Zeppelin really in FC?

[Monostripezebra]

5 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Zeppelins are naval asset that make even less sense over the Front than Felixstowe or Brandemburg did.

 

I think you are slightly mistaken here.. Not only the Marine had airships, but also the Heer. While the Heeresluftschiffe where kinda forbidden to go to Britain after the first firey loss.. they actually carried out some operations in france. But the Heer desolved their Airship corps  upto mid-late 1917 after having decided on getting rid of airships in march.

 

The first recorded kill on a zeppelin was over Gent, I think.

 

As late as 1917 airships where over the western front, albeit compared to aircraft, airships have very very low sortie numbers owing to their complicated operation... most flew very few missions in their whole career (like from 1-20ish low)

 

It is not that Zeppelins over the western front (crossing) did not happen, it is just it was rather rare.. as overall airship sorties

are like really really low.. compared to the effort that went in. Aircraft proved to be very very much more effiecient for most uses except very few..  By early 1917 the volume of airplane dropped bombs was on par with those by previously dropped by airship.

 

Even the most successfull airship LZ 46 (L7) only flew 17 attack missions and 42 recon missions.

 

One of the few remaing uses was longrange use which also features the interesting titbit of an airship designed to support the colonial troops (which returned mid flight) and even flying a diplomatic delegation to Sofia. But even the Marine significantly reduced airships early to mid 1917, their time was just up.

 

In 1918 the airships were Marine only and some 1200 recon sorties were flown with only 300ish attacks against Britain.. so Trupo is correct for 1918 when he says it was a naval asset, but in 1916 and to some degree 1917 airships actually operated crossing the western front. 

 

In the very early war, 1914, some where even lost in direct front use by infantry fire

 

 

Some random losses on the western fronish side:

LZ 95 was stranded near Namur in Janurary 1916 (after groundfire damage)

L 45 was lost in 1917 in Sisteron, france

L44 (Marine airship..was lost on return from Britain near the westernfront, Luneville 1917

L 49 surrendered to aircraft after tracer fire near Bourbonne les Bains

Edited May 13, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[BMA_Hellbender]

I don't care that much about Zeppelins, but I admit that having them as (non-flyable) peculiarities would add a lot of WWI flair to the sim. Same as the bombers we're getting.

[LukeFF]

6 hours ago, Avimimus said:

I suppose that would be very desirable if the Zeppelin was playable.

 

However, given the long endurance of Zeppelins relative to intercepting Scouts... a player intercepting an AI Zeppelin would only see a small part of its mission - so it should probably be spawned prior to the player taking off (and probably still be there when the player lands assuming it survives). It would move, of course, but not conduct its entire sortie during the player's sortie.

 

As a result I view them more like ships... airships if you will... and we don't require that all AI ships modelled in the game also have their home ports modelled - if that makes sense?

 

As AI-only assets, sure. The point I was trying to make is that if they were to be made player-controllable, you gotta have a historically valid map location for them to operate from.

[Avimimus]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

As AI-only assets, sure. The point I was trying to make is that if they were to be made player-controllable, you gotta have a historically valid map location for them to operate from.

 

Yes, if one doesn't like air-starts anyway. I get your point. I think the other thing needed would be a lot of patience... people complain about the length of a TB-3 sortie... imagine some of the longer Zeppelin ones! I suppose it could work well though, if they were able to code in a time-skip function?

[J2_Trupobaw]

15 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

 

I think you are slightly mistaken here.. Not only the Marine had airships, but also the Heer. While the Heeresluftschiffe where kinda forbidden to go to Britain after the first firey loss.. they actually carried out some operations in france. But the Heer desolved their Airship corps  upto mid-late 1917 after having decided on getting rid of airships in march.

The first recorded kill on a zeppelin was over Gent, I think.

 

[...]

 

In 1918 the airships were Marine only and some 1200 recon sorties were flown with only 300ish attacks against Britain

.. so Trupo is correct for 1918 when he says it was a naval asset, but in 1916 and to some degree 1917 airships actually operated crossing the western front. 

 

 

Well, the FC scope is 1918. RoF scope was late 1916 - 1918. Even with FC3, the overlap with airship operations over the Front will be minimal. 

The sort-of related question (which I doubt even 1CGS knows answer to yet) is whether we are getting the Belgian coast when the FC1 map is expanded to the north. It is visible outside the active FC1 area, all right, and the RoF map that FC is going to reproduce went all they way to the Bray Dunes airfield on the coast. 

 

[RNAS10_Oliver]

2 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Well, the FC scope is 1918. RoF scope was late 1916 - 1918. Even with FC3, the overlap with airship operations over the Front will be minimal. 

The sort-of related question (which I doubt even 1CGS knows answer to yet) is whether we are getting the Belgian coast when the FC1 map is expanded to the north. It is visible outside the active FC1 area, all right, and the RoF map that FC is going to reproduce went all they way to the Bray Dunes airfield on the coast. 

 

 

I believe both us and them do know the answer to that (unless plans change) as they have shown the planned area before;

 

Quote

The map we will build for FC2 will be much larger than our FC1 map and will aim to re-create the huge Western Front battlefield we created in our original WWI title – Rise of Flight. Of course, this map will use our latest map technologies which is currently showcased in our Arras map of Flying Circus: Volume I. This new map will be built in two phases. Phase I which is the Arras Map, was the testbed for making a WWI map in the Sturmovik engine and has been completed. Phases II and III will expand that work to eventually, over two product dev cycles, complete the map. We plan to make multiple seasons for this map to allow maximum opportunities to fly in various weather conditions. Also, once the larger map is completed, we plan to offer it to FC1 users. 

 

We have designed each map phase to match the plane-set for each volume and the battles those planes participated in. By time FC3 is complete, the map itself will be whole and an amazing canvas to fly and fight over.   

 

 

[J2_Trupobaw]

The planned area actually has (geographically) sea in upper left corner. It was never shown in RoF, but the map ended just short of Dunkirk and was covered by sea further to the east.

The non-flyable parts of FC1 map already include the coast, the Channel, and even England - you can see it if you climb high enough. With the expansion we will be clearly seeing Dunkirk, Nieupoort and Ostend just like we see Ypres area now. The question is, what part of it will become flyable on expansion. Will the turnback message pop over coast, or at Bray Dunes latitude (which would allow operations over that tiny part of sea), or further north?. This would include / exclude  BMA, Marine-Fliegerabteilung, most of RNAS and Jasta 7. 

I don't think they have the ultimate answer to that question yet, it's matter of how much they can implement. We will see. 

Edited May 14, 2021 by J2_Trupobaw

[Monostripezebra]

7 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Well, the FC scope is 1918. RoF scope was late 1916 - 1918. Even with FC3, the overlap with airship operations over the Front will be minimal.

 

Yeah, I also feel like FC would be the wrong scope for Zeppelins, I much rather see a more dense and comprehensive 1918.. that would make much more sense gameplaywise.

 

But that said, some form someday of an early WW1 sim with airships would be something I would love.. you even if it was for landing on top. XD

[01Wingchaps]

20 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

But that said, some form someday of an early WW1 sim with airships would be something I would love.. you even if it was for landing on top. XD

My eyes... they burn...