Its time for normal(ish) service to be resumed.
I have spent the last few days setting up my paints in the conservatory ready for a resumption of figure painting activity. thinking about it this has not been good timing as the warm sunny weather is about to finish and its the Hammerhead show at Newark this coming weekend so I'm unlikely to get any painting done this weekend.
I usually make most of my purchases at Vaparnatak the show at York Racecourse, but this year I was away and missed that show. I went to Hammerhead for the first time last year and was very taken by the mix of participation games and traders. The only bugbear is that Irregular Miniatures don't seem to attend and most of my immediate purchase requirements are from their 6mm range. Magister Militum will be there and I have a hankering for some of the 3mm figures they do to try them out for Blucher as well as some of the Blucher bases they make. At some point I am going to need some more 6mm WW1 aircraft from Heroics but thay are going to be at the Joy of Six show later in the year so I will scratch that itch then.
Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
We were students once and young
Its not been the greatest of weeks. You see last Friday Mrs E and I had to go the funeral of our friend Ron. we expected to have to do this just not so soon. We were told he wasn't well before Christmas but Ron told us it was a stubborn infection and was 'fixable'. He was in hospital at that point but on strong antibiotics and hoping to be home in a few days. He was allowed to have Christmas at home and then on New Year's Eve he was told he had liver cancer and only weeks to live. He died on 28 January. It has devastated both myself and Mrs E.
I met first Ron on the first day of lectures on our first term at University, we were both heading for the same seats at the back. He was tall by the standards of the early 1970's but not skinny with it and that made him stand out. That and his red and white football scarf. Where I came from that meant either Liverpool or Manchester Utd. For Ron it meant Middlesbrough, 'the Boro' as he always called them. As we both supported unfashionable football clubs it gave us something in common. Like me he was also the first person in his family to go into higher education and an only child so neither of us had any idea how this university thing worked. We liked some of the same music and he also had a motorcycle and I desperately wanted one. That was enough to start a friendship that lasted for the next 45 years. When I met Mrs E at the end of the first term at Uni Ron immediately became her friend too.
He was one of those people who took being your friend very seriously, being a friend had duties and obligations as well as benefits as far as Ron was concerned. So when I did get a motorcycle of my own it was Ron who taught me the basics. In true Ron style he told me that there were three important things to master. First getting the bike moving, second being able to stop and lastly not falling off while doing the first two. Ron's own bike was like Ron himself, it wasn't overly flashy, but it had a charm all of it's own. It was a Honda CD175, solid, dependable and not prone to letting you down just like Ron himself. Later Ron acquired a car a bright blue Hillman Imp, to be honest the only way it was an improvement over the bike was that it had a roof and could take more than one additional passenger. Ron became a taxi service for all of his friends running us from campus to Halls or on trips out. He would take me and Mrs E , up to the Boro where we would take in a game and stay over at his parents. A night on the beer would inevitably follow especially if the Boro had won. It was on those trips up to the Boro crossing the North Yorkshire Moors that Ron once pointed out of the car window to tell us 'there is a stunning view over there, of course you can't see it as it's dark...and foggy'! That was Ron, not one to let inconvenient details stop him pointing out the highlights of life.
When Mrs E and I married at the end of our second year Ron was my best man. Just before we walked into the church he took me aside and pointed out that we could be at the Boro in time for kick off if I was having second thoughts, all I had to do was say, BUT once I stepped into that church he would break my legs rather than have me let Mrs E down!
In our third year Ron moved out to a rented flat near the University and Mrs E and I moved to a shared rented house a little further out of the city. We would still visit each other a couple of times a week and it became clear that while Ron took many things seriously washing cups wasn't on the list. I don't think he owned a cup that wasn't stained brown from tea. It didn't matter though you went to see Ron not worry about crockery.
When our first baby was born in 1977 Ron was Godfather. He took that role seriously too even when our daughter used to have to be coaxed out from behind the settee because 'uncle wrong was scary'. He was anything but, although to a three year old he must have looked huge.
