S.E.5a Woes

[J2_Trupobaw]

Quote

Someone with a lesser ride but better tactics can rightfully say he feels having a cmpetitive aircraft over an inept oponent with a higher performing aircraft and vice versa. While wrong on the specs, it can still be the truth. Unless a "fight test quality" report is generated, everything is subject to discussion.

The legend of Fokker Scourge is very good demonstration of that mechanism, several times at once, as facts have been used to misjudge, over or under emphasise plane performance. When the Germans first deployed the Eindeckers (by sending one-two to recon squadrons and saying pilots can fly them outside their normal duties), the Fokkers were taken over by most aggressive, most capable of German pilots. In their hands, Fokker gained reputation of unstoppable killing machine among B.E. crews - and rightly so, as they were flown by very good pilots. Boelcke, for instance, was bounced by young Guynemer flying N.11 over Verdun in spring 1916 while fl;ying an Eindecker - and sent him home wounded. 

When the Eindecker was finally captured intact and flown by British pilot, he discovered it was a completly unremarkable plane. Since then, the Fokker kiler plane reputation has been "disproved" and went down history as hysteria, oblivious to the fact that the "remarkable" part was pilot Germans were entrusting a Fokker with. It was also a limiter of number of Fokkers that could be deployed.

Finally, end of the Fokker Scourge. Thanks to short sided policy of deploying very few Fokkers with best pilots (despite protests of said pilots, who demanded groups of fast biplanes as early as January 1916) Germans were completly unprepared for French deploying tens upon tens (if not hundereds) of Nieuports. N.11 was superior to Eindecker one or one, but what ended Fokker surpremacy at Verdun was numbers beating individual talent. D.H.2 hammered the lesson even deeper - by the time of Battle of Somme British had at least 3 squadrons of these, while Germans had together 30 single seaters in Somme area (with no reinforcements, as everything went for Verdun). The popular history says that B.E.2 was outclassed by Eindecker which was outclassed by N.11 and D.H.2 which were outclassed by Albatrosen until the equilibrium was reached... with numbers and deployment taken into account, it was more like "natural talent of prodigy pilots like Garros or Immelman outclassed two-seater crews, superior deployment of N.11 and D.H.2 squadrons beat the natural talent, while combination of Jastas (equal deployment), Dicta Boelcke (superb tactics) and Albatros planes effectively counrtered Entente squadrons. 

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by J2_Trupobaw

[No.23_Triggers]

4 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Boelcke, for instance, was bounced by young Guynemer flying N.11 over Verdun in spring 1916 while flying an Eindecker - and sent him home wounded. 

Forgot about that. Amazing, really...

[76SQN-FatherTed]

18 hours ago, No56_Waggaz said:

im going to try using the Lewis sight tomorrow 

That'd be interesting to see...assuming your TIR profile even lets you do that?

[OpOctopus]

57 minutes ago, =CfC=FatherTed said:

That'd be interesting to see...assuming your TIR profile even lets you do that?

 

Lshift+C tilts the Lewis gun upward. But I think he meant the Vickers iron sight ?

[No.23_Starling]

51 minutes ago, P-M_Charron said:

 

Lshift+C tilts the Lewis gun upward. But I think he meant the Vickers iron sight ?

Wine might have been involved in that post previously. Flying with the Vickers sight with my head hanging out of the side of the plane like a dog out a window in a moving car made me feel more drunk. 6 kills today (and one insane snipe death from AI force-using 2 seater gunner) with good old Aldis but conversion set at max range. That works fine for me

[SeaW0lf]

It would also be interesting to add the Lewis tilting gun fix into the mix. I don't think they will ever change anything on the SE5a, but if they do, they should fix the Lewis upward angle as well, plus bringing the Lewis down to clear missfires.

[Knarley-Bob]

23 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

It would also be interesting to add the Lewis tilting gun fix into the mix. I don't think they will ever change anything on the SE5a, but if they do, they should fix the Lewis upward angle as well, plus bringing the Lewis down to clear missfires.

I'm happy to see you didn't call it a "jam"?

[DD_Arthur]

5 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Now you are acting on pe-conceived prejudices (pretty dated ones, too). 

