soon.

H

Great! Looking forward to it.

A few thoughts based on phase one...

We discovered that weather can cancel some of our missions. Maybe make up 'cancelled for weather'missions by flying on the next flyable day?

It would be nice (my opinion only) to give a better incentive to staying alive and flying missions. Currently, the winning strategy is to have a good start (rack up a decent score) and then promptly die or stop flying (locking in that nice high score).

Thats is what I also did wrote down earlier, I think being alive and finish the campaign to the end is more important.

This weekend I did give the E4 another attempt, Two flights in a campaign mode, one [J10] being killed during takeoff and one [J11] after landing.

Hmm well I for one did not die on purpose...

But perhaps a penalty for dying is in order.
Scaled to how long you survived.
Small penalty for dying quickly, Larger penalty for dying later?

All, part 2 will start this coming Saturday. I will be posting more details in a new thread on Wednesday, including revisions to scoring, rules etc, based on what we learned from part 1. I suggest we don't get too bogged down in it though. The main aim is to test our wits with RiR settings and try to stay alive until the end!

Meantime, those interested in signing up for part 2 can do so here....

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeS1SP6wq3OUtRNNp5xOpuPTkuhYxePoQsmNNy8UR5Ir5AVTA/viewform

just your forum name and pilot name for now...


Remember, we are switching sides! Those who flew the Eindecker in part 1 now go to the Bristol Scout, and those who flew the N10 go to the EIV.

H

Vinzenz Korholz is signed up.

crap I forgot my pilot name

Edward Cavendish!

Rank, aerodrome and all the rest to know later?

New thread starting today with rank / sqaudron /field etc...

H