As the years went by we saw each other less often, work, hobbies children all took up our time. Ron was teaching in South Yorkshire and we were living and working in North Yorkshire but we would still see each other three or four times a year. It didn't matter though because every time we did visit it was as if no time had passed at all. As we got older visits became less frequent but Christmas cards came from Ron and his wife with details of what had been happening not just to Ron but all of our contemporaries from Uni. Ron was doing Facebook updates before Facebook existed. We then moved away for a few years and hardly saw him at all. Ron divorced, remarried and in his early 40's had a son, who as expected he doted on. After all parenthood was to be taken seriously and done right, it was the only way Ron knew how to do things. When we moved back to the North visits with Ron and his family started up again just as if they had never stopped, driven mainly by Ron, I did mention that he took being a friend seriously didn't I. When Mrs E was caring for her elderly parents in their final years Ron would telephone or pop in to make sure she was OK if I was working away from home. When a friend from our University days was terminally ill he would drive down to South Wales to see her and and when I was recovering from surgery last year he came to visit me, this from a man who hated talking about illness.
He was always there sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the back, but always there. Then he died. After 45 years of being there. He was my friend and I'm going to miss him more than I can easily say.
I met first Ron on the first day of lectures on our first term at University, we were both heading for the same seats at the back. He was tall by the standards of the early 1970's but not skinny with it and that made him stand out. That and his red and white football scarf. Where I came from that meant either Liverpool or Manchester Utd. For Ron it meant Middlesbrough, 'the Boro' as he always called them. As we both supported unfashionable football clubs it gave us something in common. Like me he was also the first person in his family to go into higher education and an only child so neither of us had any idea how this university thing worked. We liked some of the same music and he also had a motorcycle and I desperately wanted one. That was enough to start a friendship that lasted for the next 45 years. When I met Mrs E at the end of the first term at Uni Ron immediately became her friend too.
He was one of those people who took being your friend very seriously, being a friend had duties and obligations as well as benefits as far as Ron was concerned. So when I did get a motorcycle of my own it was Ron who taught me the basics. In true Ron style he told me that there were three important things to master. First getting the bike moving, second being able to stop and lastly not falling off while doing the first two. Ron's own bike was like Ron himself, it wasn't overly flashy, but it had a charm all of it's own. It was a Honda CD175, solid, dependable and not prone to letting you down just like Ron himself. Later Ron acquired a car a bright blue Hillman Imp, to be honest the only way it was an improvement over the bike was that it had a roof and could take more than one additional passenger. Ron became a taxi service for all of his friends running us from campus to Halls or on trips out. He would take me and Mrs E , up to the Boro where we would take in a game and stay over at his parents. A night on the beer would inevitably follow especially if the Boro had won. It was on those trips up to the Boro crossing the North Yorkshire Moors that Ron once pointed out of the car window to tell us 'there is a stunning view over there, of course you can't see it as it's dark...and foggy'! That was Ron, not one to let inconvenient details stop him pointing out the highlights of life.
When Mrs E and I married at the end of our second year Ron was my best man. Just before we walked into the church he took me aside and pointed out that we could be at the Boro in time for kick off if I was having second thoughts, all I had to do was say, BUT once I stepped into that church he would break my legs rather than have me let Mrs E down!
In our third year Ron moved out to a rented flat near the University and Mrs E and I moved to a shared rented house a little further out of the city. We would still visit each other a couple of times a week and it became clear that while Ron took many things seriously washing cups wasn't on the list. I don't think he owned a cup that wasn't stained brown from tea. It didn't matter though you went to see Ron not worry about crockery.
When our first baby was born in 1977 Ron was Godfather. He took that role seriously too even when our daughter used to have to be coaxed out from behind the settee because 'uncle wrong was scary'. He was anything but, although to a three year old he must have looked huge.
As the years went by we saw each other less often, work, hobbies children all took up our time. Ron was teaching in South Yorkshire and we were living and working in North Yorkshire but we would still see each other three or four times a year. It didn't matter though because every time we did visit it was as if no time had passed at all. As we got older visits became less frequent but Christmas cards came from Ron and his wife with details of what had been happening not just to Ron but all of our contemporaries from Uni. Ron was doing Facebook updates before Facebook existed. We then moved away for a few years and hardly saw him at all. Ron divorced, remarried and in his early 40's had a son, who as expected he doted on. After all parenthood was to be taken seriously and done right, it was the only way Ron knew how to do things. When we moved back to the North visits with Ron and his family started up again just as if they had never stopped, driven mainly by Ron, I did mention that he took being a friend seriously didn't I. When Mrs E was caring for her elderly parents in their final years Ron would telephone or pop in to make sure she was OK if I was working away from home. When a friend from our University days was terminally ill he would drive down to South Wales to see her and and when I was recovering from surgery last year he came to visit me, this from a man who hated talking about illness.