 

Do you mean you no longer believe that Germany was the victim of the first world war, surrounded by hostile states and tricked into aggression by the perfidious British?

 

Maurice Baring?  He still goes over your head doesn't he??

 

 Great Britain,  not being a militarised state on the continental model, has never maintained a large standing army outside of wartime since the seventeenth century.  To expand quickly Britain and for that matter the United States, has always had to rely on a band of enthusiastic amateurs.   Sorry about that. 

At the outbreak of war Maurice Baring was a well educated, well connected and well travelled adult male of considerable resource and experience who spoke several languages having lived in France, Germany and Russia.   In the circumstances of September 1914,  making him an intelligence officer to the HQ of a unit moving to France at short notice seems to me a rather good call.

 

 I could try and explain Maurice.  But don't worry, I won't.   Safe to say the amateurs overcame the 'professionals' three times in the course of the twentieth century.

   

If I recall correctly Alan Bott's book was written in 1916 while he was on active duty as an Observer with 70 squadron.       His account is a book of its time written for a contemporary audience - not necessarily a Polish flight sim enthusiast of the early twenty-first century - and is a detailed account of the aerial fighting he witnessed.  I seem to remember his several accounts of emptying the magazine of his Lewis into nearby enemy planes and it having no effect whatsoever!

 

It would be unusual for members of military units on active service to have any real day to day knowledge of or even interest in the activities of other units - even ones in the immediate vicinity and of course I would assume you would realise that it would also be highly unusual for a junior officer of any nation to publish an account containing criticism of military activities during a war?

 

Arthur Gould Lee was a professional officer who wrote his memoirs long after his retirement in the late ninteen-sixties.   A rather different perspective.

 

What makes aircrew accounts so valuable is not the claims of foes shot down during individual combat as these can indeed be often unreliable or even completely apocryphal.  After all, what are we to make of the account of Karl Degelow - the last pilot to be awarded the Blue Max?  His memoir -  written only two years after the end of the war,  yet so confused we now know through modern research into RAF records that he did in fact shoot down several invisible planes in his DVII.   For a variety of self-evident reasons It is obvious that what these men witnessed was often not what actually occured.

 

A situation that I'm sure you'll agree this game is capable of recreating.

 

For the purposes of this thread, what these pilot accounts do give us - which is priceless - is how these aircraft were flown and how they flew in day to day squadron service.  Edwardian design and production techniques as well as materials technology meant each aircraft was effectively a one-off in terms of individual performance.  The repetition of flying day in and day out soon made them experts on what their machines were actually capable of and encounters with the opposition a feel for what their enemies could do against them.

 

 

 

 

 

[ZachariasX]

5 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 I could try and explain Maurice.  But don't worry, I won't. 

Well, if you ever found the nerve to do it anyway, I‘d be happy to listen. His account is very special but for continental folks of today like me not easy to grasp besides factual occurrences. And as you say, what we do have of that is what he witnessed though his own eyes and ears. Some of his antics are funny as I do know some English folks well enough that I can relate some of his jokes (like with him knowing what kind of jam is required for Trenchard etc.) but I doubt I get most of those details. He‘s lacking aunt Violet to make things obvious.

[No.23_Triggers]

.....So, anyway, the S.E.5a's FM.....

[J2_Trupobaw]

... I hear you, Larner.
(That's why devs implemented rules for FM input rather than rely on discussion threads  ).

[76SQN-FatherTed]

19 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Arthur Gould Lee was a professional officer who wrote his memoirs long after his retirement in the late ninteen-sixties.   A rather different perspective.

 

Much of "No Parachute" was excerpts of letters he wrote to his wife at the time and  also diary entries written at the time.  Dismiss it if you wish, but I think it's one of our most reliable accounts.

23 hours ago, No56_Waggaz said:

Wine might have been involved in that post previously.

I guessed as much - just a little banter

[DD_Arthur]

3 hours ago, =CfC=FatherTed said:

Much of "No Parachute" was excerpts of letters he wrote to his wife at the time and  also diary entries written at the time.  Dismiss it if you wish, but I think it's one of our most reliable accounts.

