Gamer History - Battlefield 1's Rumpler C.I

We conclude our series of Battlefield 1’s aircraft with the second and final German two-seater, the Rumpler C.I. First introduced in 1915, the C.I served all the way to the end of the war, first as an observer and bomber, then later as a trainer.

Rumpler C.I. Source

Powered by a 160hp Mercedes D.III water-cooled six-cylinder inline engine, the C.I could manage a top speed of 94mph. Early versions carried only a single defensive machine-gun in the rear cockpit, while later combat versions added a forward fixed gun for the pilot, and provision for 100kg of bombs to be carried under the wings. The trainer version of the C.I dispensed with the rear machine-gun all together, and were powered by a 150hp Benz Bz.III engine instead.

In its operational career, the Rumpler distinguished itself primarily in its trainer role. A solid, docile flier, it proved an ideal mount for fledgling pilots learning the basics of flight. At the end of the war, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Latvia utilized the aircraft as well.

Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any surviving C.Is, nor any specific kits designed to replicate them. It does seem like one of Airdrome Aeroplanes two seat kits could be cosmetically adapted to fit the role, but much more is probably pushing it.

Aircraft of Battlefield 1 Hub

Bombers - Caproni Ca.3 & Gotha G.IV

 

Replica Ca.3 in flight. Photo from Warbird News

Fokker DR.I

Photo credit Fokkerdr1.com

Sopwith Camel

Photo credit wikipedia.

SPAD S.XIII

 

Photo via www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

Albatros D.III

 

Bristol F.2B Fighter

Photo credit: Canada Air and Space Museum

Halberstadt CL.II

Photo via the Polish Aviation Museum

Salmson 2-A2

Lineup of Salmson 2-A2s. Photo via Wingnutwings.com

  Rumpler C.I

Rumpler C.I. Source

Gamer History - Battlefield 1's Salmson 2-A2

Gamer History – Battlefield 1’s Salmson 2-A2 With the Albatros D.III wrapping up our exploration of Battlefield 1’s fighters, we return to the two-seat attack category aircraft.

Lineup of Salmson 2-A2s. Photo via Wingnutwings.com

 While the Bristol F.2B Fighter is the clear star of the Allied side, there is still a second fighter. The Salmson 2-A2 was not an aircraft I’d heard of before. Sometimes referred to in BF1’s game materials as the “A.E.F. 2-A2”, with “A.E.F.” standing for “American Expeditionary Forces” the Salmsom 2 was the primary reconnaissance aircraft operated by American and French forces in the final two years of World War 1.

Salmson 2-A2 crew? The rear gunner's twin mounted machine guns are clearly visible. Photo via Wingnutwings.com

Powered by a 230hp Salmson 9Za radial engine, the Salmson 2 had a top speed of around 116 mph. Typical for the time, it carried a single fixed forward .303 machine gun, with the rear gunner having a pair of .303 guns for defensive purposes.

Similarly to the Bristol F.2B, the Salmson 2 also had a good post war career. Built under license by Kawasaki, it equipped several squadrons of the Japanese Air Force during the 1920s. Converted to carry one or two passengers, they served in Europe as some of the early commercial passenger carriers.

One original example remains, housed at Kakamigahara Aerospace Museum in Japan. As lesser-known, two-seat WWI replicas aren’t especially popular to build, there aren’t any easily available plans or kits for flying replicas. Plans for the Sopwith 1 ½ Stutter could perhaps be adapted, cosmetically at least, to fit the bill, but that’s a project for someone far more skilled than I am.

Gamer History: Battlefield 1's SPAD S.XIII

Continuing the occasional series o

n the aircraft of Battlefield 1, we come back to the other Allied fighter available in the game, the SPAD S.XIII. Introduced in 1917, the SPAD S.XIII was one of the most built aircraft of the war, and was equipped by French, American, and a variety of other forces.

Photo via www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

In America, the S.XIII is best known as being the preferred aircraft of the 94^th Aero Squadron, and the aircraft in which top American aces Eddie Rickenbacker and Frank Luke scored the majority of their kills.