He was always there sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the back, but always there. Then he died. After 45 years of being there. He was my friend and I'm going to miss him more than I can easily say.
Wednesday, 13 February 2019
A little Winter Sun
Just a brief catch up post this time. You may have noticed that I haven't posted since the end of January, that's because Mrs E and I have been away on holiday. Nothing exciting just a short break in the Canary Islands to get a bit of winter sun. I spent 10 days doing little apart from eating, drinking and sitting in the sun. Normal service ( or as near to normal as I ever get) will be resumed shortly.
Monday, 28 January 2019
So why Elenderil
I have a number of aliases from role playing games. There is Del Gethlin the sneaky Scout and Intelligence Operative from playing Traveller back in the 1980s, El Cid or more commonly Cid a real world nick name from my teens and of course Elenderil himself.
Elenderil was a 'fighter magic user' class character firstly in Tunnels and Trolls,who then migrated into Dungeons and Dragons gaming when that became popular in my university days. He first sprang to life in 1973 and after I gave up on DnD and moved onto historical gaming was put out to grass, although he occasionally came out of retirement in odd games with my children.
Apologies for the photo quality, its from my phone. I found the original Elenderil figure when sorting through some boxes last weekend. That pose looks a bit uncomfortable and the casting is a bit lumpen (Mrs E says its not unlike the real me - lumpen and uncomfortable!). I have no idea who the maker was possibly a very early Citadel or GW fantasy figure. Even by the standards of the day it's not a great figure but it has a certain sentimental value to me.
In 1999 a new and exciting style of computer game burst onto the scene in the shape of a game called Everquest one of the early MMORPGs (that's a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game!). It was (and for that matter still is) a kind of computer moderated DnD set in a world called Norrath.
I was very interested in the interaction between real people via their computer avatars and having seen a couple of friends playing took the plunge myself. I needed a character and essentially resurrected my old pen and paper persona as an online avatar. The nearest thing to a fighter-magic user in EQ was a Ranger so that's what he became. I still play him in EQ from time to time 20 years later (on the Antonius Bayle server if anyone wants to pop by and say Hi, or blow raspberries!).
I don't recall whether I did any research on his name or just took a name from Tolkein and changed it a bit. Some years ago I did check it against a data base of the components of elven names from Tolkein's world and found to my surprise that it actually worked within the naming rules of his Sindaran language. It roughly translates as a light shining brightly in the darkness with darkness having the connotation of a bad or evil place. As I have always played him as having a similar set of ethics to myself (with the exception of killing anyone or anything he doesn't like the morals of - I restrain myself there) he really sort of represent my alter-ego.
So there you have it my guilty pleasure or possible dirty little secret! From time to time I pretend I'm a four hundred year old wood elf who likes walks in the woods and killing stuff. Or possibly it's that I play on-line role playing games?
Elenderil was a 'fighter magic user' class character firstly in Tunnels and Trolls,who then migrated into Dungeons and Dragons gaming when that became popular in my university days. He first sprang to life in 1973 and after I gave up on DnD and moved onto historical gaming was put out to grass, although he occasionally came out of retirement in odd games with my children.
 |
| The original 1973 little lead Elenderil |
In 1999 a new and exciting style of computer game burst onto the scene in the shape of a game called Everquest one of the early MMORPGs (that's a Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game!). It was (and for that matter still is) a kind of computer moderated DnD set in a world called Norrath.
I was very interested in the interaction between real people via their computer avatars and having seen a couple of friends playing took the plunge myself. I needed a character and essentially resurrected my old pen and paper persona as an online avatar. The nearest thing to a fighter-magic user in EQ was a Ranger so that's what he became. I still play him in EQ from time to time 20 years later (on the Antonius Bayle server if anyone wants to pop by and say Hi, or blow raspberries!).
 |
| The electronic Elenderil |
So there you have it my guilty pleasure or possible dirty little secret! From time to time I pretend I'm a four hundred year old wood elf who likes walks in the woods and killing stuff. Or possibly it's that I play on-line role playing games?