 

Where have I dismissed his opinion? 

I agree, Lee's accounts are worth studying in detail.  It's where you'll discover that RoF's original flight model of the Sopworth Pup was stood on it's head compared to the real aircraft Lee flew.

I merely point out the different circumstances of publication.                                                         

Edited March 31, 2020 by DD_Arthur

[J2_Trupobaw]

I did some introspection to see what gets me personally so riled up. In short, it's the self-congratulating stance, applied to civilisational diseaster that WW1 was for everyone fighting on his own territory. Germans (and presumably French) authors were much less prone about it, as their societies suffered a lot and there was no telling them the war was grand righteous adventure. British authors in general are much more prone to "we won, we were cool" stance, and when I read Barring making notes of himself reading Dante in middle of battle of Somme, or Bott confidently praising trainig in aerobatics RFC pilots received (which was harmful in combat and got pilots overconfident), I get this "are these guys for real?" feeling and cannot see them as credible. Lee fought and lived in the same enviroment, but he did not sugar coat his relations and they come out completly different. And, if author is visibly sugar-coating pilot morale and conditions on the front, why not plane performance?

(The Britons are not only people who piss me off with that. Do not get me started on my own people, who took this stance to much higher (and self destructive) level.

(Finally, British did have military with traditions, professionalism and standards easily matching Prussian Army. It was called Royal Navy, it defeated Germany by strangling her industry until the war become unsustainable, it had, for most of war, a great professional Air Service. I'm real fan of these guys.)

[No.23_Triggers]

44 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

And, if author is visibly sugar-coating pilot morale and conditions on the front, why not plane performance?

Although aware that we have since generally all agreed that pilot accounts are anecdotal evidence when discussing a revised S.E flight model, I'd argue that the opposite is probably true here. If they want to 'make themselves look good' as it were, wouldn't they downplay their machine's abilities in relation to the Bosche ships? 

Edited April 1, 2020 by US93_Larner

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

Probably, Trupo, you can't understand the attitude of those people- because you aren't those people.

 

Can you imagine the Europeans of today fighting a war like WW1?  Static warfare, a reliable burn rate on manpower numbering in the tens of thousands each month?  Kids leaving university to fight on the front?  Not to mention all the other circumstances surrounding the war.

 

These were a different kind of person.

Edited April 1, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[J5_Adam]

1 hour ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

...Can you imagine the Europeans of today fighting a war like WW1?  Static warfare, a reliable burn rate on manpower numbering in the tens of thousands each month?  Kids leaving university to fight on the front?  ....

 

These were a different kind of person.

 

Yup. I agree...

 

[JGr2/J5_Baeumer]

With only a few days before the start of Bloody April, I want to congratulate Larner and the Entente flyers on their masterful psychological propaganda program ahead of the campaign, which has sucked in some notable Central flyers into its very subtle thought processes. 

 

 

[No.23_Gaylion]

I tried warning you guys to stay away from the paint hanger.

[emely]

9 hours ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

 

Can you imagine the Europeans of today fighting a war like WW1?  

...

These were a different kind of person.

People are all different, but they are all the same.  For example - a thin coating of civilization disappears in a person with the spread of panic in the crowd, in any century.  Those who are not able to survive, those who are unlucky, will die, perhaps simply from a lack of food, illness or excessive labor.  Survivors will not write too much about this after the war; these deaths are not heroic.  The dead are silent, and the memoirs are written alive, for example, about how well SE does for Dr1, or the albatross V ?

 

 

[1PL-Lucas-1Esk]

Good flying, Emely! I was in that D.Va

[SeaW0lf]

45 minutes ago, emely said:

The dead are silent, and the memoirs are written alive, for example, about how well SE does for Dr1, or the albatross V

 

Since you brought the tilting Lewis gun, for all accounts this should not happen in a fair game. I know you might not know English very well, but there are topics out there about it, in ROF as well. I've seen videos of people using it in the past, even here in FC.

 

Since we are discussing the FM and flight dynamics, this could get a fix as well due to its historical inaccuracy and effectiveness in dogfights (I tested once in SP and got great results right off the bat), something that apparently did not happen during the war and was vehemently questioned by Alex Revell, who researched the 56th Squadron for years and befriended some of its pilots.

