homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Deep Immersion DiD campaign -- Player Instructions (UPDATED 28 Nov 2018)

Raine quote: HarryH, the stutter wars are threatened to outdo the Great War. Good luck with PE. Are you enjoying it?

Great episode, Raine, welcome back to France! I am enjoying the look and feel of Platinum immensely. Currently I'm testing Panama Red's revised BT mods for same, and still tweaking, but really getting super performance from it now. As for the stutter wars, we've called a truce. Besides, Hadn't you heard? It's the Hiccup wars now . Seriously, stutters are pretty much a thing of the past for me now. I'm just not seeing them at all, hooray! What I do get is the very occasional (i.e. one in every 15 to 20 minutes) single, momentary pause (hence the description "hiccup"). Clouds still pop, but quite a bit less than with UE.... and those hideous flickering cloud edges are completely GONE!!! So cool

Fullofit: another fine bit of flying. Good work!



Vizfeldwebel Lazlo Halász,

Jasta 1, Bertincourt, France
October 5th-9th 1916

Jasta 1 had been slow to heal after numerous losses, mostly due to faulty engines. They were starting to receive replacement machines in the form of the DIII variant, but just when they thought their bad fortune was receding, Lazlo's latest wingman went down in flames, just as they were arriving back over Bertincourt field. It didn't seem to matter which Halberstadt, the engines were unreliable in them all. Furthermore, rain had arrived in force, and complete days had been lost to poor weather. This wasn't all bad news, however. Apparently the dreadful flooding on the ground had slowed the enemy's advance and German troops were recovering to hold their positions, as the battle of the Somme continued on.

Late on the afternoon of October 5th, Lazlo was summoned to the office. Zander welcomed him in and asked him to take a seat.

"Lazlo, dear fellow. We've seen your confidence grow over the past several weeks. I'd like you to go up and have a look around west of Bapaume. We've had some reports of those FE2B machines annoying our men around Delville 
Wood, probably they are using 
Bellevue as their base of operations. Don't go over the lines, just loiter on our side for an hour or so, got it?" Zander looked up at Lazlo expectantly.

"Oh, er, jah, of courses", Lazlo paused for a moment. "But you are wanting me to be on my selfses? No one else going?".

"Correct, Lazlo. It's called a 'Lone Wolf'* assignment. I don't want to frighten the FE2s away with a lot of noise. Just yourself on this one". Zander tried to give him an encouraging smile, but he could tell that Lazlo was less than keen. Still, he knew the man would comply. Lazlo saluted, exited the office and wandered back to his hut to get changed into his flying gear.

The rain drove hard into his face as Lazlo circled aroundthe outskirts of the city. He was at 2,000 meters or thereabouts. He didn't see anything and eventually returned to Bertincourt. The following day Kette zwei went up for a patrol of their own lines. The rain had stopped but the skies were filled with thick, grey clouds. Visibility was poor and their machines were constantly buffeted by the gusty wind. As they returned home, Zander, who was leading the patrol, suddenly set off westward, obviously chasing something. Lazlo had seen distant AA fire somewhere near Harvincourt Wood, so he deduced that this might have been the enemy machine that Zander was now pursuing toward Bapaume. He decided to follow. After a long chase, they finally caught the machine just as it was preparing to land at Bellevue It was one of those FE2Bs that Zander had sent him off to look for the day before. Lazlo only managed to squeeze off four bullets before taking fire himself and deciding to leave this fellow to his business. He'd lost sight of Zander and didn't want to risk any sort of forced landing due to damage, so he turned for home. Back at the hangars the mechanics told him he'd been lucky. the fuel tank had been hit and had started to leak. They would need to patch weld, but he'd have it ready for tomorrow.

On the 7th, Zander asked Lazlo to fly solo once again.

"They are still around, Lazlo, those annoying FE2Bs. Try again to find one, would you?" Lazlo set off alone once more. He'd barely reached 1,000 meters when suddenly he was attacked by a silver Nieuport. Luckily he was alert and avoided the initial attack, soon managing to turn and pursue this foolhardy foe. Growling through his red beard, Lazlo turned and twisted his machine, but just as quickly as it had arrived, it disappeared! Lazlo, fuming, decided to head back to his field and circle for a while until things seemed safe. Eventually he set off for Bapaume. After a further 3o minutes or so, Lazlo once again encountered the Frenchman. At least, it seemed to be the same machine. More antics as the silver craft twisted and turned, almost as if inviting Lazlo to attack, trying to draw him down low to the ground. Lazlo snarled, refusing to take the bait. Suddenly, the Nieuport took off, just like that, heading west. Lazlo thought there was no point in chasing. He'd never catch it. He headed home, getting lost on the way, finally landing his machine at Pronville. Solo flying wasn't proving to be that easy!

By the 8th the weather had improved. Lazlo thought to himself that the troops on the front lines better have dug themselves in well, for there was sure to be a renewed push by the French, now that the rain had stopped. Flying weather was perfect, with clear blue skies and excellent visibility. On the 9th, kette zwei was dispatched to deal with another troublesome observation balloon west of Albert. They went deep into enemy territory for this one. Upon finally arriving at the target, Lazlo watched as Leffers and Diemer made an unsuccessful pass at the giant gas bag. To his great surprise they didn't appear to have an appetite to try again, despite there being minimal AA fire from below. Fools, thought Lazlo to himself. He decided to take a crack at it himself. Making a tight turn to his left, Lazlo brought his DIII around and lined up perfectly on the balloon. He loosed several salvos as he approached and was delighted to see the telling sign of grey smoke escaping. The balloon exploded as he passed over the top, sending a warm waft of air over Lazlo's machine. He quickly turned for home and spotted Von Keudell not to far off in front. He decided to name Von Keudell in his claim when he got back. Now all he could do was wait and see what high command decided.

On the 9th a routine patrol of enemy lines saw an encounter with three Nieuports which were milling about low over Bapaume. Lazlo stayed above, waiting for one of the machines to come up and engage. but they never did! Meantime his flight mates had disappeared. Lazlo continued the patrol on his own, eventually returning to Bertincourt. On the way back he suffered yet another engine problem. This time he suspected a hose had detached itself somewhere from the cooling system. He was able to dead-stick onto his field, just about avoiding a nasty stall in the process. His flight mates were already back and safe.



To be continued......

*platinum edition has introduced two new mission types to career mode: Lone Wolf and Scramble. I'm seeing these a little to frequently for my taste so I'm going to skip most of them from here on out. I'm also seeing some weird AI behavior in PE. These Nieuports that buzz around low to the ground, refusing to to come up and engage. Maybe that's a "tactic" but I never encountered anything like it with UE. Hopefully there'll be a patch at some point that addresses things.

Northern California is entering fire season and PG&E is shutting our power off today, maybe for as long as a week!!! Be safe up there and I'll get back with Lazlo when I can. I'll leave you with this assortment of videos from the stories above