Saturday, 26 January 2019
Meeting at Bourne Vale - a BCW scenario
My last BCW scenario was one of the most viewed pages to date so I thought that a second one may prove popular. This is another early war action set in early 1643. It's a tight battlefield about 1,000 - 1,500 yards square, so little chance of subtlety here, this is a case of line 'em up and let 'em roll.
The battlefield - Bourne's Vale 1643
The battlefield consists of a shallow valley between two low ridges dropping towards boggy ground to the bottom of the table. The contours would be about 10 foot changes in level if on a map so shallow hills giving some advantages for being uphill but not much else. The boggy ground should be considered disordering and difficult for horse and foot and impassable for artillery. The village (Higher Bourne) is a small hamlet of timber framed, wattle and daub, thatched cottages so not much protection from artillery fire. Lower Bourne has presumably sunk into the bog years ago!
The forces
The Royalists deploy on the left of the map, south of the road and no more than 200 yards from the table edge. The Parliamentarians deploy on the right also south of the road and no more than 200 yards from the table edge.
Royalist
The Royalists outnumber their opponents having the following troops:
1 x troop of 400 Dragoons - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 400 Horse - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 600 Horse - Trained and raw.
1 x Battalia of 600 clubmen - Untrained and raw.
1,000 pikemen Trained and raw
2,000 musketeers Trained and raw
2 light guns Robinettes or similar
The Royalist player may decide how to organise his pike and shot into units see the special rules below.
All Royalist foot are deployed in dutch style 12 ranks deep. Horse are using Swedish tactics and deploy 3 deep.
They are commanded by Sir Henry Rawlinson a trusted commander with an ability of 4, (meaning he can command 4 units/subordinates directly). He is supported by:
Colonel Arkwright (able to command Foot) trusted and with an ability of 3
Colonel Peaseman (able to command Foot) trusted and ability of 2
Major Southam (able to command Horse and Dragoons) trusted and ability of 2
Captain Walker (able to command Horse) accepted and witha an ability of 2
The guns are commanded by the Gun captains and fall under Rawlinson's direct control
Royalist special rules - you may decide how to allocate the pike and musket into units but must have at least 5 battalia none of which may be below 400 men. You may draw out a forelorn hope of shot or dismounted dragoons which may deploy an additional 100 yards onto the table if a named commander is with them. Clubmen count as 1:5 shot to melee weapons and only have arquebus not musket (to represent older or poorly maintained firearms). In melee they do not count as pike armed but as improvised weapons.
Parliament
Parliament has the following forces:
2 x Squadrons of 300 Horse - Trained and experienced
a further 900 horse - Trained and raw
2 x battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike - trained and experienced
1 x battalia of 700 foot 5:2 shot to pike - part trained and experienced
1 x Battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike part trained and raw.
1 x light gun Robinette or similar
All parliamentarian units are using Dutch tactics. They may decide how to organise the 900 horse into units. See the special rules below.
They are commanded by Colonel James an accepted commander and ability 3. He is supported by:
Colonel Humble (able to command Horse and foot)accepted and ability 3
Major Ferris (able to command Horse) trusted and ability 3
Captain Carter (able to command Horse and Foot) trusted and ability 2
An accepted commander can add a positive factor to a reaction test while a trusted commander has more of an effect (in my rules +2 as against +1)
Parliament special rules - of the 900 horse yo may divide these as you wish to provide two or three bodies but none of them may be over 500 or less than 150 in strength.
Command special rule
The named officers are able to have more units allocated to their commands then the ability factor. however, in any given turn they cannot issue more changes of orders to units under their command than their ability value.
Background information
This is a meeting engagement Colonel James expected to meet poorly trained local levies who were assembling at a Royalist muster and is surprised to find a balanced all arms force coming towards him. He is unable to evade them and there is no better site to stand and fight than this. In turn Sir Henry having intelligence of Colonel James' movements considered this to be his best chance of defeating the enemy before additional Parliament troops are sent to the area he set out towards the enemy with the intention of bringing them to battle. He was hoping for a larger advantage in numbers and quality than he actually has. Both sides objective is to destroy the others ability to fight by breaking the forces facing them. Its pretty much a traditional slugfest but with some doubt about the ability of either side to land a killing blow!