 

The Shuttleworth Foundation also replied regarding the difficulty of holding it half way: “We have no knowledge of the gun being fired in any kind of interim position. The engineer I talked to about this thought that it wouldn't be physically possible to hold the gun one-handed in position and certainly not when being fired (due to the effect of the recoil).” From the tone of the e-mail, these crates were not really safe, and tilting the gun wasn’t safe either, even to reload it.

 

Which comes to the part that it would be impossible to fire the gun and pilot the plane in turnfights at the same time. So I hope that if people are going to come forward with FM changes, they should ask for the dynamics of the Lewis gun to change as well.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Albert Ball definetly claimed to have used that, but his solutions were not easily adapted by other pilots (like Lewis firing downwards through the floor). Like Voss or Fonck, he was talent-based prodigy, not procedure maker like Boelcke or Hawker.
I think operating (firing or reloading) Lewis should be limited to low g-forces / low stick deflection attitudes only. But, since our planes are designed to be explicit ports of RoF content with no improvements, we can dream.

Edited April 1, 2020 by J2_Trupobaw

[emely]

12 minutes ago, 1PL-Lucas-1Esk said:

Good flying, Emely! I was in that D.Va

I know ? You also flew well!  I hope Trupobaw is not too upset that I spent a lot of bullets on his parachute before this collision, because in the end I didn’t have enough of them ?

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

1 hour ago, emely said:

People are all different, but they are all the same.  For example - a thin coating of civilization disappears in a person with the spread of panic in the crowd, in any century.  Those who are not able to survive, those who are unlucky, will die, perhaps simply from a lack of food, illness or excessive labor.  Survivors will not write too much about this after the war; these deaths are not heroic.  The dead are silent, and the memoirs are written alive, for example, about how well SE does for Dr1, or the albatross V ?

 

 

Yesterday had shoot down 5 in one sorite  2x Dr.1 and 3xAlbatri against top notch players , so FC Se5 is not bad plane , it's just different approach to fight which I'm able to switch from Camel. BTW  lol happened in that sortie , after all this great time I went East and landed on enemy airfield ?. I saw some planes landing   there , but was talking and do not realise that they were enemies ,  flak was also not shooting... But other story is that from that day I'm flying Centrals now  

Edited April 1, 2020 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[1PL-Lucas-1Esk]

21 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

Which comes to the part that it would be impossible to fire the gun and pilot the plane in turnfights at the same time. So I hope that if people are going to come forward with FM changes, they should ask for the dynamics of the Lewis gun to change as well.

I will add my two cents: I would be great to have a Lewis reloading process avilable only during the level flight. Red Baron 3D had this enabled. You were not able to reload the drum while performing aerobatics or aggressive  dogfight.

[emely]

24 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

 

Since you brought the tilting Lewis gun, for all accounts this should not happen in a fair game. 

If you make a list of what could not be in real life from what is in the game, then this forum does not have enough pages!  :-)) If you can’t shoot up, then what about reloading the disk?  In the game, you can clearly fix the head opposite the sight, which makes the second element of the sight (mechanical) unnecessary. For example, on the D5 you can use one column on the top of the motor as an aim, this is even more convenient))

As for the possibility of firing a top machine gun when it is deflected.  First: The machine gun descent was controlled remotely.  Did this system stop working when it was rejected?  Second: did the machine gun have a fixed position for installing a new disk, or did you have to hold it with one hand and use the other to perform all actions when reloading?

22 minutes ago, 1PL-Lucas-1Esk said:

I will add my two cents: I would be great to have a Lewis reloading process avilable only during the level flight. Red Baron 3D had this enabled. You were not able to reload the drum while performing aerobatics or aggressive  dogfight.

It is also necessary to limit the ability to cock the bolt when jamming a machine gun on any aircraft.  And in general, for any other actions, in addition to controlling the handle of the aircraft and pedals, restrictions are also needed.  Even the throttle lever cannot be moved if you exit the dive at high speed, since you need two hands on a stick to control.

