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My Initial Experiences...

M

Militant_Danny

Guest
Ah... I finally make it to the front (P3 Arrives). Our Halberstadt's all lined up, motors turning. Two Albatros D.II's are in the mix, aces of which names have escaped me. It is definitely something taking off as a flight, together. I begin climbing before I realize that my machine is at a much greater rate of climb than my flight leader, I should probably lower the nose and stick close to him; after all, I am the new guy. So I nose it over and put the throttle in, closing the gap. Unfortunately I closed it too fast and close, resulting in the tip of my wing clipping his left wing.

CRUNCH! "Right wing lightly damaged"..... Hmmmm…. This is a problem. If lightly damaged equals a huge hole in both wings (with similar damage to his left wings), then I'd hate to see severe.

My machine pitches to the right heavily as I apply full left aileron in an attempt to keep it level. Only slightly, with full power, does the machine begin to bank back. Immediately I begin the slow turn back to the aerodrome, as the flight leader does the same in the opposite direction. Keeping full power in I am able to make a power-on landing, carefully settling it on the landing gear. Landing complete and alive in one piece, I quickly try and assemble an excuse as the Jasta XO makes his way towards my crate with a less than enthusiastic look on his face. The flight leader survives, last I see is him forcing into an open field approximately 2km from the field. Awesome start to my air-combat career.

2nd mission - Balloon Defense

Success! I was able to take off AND fly with my flight leader without incident! Now onto the task at hand. We arrive in the vicinity of the balloon in need of defending, somewheres about 5km south of Douai and 3km northwest of Cambrai, and begin our slow overwatch pattern. All the time I'm scanning the area of the front in the distance. On a whim I happen to look to the east and notice a faint speck above the horizon. Upon closer inspection, I see a total of two specks, gradually getting larger... DH2's closing in on our balloon. I try signaling the flight, no one's looking. It appears I've become the step-child no one wants of the Jasta. So be it, its redemption time. As I line my machine up on the closing English their guns begin chattering towards the balloon. They are doing their own mission! Awesome! Even cooler, and more to my delight, the infantry units and anti-aircraft guns below begin to train in on them. In a matter of seconds, as I line up on the leader for an front-left closing shot, I perceive several ground-small arms fire hits on his wingman, causing him to veer slightly towards me, with the culmination of a flak burst completely exploding his machine into a falling collage of canvas and flames. Awesome. Just before his machine explodes, I caught a glimpse of our balloon bursting into flames. I immediately turn onto the seemingly pleased Englishman’s tail, his jubilant attitude is short lived however, as my bullets begin pounding his rotary pusher engine without mercy. Smoke begins billowing and without power he is forced down into a set of trees, just short of a potential force landing zone. With no view of my flight leader or fellow mates, I turned for home.

I’m really liking the overall more refined feel of P3. The only thing that is a little odd, is that the AI in terms of dog fighting doesn’t seem to want to engage as much as I was expecting. They do however perform more violent maneuvers, but in terms of getting on and sticking to my tail I have yet to have trouble with any of them. Realism is at 80, with realistic flight controls. Perhaps I've only come across rookies, alas my pilot only lasted 4 missions before I burned him in trying to land too close to the hangers.....missed the hangers.... hit the trees. DOH!!!

Wonderful job so far, this is going to really compete with my online school time hahaha Thanks for a great product!!

I dunno if it helps but I seem to get a higher number next to claims by writing a paragraph detailing who, what, where, when and how including ammunition expenditures into each craft, causes of the enemy craft's demise (engine failure, stalling, control surfaces lost), and location of his wreckage .... granted my guy didn’t live long enough to get the confirmations, but there was a higher number next to the claims with better information, as opposed to those with less info, in my logbooks. Maybe that will help some of you all?
 
Good work on landing in your first mission....but I have to ask....was your leader Bolecke?
 