SPAD is short for Société Pour l’Aviation et ses Dérivés, a French aircraft manufacturer from 1911 to 1921. The S.XIII was its most successful design. Armed with two .303 Vickers machine guns, and powered by a 220hp Hispano-Suiza V8 engine, the SPAD S.XIII was known for its speed and durability. Faster and more powerful than the Sopwith Camel, and Fokker DR.I, the S.XIII was well suited to boom and zoom style attacks, rather than getting mixed up in turning fights with more maneuverable enemies.

 

 

SPAD S.XIII replica at the Seattle Museum of Flight. Photo credit: Seattle Museum of Flight

 Several examples of the SPAD S.XIII remain and are displayed in various museums in Belgium, France, and the United States. A number of other museums have replica variants. There are no known original flying examples, although a number of flying replicas exist. 

Loehle Aircraft offers an 80% scale ultralight kit that can be built to resemble a SPAD S.XIII, Fokker D-VIII, or SE5A depending on preference. For a more historically accurate build, Replicraft offers 1/5 scale plans that have been successfully scaled up into full-size, flying replica aircraft.

History for Gamers: Battlefield 1's Bristol F.2B Fighter

After briefly examining Battlefield 1’s choices for bombers in the previous installment, today we turn our eye to the star of one of the single-player War Stories, and the Allied Powers primary Ground Attack aircraft, the Bristol F.2B Fighter, or “Brisfit.”

Photo credit: Canada Air and Space Museum

First flown in September 1916, as the F.2A type powered by a 190hp engine, only 52 such models were produced before the definitive F.2B, powered by a 275hp engine, came into production. Standard two-seater doctrine of the time held that aircraft should fly in a tight formation, allowing the rear gunners to do overlap fire and do the bulk of the work, while the pilot’s fixed forward-facing gun was for defensive use only. With these tactics, the first sortie of the Brisfits proved disastrous, with four out of six shot down.

Pilots soon learned that unlike its predecessors, the Fighter was sturdily build and capable of being flung about in much the same way as its single-seat brethren. Fighter squadrons then went on the offensive, attacking enemy aircraft like smaller fighters, but with a rear gunner protecting the vulnerable rear and hanging on for dear life during violent maneuvers. Armed with small bombs, the Fighter also found a second life as a ground-attack aircraft when it was superseded by newer fighters in the air-to-air role.

There are a couple of armament issues with the aircraft’s portrayal in Battlefield 1. Although the hero aircraft in the Friends in High Places carries a pair of machine-guns mounted on the upper wing, the vast majority of F.2Bs carried only a single forward-firing machine-gun, which was mounted in the engine cowling and fired through the propeller. The upper-wing Lewis mount tended to interfere with the pilot’s compass – a Bad Thing in an era where that was frequently a pilot’s sole navigational aid.

Also, while rockets were used in anti-Zeppelin roles, they were generally ineffective, and by 1917 had largely been replaced by the use of incendiary rounds loaded in the machine-guns. Multiplayer at least allows you to use the Brisfit in its intended roles, carrying bombs for ground attack and utilizing the guns to bring death to air and ground targets. The rear-gunner’s single Lewis gun is at least accurate, although many later F.2Bs would carry two guns back there.

The Brisfit would continue to soldier on in the observation and light attack roles for fourteen years after the end of the war, with the final examples retiring in 1932. Today three remain flying, in England with the The Shuttleworth Collection, another in Canada with the Canada Air and Space Museum, and a third in New Zealand as part of Peter Jackson’s private collection.

Check out the video below for a view of The Shuttleworth Collection's F.2B in action.

 Info sourced from Wikipedia, and a much loved personal copy of Great Fighting Planes (Amazon affiliate link)

History for Gamers: The Bombers of Battlefield 1

By the last couple years of World War 1, heavy bombers were just starting to come into their own. Still relatively fragile biplanes generally powered by two engines, although three and four engine types were also tried, they carried a comparatively small payload over short distances, and were generally more effective as psychological weapons than in actual combat. Even so, they, far more than the German Zeppelins revealed a future where the logistics and cities of enemy forces could be attacked from the air.

In Battlefield 1, the German forces get the Gotha G.IV, while the Allies get the Italian designed Caproni Ca.3.

