...as it is in the WoG game?
During the war, didn't it give the Fokker D.VII a run for its money? Or at least the RAF S.E.5a?
Was the SPAD S.XIII really as bad...
...as it is in the WoG game?
During the war, didn't it give the Fokker D.VII a run for its money? Or at least the RAF S.E.5a?
I am new to the game, but from what I could gather, the SPAD XIII can be very good in game if it is used as it was in real life, avoiding turn fights and focusing on hit and run tactics in straight lines, using its strengths : its speed and its ability to gain altitude. And being a bad turner, it prefers larger gaming area (at least 140 cm x 100 cm) or alternatively Immelmanns.
Here are two threads you most likely already know mentioning the strengths of the Spad XIII : here and here.
In my experience, the Spad is difficult to use in duels (and in small gaming areas) as the opponent focuses on chasing it, especially if he has a fast plane. Easier when there are more planes, because of 'teamwork' (whether one player flies two or more planes or there are actually several players per side) and as the Spad may take an enemy by surprise.
It seems to me it is a plane hard to master but with real strengths. Looking for advices on it.
Maybe what makes the Spad XIII hard to use in game is that WoG is a closed space (the table) which favours dogfights and good turners, while irl the Spad XIII excelled at surprising an enemy that could outnumber them, hitting and running.
My two cents. This is, of course, a beginner's point of view
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-08-2023 at 19:28.
Luc, those are good points, but the RAF S.E.5a has the same speed, and far more manueverability. The SPAD simply cannot compete.
I don’t know anything about the RAF S.E.5a but Wiki (I know…) states that, after initial improvements, it became as fast as the Spad. On the other hand, the Spad is known not to be very maneuverable. Don’t get me wrong : I am a fan of the Spad.
Imho its main drawback in the game is not having additional slightly sharper turn cards.
Would a system with two speeds a la WGS (with a second set of slightly shorter arrows) be both :
- realistic to depict WW1,
- useful to the Spad ?
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-09-2023 at 03:41.
I would say not realistic. Controlling throttle was almost unviable as a tactic.
The SPAD XIII was not bad at all, nor is it bad in the game. Like the real thing it's tough, very fast & not very manoeuvrable is all. You just need to apply the right tactics and more thought sometimes to be successful with it.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
But was the SE5a as superior to it as it is in WoG?
To me, the biggest difference between WGF and WGS was the lack of maneuverability in fast, modern planes.
The two-phase movement in WGS, with the ability to change speeds, is not really a means of making a tighter turn, if you were able to compare WGF planes to WGS directly. There are some biplanes in the WGS game that demonstrate what WGF planes could do.
The SPAD XIII is very similar to flying the fast, WGS planes. Without a lot of room, Immelmanns are a must. Any engine damage means immediate withdrawal from the fight, as it removes the best advantage the SPAD XIII has; its speed.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
Need to build upon the Overdive tactic, perhaps, to improve it. IIRC, the SPAD was obscenely potent in a dive.
Maybe the place to start is to put 3 Dive/Climb cards in a deck.
Those are sharp maneuvers….
Then make it no longer so
The game doesn't show off the SPAD's strengths very well. (The following is a big simplification.) Every time you do a maneuver, you're losing airspeed ... not only because your control surfaces are opposing the airflow, but because your lift vector is no longer perpendicular to gravity. To keep up your airspeed, you have two choices: lose altitude, or let the engine make up the difference. With a nice 200-235hp engine, the latter is an option, whereas a Fokker Triplane at 110hp is probably limited to losing altitude while maneuvering.
Alas, to keep the game from becoming too tedious, all this is simplified and "maneuverability" becomes only a question of roll rate and yaw rate, and the ability to "make up for all that maneuvering with engine power" gets lost. Altitude is necessarily pretty "chunky" -- each band representing 400-500m, so -- even if you're using altitude rules -- the speed/altitude loss due to maneuvering is rounded to zero. That benefits some planes and hides the strengths of others.
I haven't seen all the decks of WGF and WGS, but it seems that the length of the arrow on the straight maneuver card is identical as that of the red arrow on the dive one, meaning, if I am not mistaken, that, in the game, all the planes travel the same distance on the x-axis (the horizontal plane) whether they fly at a constant altitude or they dive. Of course, that also means a diving plane actually travel a longer distance, that is the longest side of the right-angled triangle formed by the starting point and both finishing points. However, I find these arrows being identical surprising. But I am sure there is a good reason.
