Up in the air - the prequel

 Richard took us back to 1916, with some older and more awkward planes. We had seven players, three Germans and four Brits, with four in the room and three online. Richard thought the German planes were too good, so evened it up by giving the British an extra plane. He also started us on the ground, so we needed to get up there and climb, whilst the Brits circled, waiting for us.


Look! There's our aerodrome.


Soon we're all whizzing around, circling each other. I got hit whilst climbing, and with the Brits on the inside track it was going to be a challenge closing. Plus they're all two seaters, so they fire fore and aft.


We soon got amongst them. We didn't have much luck with the firing both ways. I took several hits, all on the same parts, so that increases the chances of a catastrophic failure. My return fire hit a lot of things, but scattered all over the place (I'm the one with the white tail fin. Should have had Phil's pusher dead to rights but barely scratched the paint work).

Eventually I ran out of ammo, and with hits continuing to mount in the same place, I returned to base, although I overshot the runaway and ended up in a field. Soon my two companions made similar decisions, so the Brits claimed to have forced us all down, although no planes were destroyed and no pilots were killed.

Richard was happier with the game balance (!) than the previous 1916 game that I missed, as that had even numbers and saw all the Brits shot down in flames. I think that being outnumbered and having to take off probably stacked the deck too much the other way. We'll see what Richard thinks.

We have more games to come.


Comments

  1. Eighteen turns climbing and turning right ... Sigh. Herr Hauptman von Sneckeneichener in his blue-tailed "Der blaue Swanz" is even flying one handed and indicating right!

    Regards, Chris.

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    1. For every season turn, turn, turn. And turn again.

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  2. 1916 is a different ball game entirely. Much less manoeuvreability, except for the Nieuport 11 and Bristol Scout, with lower robustness. Good fun though.

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    1. Phil had a pusher that could turn on a sixpence. Got it lined up a couple of times and just couldn't hit it.

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  3. I've just finished a biography of Mick Mannock, which is quite specific about how "scoring" was much vaguer in WWI than in WWII - pilots would actually claim kills for planes forced down or "out of control" which would have been no more than probables two decades later. And some of the British pilots in particular had suspiciously high scores because they flew alone and got to certify their own kills. Apparently, the Germans also recorded aircrew casualties, but not lost aircraft or even which planes their pilots had been flying, so looking at their records postwar didn't help much.

    Of course, if the plane you'd forced to land flipped over in a shellhole as it did, you'd claim it.

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    1. I think we all know it wasn't precise at the time, and Richard is following that honourable tradition.

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