Gotha G.IV in flight. The triangular "Gotha Tunnel" cutout for  the rear gunner is clearly visible. (Photo credit Wingnut Wings

First flown in 1916, and introduced to operations in March 1917, the Gotha G.IV incorporated an innovative “Gotha tunnel” cutout for the rear gunner. The cutout allowed the gunner to utilize the rear dorsal gun against enemy fighters trying to get in the blind spot behind and below the aircraft, without requiring a third gunner and weapon station as on the Gotha G.III. With a top speed of 83mph and a bombload of 1,100lbs, the G.IV wasn’t getting anywhere fast, but then, neither did any other bombers. The G.IV also suffered from a serious design flaw, later corrected in the G.V, with fuel tanks positioned above the twin pusher engines. In ground handling accidents (which caused far more losses than enemy fire) this positioning proved… unfortunate.

One of the most common ground loss positions for WWI aircraft. Photo via Wingnut Wings

The Caproni Ca.3, meanwhile, while an Italian design, was also used by French and American forces during the war. A tri-motor (two pulling and one pushing), triple tail design, it carried a crew of four (Pilot, Co-pilot/navigator, forward gunner, and rear gunner/mechanic) at a top speed of 85mph, with a maximum bombload of 1,764lbs. The Caproni solved the rear gunner problem by using a twin-boom configuration for the tail, although its center rear mounted engine necessitated a unique solution to where the rear gunner had to be positioned.

Caproni Ca.3 model showing off the twin boom configuration, rear engine and gunner position. Photo from Modell Versium

In flight, he stood in a caged platform above the engine and just behind the propeller, so that his machinegun would clear the propeller arc. I don’t think I would have wanted that assignment!

Replica Ca.3 in flight. Photo from Warbird News

The Aircraft of Battlefield 1 - An Overview

Battlefield 1 has quickly become my current multiplayer game of choice. Set in approximately the 1917 time frame after America entered the war, it showcases the clash of old and new technologies that defined the Great War. Horse-mounted cavalry charge alongside the first tanks. Infantry combat mixes machine-guns with spiked trench maces. Overhead, wood and canvas biplanes and triplanes duel to the death.

Official game art from EA. Fokker DR. 1 triplanes, a rocket armed SPAD XIII, and a Zeppelin!

 Aviation is my specific fascination; as regular readers will already know. Military aircraft evolved during World War 1 at a prodigious pace, moving from slow, unarmed reconnaissance aircraft whose pilots waved to their foes; to relatively fast powerful fighters armed with two or three machine-guns battling the first aerial bombers.

Battlefield 1 divides its aircraft into three types: Fighters, Attack, and Bombers. If you’re looking for accurate, simulator quality flight models, this is not the game for you. The aircraft look fantastic, however, while the game trades flight model fidelity for simplified fun that fits well with the rest of Battlefield’s vehicles.

For the next few weeks I’ll be doing a deep dive into some of the history and stories behind these aircraft.

First, the fighters. Battlefield characterizes fighters as anti-air focused, single-seat aircraft, with limited ground attack capability. The designers choose four of the most iconic aircraft of WW1 for this role: The SPAD XIII (France), Sopwith Camel (England), Albatros D. III (Germany), and Fokker DR. I (Germany). All great choices, particularly the iconic DR. I triplane, although I would have loved to see a Nieuport 11 and Fokker Eindecker from earlier in the war represented as well.

Nieuport 11 (replica)

Attack aircraft, which Battlefield defines as two-seat multirole aircraft with both air- and ground-attack abilities, draw from both fighter and reconnaissance aircraft used during the war. German gets the Rumpler C.I and Halberstadt CL. II, while the Allies get the Salmson 2 and Bristol F2B Fighter. The “Brisfit” is a particularly inspired choice, as its reputation was built on its success at fighting like a smaller, nimbler single seater.

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  Bristol F2B Fighter configured with bomb racks. Photo from the Imperial War Museum

Finally, for bombers, Germany gets the Gotha IV, while the Allies get the Caproni CA.5. Why an Italian bomber rather than a French or English design, I don’t know, but it does mean that all the major powers to field indigenous designs are represented.

World War 1 is an era that is seriously underrepresented in gaming. Here’s hoping that Battlefield and a couple of other games will turn developers’ eyes back to this tumultuous setting.