Yes, but he was the other flight leader, not mine. Mine was Gottfried Schlag, just some random AI guy.... I believe Immelmann was in Bolecke's little 4 plane flight as well. There are ALOT of aces I've never heard of in this, wow. It's no joke, you guys did your research!!!
 
Haha! Exactly what came to my mind cpirrmann. Really good write-up Danny.I was right there with your desciptions.
 
Yes, but he was the other flight leader, not mine. Mine was Gottfried Schlag, just some random AI guy.... I believe Immelmann was in Bolecke's little 4 plane flight as well. There are ALOT of aces I've never heard of in this, wow. It's no joke, you guys did your research!!!

LOL!!

Good point. It's nice to see someone notice the GERMAN side of things in this game. :)

Trust me, in 1917, when the Albs take flight, your going to see a lot of color in the sky. More than anything you've ever seen before. Bold statement, I know, but 100% true.

All the best,

OvS
 
haha 1917 eh? Awesome, I think that's where my next pilot (or victim, which ever way you look at it) will start his little career. I need to stop naming him my real name so I can post it rather than saying "him" or my guy. My names about as stereotypically German as they get too, so its a shame I have to hide it.

Alright, time to log back on and join a techni-colored Jasta......
 
I've been flying for the Huns since Olham recruited me. I know what you are saying about the AI, I was expecting to get shot to pieces by 3 SE5 Vipers, but was able to take them all out one at a time. I'm currently flying as Otto Noebetter and trying to live up to the name.....:rapture:
 
I take back what I said about the AI not wanting to engage. First mission with the new Albatros D.III Early... a scramble.... 6 or 7 took off and directly above us I watched 8 Sopwith Triplanes come down and make swiss cheese of all of us. I got on one's tail and before I could put a good burst in him I had some Englishman on my tail dancing around, killing my engine with glee. Luckily I was able to make a forced landing OK, the whole way him and his buddies tearing me apart. I was lucky to have retained my control surfaces.

Tried a British SE5a compaign, came across a group of Dr.I's. We had the advantage, behind them and when they broke.... holy cow, those dudes were zipping around all over the place, you had to work to get in shots. I was able to get one, before having a mid-air with another.... Ah the classic wing tip scrape and had to crashland at a local aerodrome, resulting in 13 days in the hospital, power-on landing to keep it level resulted in a ground-loop I couldnt prevent as soon as it slowed down. DOH!
 
Well, I think I'll call it a night..... I had my fun... check out the attachment, its not good when you see that on your six.

We were escorting some bombers and at about 2 o'clock high the flight leader saw some Dr.1's, so we turned to engage, and wouldn't you know it? A red triplane with a whole slew of other badasses..... My wings were almost instantly shredded, making turning impossible, so I disengaged and ran for the lines. Well guess who chased me, yeah.... "him" and his wingman (another ace I didn't recognize Rothecaw or Fathraw or something). So I get over friendly lines, the engine is still good, and I had to tempt fate. An SE5 ahead of me appeared and I seemed to have gotten his attention, and he dove in on the wingman. For the next 10 minutes I traded shots with "him", landing some good ones but nothing as sweet as a little black trail of smoke, I could have only hoped. After about 10 minutes of low-level trying anything to make my less-manuaverable SE5a to get shots, his wingman made mincemeat of my distracting comrade and focused on me. It was too much, the first burst of fire put my engine into a sputtering fit and I had to put her down in what looked like a wheat field while the red triplane circled around.

My guy lived with no injuries, so I guess I'm lucky. With that I'm off to bed, a $59.00 well spent!
 
Love the combat reports Militant_Danny! Good to see MvR and his boys are up to tricks.
Thanks for posting them.
 
Danny,

By my count, you only have one or two more kills until you're an enemy ace!

S/F
Jarhead
 
Very good writing style Danny. Thanks for sharing. Your report gave me a heads up about being jumped at take off. I was ready for the hun bastids.
 
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