[SeaW0lf]

40 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Albert Ball definetly claimed to have used that, but his solutions were not easily adapted by other pilots (like Lewis firing downwards through the floor). Like Voss or Fonck, he was talent-based prodigy, not procedure maker like Boelcke or Hawker.
I think operating (firing or reloading) Lewis should be limited to low g-forces / low stick deflection attitudes only. But, since our planes are designed to be explicit ports of RoF content with no improvements, we can dream.

 

I think it was Albert Ball who trimmed his Nieuport to be able to hold the gun with both hands and fire it upwards (or Bishop). Over the years I've been gathering accounts and information about the Lewis gun and if I'm not mistaken I don't recall any of them, Bishop included, saying that they used it in angle or in dogfights especially. I'm not contrary that they could fire it in angle (45 degrees), but in special cases with the plane in level flight or if they let the plane fly by itself momentarily and hold the gun with both hands – perhaps in the zoom maneuvers that they often did with the SE5a, portrayed several times in High in the Empty Blue.

 

To create the 45% angle (which is not correct for reloading by the way) on a pure assumption or based in rare exceptions, when the steep angle of 80 degrees was generally used for both the reloading and shooting upwards, is too farfetched to me and it does not side with the devs mentality that we should bring proof of something for them to implement it in the game.

 

So by all accounts it seems that the gun should be tilted at 80 degrees or so, and ideally locked in turnfights, as suggested by Lucas. The thing is, when people use it in-game, it is a game changer, so that’s something that should be at the top of the fixes list in my opinion.

 

Edit: as a side note, McCudden said it was easier to prop hang with the latest SE5as that to tilt it, and as the book goes and the SE gets upgrades, the accounts of tilting the Lewis get rarer and rarer, meaning that McCudden was probably right and people simply stop using this method, and we do have the lastest SE or something like that.

Edited April 1, 2020 by SeaW0lf

[emely]

13 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

 

To create the 45% angle (which is not correct for reloading by the way) on a pure assumption or based in rare exceptions, when the steep angle of 80 degrees was generally used for both the reloading and shooting upwards, is too farfetched to me and it does not side with the devs mentality that we should bring proof of something for them to implement it in the game.

 

It turns out that the machine gun was fixed at 80 °, and could shoot?  Well then!  This alteration will make our game even more fun ?

[No.23_Gaylion]

Caldwell's views on it: (bottom)

 

 

 

 

Also, I'll speak for the community here and say that we are well aware of your...umm... disdain... for anything angled lewis gun related, SW. ?

 

My seawolf Lewis gun PTSD kicks in EVERY TIME I even think about moving the thing. 

 

I wish we could take it off.

 

I bet had Ball not been the one to tell the designers to add a tiltable Lewis it would have come with dual vickers. 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by US213_Talbot

[emely]

It is not clear where this guy was doing his second hand, maybe he scratches her ass for her?  :-)))

These openings in the arc are probably not only for lightweight construction.  It is very similar to what they are for fixing the mobile support.

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

If it were as effective in real life as it is in these games, it would have been reflected in aircraft development.

[J5_Gamecock]

1 hour ago, US213_Talbot said:

I bet had Ball not been the one to tell the designers to add a tiltable Lewis it would have come with dual vickers. 

Agreed.

 

[ZachariasX]

14 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

If it were as effective in real life as it is in these games, it would have been reflected in aircraft development.

It was effective and it was reflected in aircraft development. The way it was mounted specifically adressed its use as an oblique weapon.

 

The only downside it had, you had to sneak under your oponent somewhat unnoticed in order to have a good aim at him. This precludes the use as such in a high speed dogfight like in late war scenarios that had a lot of planes involved. There speed mattered more than anything.

 

1 hour ago, US213_Talbot said:

I bet had Ball not been the one to tell the designers to add a tiltable Lewis it would have come with dual vickers. 

The oblique use of the gun was for the Entente what the Triplane was for Central. A specialist weapon. As such, it was useful. But not in the hands of John Doe or Hein Blöd. Discounting the flexible mount of the foster mounting is like discounting the Triplane.