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| The battlefield, lets call the bottom of the sketch 'South' |
The battlefield - Bourne's Vale 1643
The battlefield consists of a shallow valley between two low ridges dropping towards boggy ground to the bottom of the table. The contours would be about 10 foot changes in level if on a map so shallow hills giving some advantages for being uphill but not much else. The boggy ground should be considered disordering and difficult for horse and foot and impassable for artillery. The village (Higher Bourne) is a small hamlet of timber framed, wattle and daub, thatched cottages so not much protection from artillery fire. Lower Bourne has presumably sunk into the bog years ago!
The forces
The Royalists deploy on the left of the map, south of the road and no more than 200 yards from the table edge. The Parliamentarians deploy on the right also south of the road and no more than 200 yards from the table edge.
Royalist
The Royalists outnumber their opponents having the following troops:
1 x troop of 400 Dragoons - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 400 Horse - Trained and experienced.
1 x Squadron of 600 Horse - Trained and raw.
1 x Battalia of 600 clubmen - Untrained and raw.
1,000 pikemen Trained and raw
2,000 musketeers Trained and raw
2 light guns Robinettes or similar
The Royalist player may decide how to organise his pike and shot into units see the special rules below.
All Royalist foot are deployed in dutch style 12 ranks deep. Horse are using Swedish tactics and deploy 3 deep.
They are commanded by Sir Henry Rawlinson a trusted commander with an ability of 4, (meaning he can command 4 units/subordinates directly). He is supported by:
Colonel Arkwright (able to command Foot) trusted and with an ability of 3
Colonel Peaseman (able to command Foot) trusted and ability of 2
Major Southam (able to command Horse and Dragoons) trusted and ability of 2
Captain Walker (able to command Horse) accepted and witha an ability of 2
The guns are commanded by the Gun captains and fall under Rawlinson's direct control
Royalist special rules - you may decide how to allocate the pike and musket into units but must have at least 5 battalia none of which may be below 400 men. You may draw out a forelorn hope of shot or dismounted dragoons which may deploy an additional 100 yards onto the table if a named commander is with them. Clubmen count as 1:5 shot to melee weapons and only have arquebus not musket (to represent older or poorly maintained firearms). In melee they do not count as pike armed but as improvised weapons.
Parliament
Parliament has the following forces:
2 x Squadrons of 300 Horse - Trained and experienced
a further 900 horse - Trained and raw
2 x battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike - trained and experienced
1 x battalia of 700 foot 5:2 shot to pike - part trained and experienced
1 x Battalia of 600 foot 2:1 shot to pike part trained and raw.
1 x light gun Robinette or similar
All parliamentarian units are using Dutch tactics. They may decide how to organise the 900 horse into units. See the special rules below.
They are commanded by Colonel James an accepted commander and ability 3. He is supported by:
Colonel Humble (able to command Horse and foot)accepted and ability 3
Major Ferris (able to command Horse) trusted and ability 3
Captain Carter (able to command Horse and Foot) trusted and ability 2
An accepted commander can add a positive factor to a reaction test while a trusted commander has more of an effect (in my rules +2 as against +1)
Parliament special rules - of the 900 horse yo may divide these as you wish to provide two or three bodies but none of them may be over 500 or less than 150 in strength.
Command special rule
The named officers are able to have more units allocated to their commands then the ability factor. however, in any given turn they cannot issue more changes of orders to units under their command than their ability value.
Background information
This is a meeting engagement Colonel James expected to meet poorly trained local levies who were assembling at a Royalist muster and is surprised to find a balanced all arms force coming towards him. He is unable to evade them and there is no better site to stand and fight than this. In turn Sir Henry having intelligence of Colonel James' movements considered this to be his best chance of defeating the enemy before additional Parliament troops are sent to the area he set out towards the enemy with the intention of bringing them to battle. He was hoping for a larger advantage in numbers and quality than he actually has. Both sides objective is to destroy the others ability to fight by breaking the forces facing them. Its pretty much a traditional slugfest but with some doubt about the ability of either side to land a killing blow!
