1.1 Pilot armor in allied aircraft (WWIIOL v.1.66)
(August 9th, 2002)

The Hawk-75 had no pilot armour from the factory and no armoured windscreen. Pilots were very disturbed by this, and although a lot of "paperwork" was created by various concerned parties in order to drive a solution to the issue, nothing was ever done about it before France surrendered.

We are looking at what we are going to do given that France will still be fighting (it seems likely so far) after the point that they surrendered in real life. We think we'll have a viable and "believable" solution, more news on that when the time comes. We are certainly aware of how WWIIOL strays from a more historical starting poise and into unchartered waters (historically speaking) and we are devising solutions to this dilemma that aren't corny or beyond reasonable extrapolation. This is a very delicate issue and we are not going to rush into it's solution without a mountain of cross-checking for every possible hole or problem that any possible solution may raise or that we can anticipated.

The Hurricane Ia had armour in the bulkhead, in front of the pilot but behind the glycol tank (that was a "d'oh!" from the guys at Hawker..) and in front of the windshield (armoured glass) ... but none behind the pilot until after the Battle of Britain was underway. BoB experience drove the decision to retrofit backplate armour to pilots seats during that period. We just did a small audit and checked all of this over again. Even Spitfire-I's of this period lacked pilot armour in the seatback or behind the pilots head. During the BoB they too were retrofitted as a response to the loss of pilots in armoured fighters over Britain.

The Hurricane IIa, IIb and IIc all came equipped with backplate armour for the pilot and will be modeled as such when they arrive in WWIIOL. The IIc also has armour along the wing main spar to protect the 20mm cannons and their ammo drums to some extent.

The Bf-109E3 and E4 were all equipped with rear armour for the pilots in addition to armoured glass for the windsheild.

As far as I am aware, Bf-110C4's had no protective armour, and my experience in game says DON'T GET SHOT AT because of this. B]

Later model Bf-110's did get headplate armour similar to that fitted to the current Bf-109 but it didn't curve over the top of the back of the pilots head and was completely flat in profile.

We no longer respond to claims of our being biased to one side or the other because it serves no purpose and is ridiculous in the extreme. People believe what they want to, the facts behind why and what we do rarely seem to be what they are interested in.

Geof Evans
Producer/CRS
Editor/World@War-Gazette
Playnet, Inc.
"Everything else is just a game!"

1.2 Ireg on Ammo used by allied aircraft (WWIIOL v.1.66)
(August 9th, 2002)

Hi!

The currently modeled .303 plane gun ammo loadout is 100% AP ammo with and without tracer. They have no ball ammo at all regarding penetration ability.

The .303 AP ammo could penetrate about 2.5 mm of RHA armor in 1.5 m distance after penetrating the 3 mm thick Duralminium fuselage. This on 100 m distance and 90 degree hit angle.

Hope this helps.

1.3 DocDoom on Modelling aircraft (WWIIOL v.1.66)
(August 9th, 2002)

Take each one of the planes up, and fly out over the ocean at sea level. After you have trimmed level, flying straight (no side slip or yaw) look down and see what speed your airspeed indicator is registering (0 or Ins key on your numpad) ... this is your IAS and since you are at sea level, it will also be your TAS unlike at altitude where you have to calculate the relative conversion differential.

Those are the values that we are using for each aircraft, what it can do in the virtual air. We do not base the flight model on look up tables where we can type in a top speed at sea level and the plane will do it. We built an atmosphere, a 3D plane to fly through it, with an engine (thrust) propellor ... drag ... wings and lift points, airfoil profile ... etc. etc. (just like the film said) and there it is. The fact that after windtunnel testing they fly 98% according to the real war test data we have here (most of it is de-classified military, ie: at one time secret and not "Janes WWII Planes") and follow the dogplot graphs almost perfectly ... satisfies us for the time being.

But to answer your question in summary.

We didn't use ANY "top speed values at sea level" to make the model.

[i]We built the models, and what they do is the value they have. Yes, it matches the data we have, but we didn't use the top speeds at sea level (within a variable that is realistic, two identical planes could vary as much as 5 -> 15mph) to build them, only to VERIFY them.[/]

So, since they verified to our data, what they do in game is what the data we have says they should. If they did not, the error is hunted down and killed, and then they do perform "verified".

So, take them up in game, each of them, as explained at the start of this reply. What you can coax them to do, if you get the maximum out of them (not guarrenteed, I constsantly have people telling me to slow down so they can catch up, in the same aircraft type ... pilot errors make huge differances in the game oh yes they do... what you can get out of these WWIIOL models IS the data we have, because they DO what our data states in the game world.

Yes, we have answered the question, just not where you expected to see it, in typed font on this page. The answer is in the planes you are flying in the game.

Geof Evans
Producer/CRS
Editor/World@War-Gazette
Playnet, Inc.
"Everything else is just a game!"