 

EDIT: What one clearly sees is the changing nature of dogfight and shows a lot of whisdom from the hindsight. The top wing arrangement allowed a much higher firing rate. hence, in a surprise bounce, it is a better weapon. But once one is discovered this advantage is nullified, especially at the cost of not being able to reload the gun during maneuvering. A comment from 1968 certainly doesn't see things as Ball et. al. would have looked at it in early 1917.

Edited April 1, 2020 by ZachariasX

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

37 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

It was effective and it was reflected in aircraft development. The way it was mounted specifically adressed its use as an oblique weapon.

 

Don't be obtuse.  You know what I'm talking about.  If it were used in the way it is here, you'd have seen it on darn near every aircraft, and you'd have seen it become standard on german scouts too.  We're not talking about sneaking up beneath recons.

Edited April 1, 2020 by J28w-Broccoli

[No.23_Gaylion]

46 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

.A comment from 1968 certainly doesn't see things as Ball et. al. would have looked at it in early 1917.

 

Ummm, not sure what what you're getting at here. Caldwell said he had his lewis removed halfway through 1918. 

[HagarTheHorrible]

If the Lewis, pulled back, is so great, why don't we see it on the Albatros more often ?

[No.23_Triggers]

2 minutes ago, HagarTheHorrible said:

If the Lewis, pulled back, is so great, why don't we see it on the Albatros more often ?

Likely because the Albatros L-gun doesn't shoot directly forwards when it's declined. A better question is why the hell can you put a Lewis gun on an Albatros?! 

Hopefully we'll get this Email sent away to Shuttleworth soon. I'm particularly curious about the acceleration of their S.E. compared to our FC equivalent. 

 

Edited April 1, 2020 by US93_Larner

[ZachariasX]

21 minutes ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

If it were used in the way it is here, you'd have seen it on darn near every aircraft,

I guess many weapons are used in game in a way that would not be suitable in reality back then. This mostly due to pilots happily entering situations that would be avoided.

 

The foster mount existed and was in widespread use and it was designed such for precisely the way it is frowned about in the sim, namely allwoing to shoot upwards. We are using it differently here, especially due to the fact that the game allows for reloading the gun during maneuvering. A weapon is no good if you can't make use of it. We can use the tilt guns much better the way they are implemented here, same as it is FAR easier to manage your engine etc. many things are FAR easier in the game than in reality back then.

 

Of course, the twin synchronized gun are more suitable for fighter combat in 1918. Yet, there is also much later good use for schräge Musik, an increadible successful arrangement for its purpose. In the game, we just have an environment that makes schräge Musik a great solution against fighters, which I doubt would be the case in real life, as you cannot conveniently aim in such a real aircraft as you can in the game.

 

In the beginning, Garros shot downward (and to the side), then (literally) throgh the propeller. After that came the "pop - pop device" in the Pup, where in contrast a fast firing Lewis mounted on the top wing has considerable charm, despite idiotic an reloading and clearing procedure. Later on, the Lewis gin up there became certainly inferior in general use to the Vickers or the Spandaus. The you remove it:

 

There was purpose for that arrangement and

23 minutes ago, US213_Talbot said:

Caldwell said he had his lewis removed halfway through 1918. 

it was removed when there was obviously no more purpose for it due to change in the airwar and new technology becoming available.

 

In the game, we are certainly not behaving like we would up there semi suffocated in the cold with just one frag to give. Besides, even the Vickers gun in the real SE5a has an upward tilt (that it shares with the foster monted Lewis). Just less so. One of several aircraft that have the guns pointed slightly upward.

 

Yes, I know what you mean. But if you care thinking it through, it's just not that simple. Having guns pointed upwards to some degree, depending on purpose was and always is effective and we see it in most aircraft (some point gind downward, like the A-10). It is effective having guns like that, the catch is can you make use from it. On an SE5a in 1918, probably hardly anyone could make use of it. But we can. Here we can. Yes. Bad. But as said, not the only aspect where the game is permissive for alternate use.

[Cynic_Al]

1 hour ago, J28w-Broccoli said:

If it were as effective in real life as it is in these games, it would have been reflected in aircraft development.

 

It was; in WW2 German night fighters used elevated guns.