Thursday, 24 January 2019
In the bleak midwinter
On Tuesday afternoon the weather finally turned to snow in Rugby. About 2 - 3 inches fell in under an hour. I was about to head off to an evening's wargaming at Trebian's (The author of the excellent blog 'Wargaming for grown ups' (which you can find via this link http://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.com/) so I was slightly worried that if it got much worse I would need to cancel. As it happened once I was a couple of miles out of Rugby and on to the A14 the amount of snow fall was much less. For anyreaders who don't follow Trebian's blog it is worth the time to read. He writes his own rule sets and I was looking forward to his take on the Russian Civil War (1918-21). A full write up of the game is on his blog titled 'More Russian About'.
We used his rules 'Return to the River Don' which gave a great game with all the chaos and uncertainty I expected from a RCW encounter. The rules are straightforward and focus on command and control problems. Each turn players dice for initiative and then try to activate commands alternatively between the two sides. Poorer quality units are harder to activate then good ones but none of them are guaranteed to do what you want. If a unit fails an activation test the Red player must coerce them into action (commissars shooting people to motivate them sort of thing) that gets the unit moving but they now carry a penalty for future activation and have less actions available once they are activated. The whites don't have to coerce units but can do so if they wish and they have officers available to do it. If a unit fails activation all the units in the parent formation stall and play passes to the other side to attempt to activate a formation.
Once a unit has been activated the player verbally states the actions he wants to take. These may be changing formation, moving, firing, charging to melee, reserving fire and so on. Each unit has a number of actions once activated but having specified what these are and the order they will occur in dice are thrown and depending on the result you may not get to carry out all the actions you declared.
It quickly becomes clear that you need to lead off with the best quality troops in a formation to prevent the entire parent formation stalling and that the order of taking actions is crucial as it is always the later declared actions that are lost if the dice are against you.
All in all enough fun was had for me to consider buying some Peter Pig 15mm WW1 Russians!
We used his rules 'Return to the River Don' which gave a great game with all the chaos and uncertainty I expected from a RCW encounter. The rules are straightforward and focus on command and control problems. Each turn players dice for initiative and then try to activate commands alternatively between the two sides. Poorer quality units are harder to activate then good ones but none of them are guaranteed to do what you want. If a unit fails an activation test the Red player must coerce them into action (commissars shooting people to motivate them sort of thing) that gets the unit moving but they now carry a penalty for future activation and have less actions available once they are activated. The whites don't have to coerce units but can do so if they wish and they have officers available to do it. If a unit fails activation all the units in the parent formation stall and play passes to the other side to attempt to activate a formation.
Once a unit has been activated the player verbally states the actions he wants to take. These may be changing formation, moving, firing, charging to melee, reserving fire and so on. Each unit has a number of actions once activated but having specified what these are and the order they will occur in dice are thrown and depending on the result you may not get to carry out all the actions you declared.
It quickly becomes clear that you need to lead off with the best quality troops in a formation to prevent the entire parent formation stalling and that the order of taking actions is crucial as it is always the later declared actions that are lost if the dice are against you.
All in all enough fun was had for me to consider buying some Peter Pig 15mm WW1 Russians!
Monday, 21 January 2019
Reasons why I should have listened at school
Physics in air warfare that is. I had to read some basic physics to remind myself of the rules of basic Kinetics, as it turns out that I can't properly understand the flight mechanics of WW1 dog fighting without it. Specifically I was looking for the rules on converting potential energy into kinetic energy (trading height for speed) and how fast various 'planes would gather kinetic energy in a dive and then shed it again once they leveled up. I also need to know how many g they experience in the pull up to see if structural damage is an issue.
It turns out its pretty meaningless other than as a very general rules because its almost impossible to decide what the VNE rating of the majority of WW1 aircraft was. VNE is 'vitesse never exceed' aka 'velocity never exceed' in aviation jargon or what we would think of as the safe limit for dive speeds. There are some useful anecdotes about that speed for a handful of aircraft but that's about it. I suppose flight safety limits were a bit more elastic back then.
