Rating the BE2 "Family"?

[Akosion]

Hello friends,
Having just ordered the Immelmann pack, I'm thinking of early-war planes.
Has anyone tried to rate the BE2 series planes for the game?
From descriptions they were very steady to the point of being difficult to maneuvre, so maybe a G maneuver deck with the Immelman card taken out (the single-seat BE12 is a borderline J)? I'm not sure how the damage a plane can take is calculated, but with the E.III at 11 the BE2s could be in the 12-13 neighborhood.
The real headscratcher is the firing arc for the two-seaters...
pondering
Aris K.

[David Kuijt]

Hello friends,
Having just ordered the Immelmann pack, I'm thinking of early-war planes.
Has anyone tried to rate the BE2 series planes for the game?
From descriptions they were very steady to the point of being difficult to maneuvre, so maybe a G maneuver deck with the Immelman card taken out (the single-seat BE12 is a borderline J)? I'm not sure how the damage a plane can take is calculated, but with the E.III at 11 the BE2s could be in the 12-13 neighborhood.
The real headscratcher is the firing arc for the two-seaters...
pondering
Aris K.

I've been running an online PBEM campaign for more than a year now focused on the early war. Actually, three campaigns -- the first is marching through time, a couple of battles per campaign month, and then two "Bloody April" campaigns. All of these need BE2, although they are about to be abandoned after Bloody April (the march through time campaign is about to resume after Bloody April).

I use a "Z" deck for the BE2, BE12, and FE2. The base deck is exactly like the G deck save that the turns are 45 degrees, not 60 degrees, and there is no Immelman card. It has worked very well indeed -- giving the BE2 a 60 degree turn makes it too nimble by far.

For the BE2 structurally I use 13 damage -- the wings of the later BE2 are identical to the RE8 wings, and the fuselage not that different, and it is 13 damage. For the FE2 I use 14 damage.

Firing arc I gave it the normal rear arc with a complete blind spot. The normal tail blind spot on a two seater only applies to enemies at or below the same altitude and only at close range; for the BE2 (where the gunner would be firing in the face of his pilot) I just made the blind spot line be (in essence) the reverse of the front firing arc on a scout -- two lines extending from the center dot out to the back corners.

In addition, some BE2s were equipped with a front-firing Lewis firing at an arc outside the prop. I only gave those BE2s to more experienced victims (errr... BE2 pilots). For that firing arc I used something similar to the rear gun arc firing forward, but only on one side.

I'll see if I can attach an image of the BE2 plane card we use for the online campaign (image done by one of the participants in the campaign, Alberto Vitali).


http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/images/BE2.jpg

Here's the FE2 plane card, as well, FYI.

http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/images/FE2.jpg

Note the very large firing arc of the FE2. This makes it a very interesting plane within period battles -- with the Z maneuver deck (45 degree turns) it is toast if an Albatros gets in behind it, as it is very hard for it to escape, but my Bloody April players have found it can be extremely effective when flying in groups, and when the pilots have appropriate mission instructions getting them to all circle in the same direction, covering each other's rears.

Which is, incidentally, a historical tactic used with the FE2.

[check6]

would you mind uploading a picture of the modified G deck turns?

[David Kuijt]

would you mind uploading a picture of the modified G deck turns?

Here ya go. They could be cleaned up a bit by someone with better imaging software, but they work fine.

Right turn (cards 4, 5, 6) for Z deck (45 degrees)
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/images/456.jpg

Left turn (cards 7, 8, 9) for Z deck (45 degrees)
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~kuijt/images/789.jpg

Note that for the purposes of my online game, it saves on image size to truncate extraneous parts of the maneuver cards. That's why two sides of the maneuver card image are chopped down a bit. If you wanted to use them with miniatures or cards, just paste it onto a G deck, and it should work fine.

[Akosion]

David, sorry for not responding sooner, had login problems.
Thank you for the ideas, and sharing those gorgeous cards. I was wondering if another way to affect an incremental reduction in manueverability is too print the plane with the wing along the long axis of the card. Could be worth a test- if you're interested, I'll let you know how it goes. Once again, thanks for helping out (and proving there's other early-war afficionados out there)!
Aris K.

[Flying Officer Kyte]

(and proving there's other early-war afficionados out there)!
Aris K.[/QUOTE]

I think that there will be a lot more early war fans once the miniatures for the period are released. Meantime keep up the research and art work, it will all help to make it easier to draw in more people if they have ready made materials to hand.
Rob.