For example Bristol Fighters were built to handle a 6g load and had a design max safe dive speed of 400 mph! Certainly diving at speeds close to 300 mph seems to have been common for them. SPAD 13s could also dive at those kind of speeds. It has calculated that V strutters like Nieuports and Albatri DIII and DV would shed their wings due to 'flutter' (undampened oscillations in the lower wings) at 135mph. My favourite though is the description of how to dive in an SE5a.
"After we had learned to handle the S.E.5a's fairly well, he called us together and said, "Now, I want you to do some fast diving with your engine full on, and diving vertically. You can get up to nearly 300 m.p.h., but I must tell you how to do it without losing your wings. The airspeed indicator only registers up to 180 m.p.h., so after that has been passed, you simply look at the fabric on the lower wing. When you see one buckle appear in it, you are probably doing something like 200 m.p.h.; when there are two buckles, you are probably doing about 250 m.p.h.; but you want to be careful not to get three, because then the wings will undoubtedly fall off. Now, go up and do some real diving."
The SE5a was able to dive to something close to 275 mph. What I have been able to find is that the terminal velocity of most WW1 aircraft was low due to the inherent drag so most of them seem unlikely to have been able to reach the VNE limit unless in a steep dive under power. The real risk was the g load on pulling out of powered dives. While British and French built aircraft appear to have been designed with 6g loads in mind, early war German aircraft may have only been built to handle 3.5g (according to an article on the Aerodrome website). Their ability to hold energy after leveling out from a dive was hampered by two things, they didn't gather much energy in a dive because they had little mass and the drag factor meant the velocity was low (the energy gained is dependent on the mass of the objective times the velocity squared). That high drag factor also means they bleed energy quickly after leveling out so it needs to be utilised quickly at the end of the dive.
What that means is I can fudge the equations to create generic energy rules. Which is good news for me as I don't think I was listening the week we did calculus either and that is what I would have needed if all the data was available.
It turns out its pretty meaningless other than as a very general rules because its almost impossible to decide what the VNE rating of the majority of WW1 aircraft was. VNE is 'vitesse never exceed' aka 'velocity never exceed' in aviation jargon or what we would think of as the safe limit for dive speeds. There are some useful anecdotes about that speed for a handful of aircraft but that's about it. I suppose flight safety limits were a bit more elastic back then.
For example Bristol Fighters were built to handle a 6g load and had a design max safe dive speed of 400 mph! Certainly diving at speeds close to 300 mph seems to have been common for them. SPAD 13s could also dive at those kind of speeds. It has calculated that V strutters like Nieuports and Albatri DIII and DV would shed their wings due to 'flutter' (undampened oscillations in the lower wings) at 135mph. My favourite though is the description of how to dive in an SE5a.
"After we had learned to handle the S.E.5a's fairly well, he called us together and said, "Now, I want you to do some fast diving with your engine full on, and diving vertically. You can get up to nearly 300 m.p.h., but I must tell you how to do it without losing your wings. The airspeed indicator only registers up to 180 m.p.h., so after that has been passed, you simply look at the fabric on the lower wing. When you see one buckle appear in it, you are probably doing something like 200 m.p.h.; when there are two buckles, you are probably doing about 250 m.p.h.; but you want to be careful not to get three, because then the wings will undoubtedly fall off. Now, go up and do some real diving."
The SE5a was able to dive to something close to 275 mph. What I have been able to find is that the terminal velocity of most WW1 aircraft was low due to the inherent drag so most of them seem unlikely to have been able to reach the VNE limit unless in a steep dive under power. The real risk was the g load on pulling out of powered dives. While British and French built aircraft appear to have been designed with 6g loads in mind, early war German aircraft may have only been built to handle 3.5g (according to an article on the Aerodrome website). Their ability to hold energy after leveling out from a dive was hampered by two things, they didn't gather much energy in a dive because they had little mass and the drag factor meant the velocity was low (the energy gained is dependent on the mass of the objective times the velocity squared). That high drag factor also means they bleed energy quickly after leveling out so it needs to be utilised quickly at the end of the dive.
What that means is I can fudge the equations to create generic energy rules. Which is good news for me as I don't think I was listening the week we did calculus either and that is what I would have needed if all the data was available.
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