[David Kuijt]

I was wondering if another way to affect an incremental reduction in manueverability is too print the plane with the wing along the long axis of the card. Could be worth a test- if you're interested, I'll let you know how it goes.

Sure, let me know. But looking at the math of it, printing the plane with the wing along the long axis will mean the plane is slower, which actually gives it a better turning radius.

[Bruce]

Hi David, Aris and all
In Ottawa we have a BE2 at the Air Museum. I went yesterday to examine the sight-lines for the observer who sits in the front seat but his Lewis gun is mounted to fire to the rear over the head of the pilot. The observer and his gun must have almost completely blocked the forward view of the pilot when the observer was in firing position.

I think that David's rear arcs are playable but in fact they are too generous when compared with the actual machine/gun mount. To be accurate (if you insisted) the rear arcs should be reduced to half of what David shows. It was an almost unusably narrow arc on either side of the tail; the movement of the gun was stopped on either side by the vertical wing struts attached to the top of fuselage. And, I can't imagine how any pilot could have held his "nerve" with the gun's muzzle flash hammering away just inches (no more than 18") above his head. Leave it to the Brits to invent new equipment to torture their service men - no wonder the Americans used mostly French aircraft. All the more credit to the British and colonial aircrews. To add a final punctuation on this point, have you ever compared the living accommodations of an American and a British Destroyer (ship) - point made.

There was no sign of a front-left (or right) firing Lewis gun but the arc seems reasonable if one was to be mounted. Of course the observer would only have been able to operate one of these MGs at any given time and for certain there would have been at leat one manoeuvre's worth of change-over time between the rear and front guns; even if the situation was desperate.

I have been planning to scratch-build a batch of four BE2 type 2-seaters with the observer in the front seat to complement my 4 X E. IIIs, 4 X Airco DH-2s, and 4 X Morane-Saulnier Ns that I have just finished. This discussion, the images and the manoeuvre deck discussions have been perfect for me too. Thanks to everyone. I love this site and its people.

[Akosion]

Bruce, thanks for weighing in and checking out the real thing (a BE2 within strolling distance?...you lucky...:) ) . You're right about British planes occasionally having some very strange features, guess the E didn't stand for Experimental for nothing! Theoretically the observer could move the gun around, but applying theory in a firefight is not a trivial excercise. Your early war collection sounds mighty nice too, would love to see pics.
F.O. Kyte makes a good point about the miniatures possibly bringing more people "out of the woodwork", it does open up the scope of the game significantly.
David, yes, the turns do get tighter, but I'm hoping that the combined maneuver cards over a turn will add up to a somewhat less nimble plane. We'll see. Saw your J* deck idea on another post, that sounds quite a neat trick as well.
Be seeing you!
Aris K.

[batesyboy]

The Be2 in it`s time was a world beater ! It was arguably the most stable and therefore easy to fly aircraft of all time. (perhaps until the piper cub
came along)
It was designed in a time when carrying a gun was the furthest thing from the designers thoughts
Then all of a sudden the Fokker E series comes along and makes it`s inherant stability it`s biggest weakness
It was not designed to make it difficult for it`s crews.
being first and best of your time makes you an easy and obvious target....
This later happened to The Fokker series and so on until today.
Some of the comments on this thread disregard evolution....blah blah blah
I`m off to the officers bar....
Batesyboy

[Doug]

One other plane I use for 1916 is a Bristol scout with the Lewis gun mounted on the left hand side of the aircraft (I belive it was Hawker who did this) this aircraft also has a very narrow firing arc at the front similar to the BE2c the stats I use are G/B/13. It is very good in the 1st game as it catches your oponents by supprise, there after it is best only to go after unarmed German two seaters!

[Flying Officer Kyte]

One other plane I use for 1916 is a Bristol scout with the Lewis gun mounted on the left hand side of the aircraft (I belive it was Hawker who did this) this aircraft also has a very narrow firing arc at the front similar to the BE2c the stats I use are G/B/13. It is very good in the 1st game as it catches your oponents by supprise, there after it is best only to go after unarmed German two seaters!

That is what I use for mine as well Alastair.
Rob.

[itchy]

Aris a nice thread thanks for starting it, some brilliant stuff everyone.