I'd imagine (maybe wrongly) that, for example, a Spad XIII able to dive at a much higher speed than at level flight would (or could) travel a greater distance on the horizontal x-axis. I guess it is an average distance/speed.
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-09-2023 at 22:25.
Yes, the Dive and Straight maneuvers are the same lengths. Same thing with Stall and Climb maneuvers.
Jan (Honza) put together a nice gallery of the planes, maneuver decks, and lots more that you can reference: http://www.hoho.cz/app/wog/
I don’t like playing with Spad XIII at all. Nobody at our wing really does. As Luc said, the game just doesn’t represent its qualities well. It it because WoG is not really a simulation game.
A solid simulation game is Canvas Eagles. You can play it with our minis and that one represents the vertical part of the maneuvers and altitudes well.
I think it depends on the scenario - we once did balloon busting with a SPAD XIII (attacking) vs a Fokker D.VII (defending). It felt quite balanced.
That sounds like a good example of how to employ Spad Dom. Let it hit something big hard and fly fast.Originally Posted by Spoonfrog
Probably true. However, balanced is not always realistic.
There are a lot of fudges and shortcuts that the WoG gaming engine takes on air combat.
Still, though, a fun game we love to play
Karl
It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows. -- Epictetus
Simply alllow it to continue to overdive, if It has the altitude. You'd have to give it a name -like power dive - and declare that's what you're intending at the start
Steeps are ignored in the overdive anyway, as it starts with a stall, followed by a dive, then the straight. Follow this with another dive card, or, if spread across two turns, with another straight declared as a dive. Something like that could work. This idea has been discussed before.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
Here's an idea...how about during phase 2 and 3 of an Overdive, the SPAD can discard one damage card for both phases, or two damage cards for one phase?
You don't need to...
When you start the Overdive, with 'Stall' - 'Dive' - 'Straight', you can simply add more Straights for more dived levels, until you declare the Overdive is complete (or hit the ground!).
No damage cards are received.
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
Thanks for the info
Interesting. I’m new to WoG and have only read the rules of Canvas Eagles and played a couple of turns to understand them. So if you could elaborate, it’d be nice.
From what I understood, the main difference between WoG and Canvas Eagles in their mechanisms seems to be the WWI planes in Canvas Eagles having a speed that the player can either increase, maintain or decrease in a speed range that depends on the plane : a Spad XIII can fly at 5 different speeds (from Speed 0 to Speed 4) while a Nieuport 11 can fly at 3 different speeds (from 0 to 2). To vary the speed, it seems that the player can either use the throttle and/or dive or climb several altitude levels at once (executing a ‘steep’ climb or dive). An aircraft which attempt to climb to an altitude level it can’t reach or whose speed is too slow will stall and test to see if it goes into a dangerous spin. Btw I don’t remember if it also tests in case of exceeding speed (to see possible structure dommages).
All this in Canvas Eagles seems ‘realistic’ from what little I know about aeronautics.
But according to Killer Moth in a post above, « controlling throttle was almost unviable as a tactic » during WWI. If so, Canvas Eagles would not be that realistic.
But there would still remain altitude (the ‘steep’ climbs or dives in Canvas Eagles) and maybe a binary engine off/on as realistic means of varying the speed during WWI.
On the other hand, Andrea Angiolino explained the system of WGF in the following way : « In traditional air wargames as Blue Max or Dawn Patrol or Aces High, the maneuvers you do in a turn are roughly equivalent to the ones you can build with the three cards of a WoW turn, but you fire at the end of movement only. In Wings of War the turn has been split in three steps and so you fire in each of them: at one third of the movement and at two thirds of the movement, besides than at the end. »
So if you want to do a slow maneuver in WoG, you are supposed to insert a ‘stall’ card inside your 3-card-maneuver. And conversely you can use a straight maneuver card for a fast maneuver.
Likewise, in this WoG system, if you climb, you insert a short-arrow climb card, thus slowing your 3-card-maneuver. And if you dive, you’ll insert a long-arrow dive card that’ll speed up your 3-card-maneuver (making it longer).
Not sure I understand perfectly both systems. I must also admit I don’t know what system is the best, what would be an improvement of WGF (if any is needed), lacking of knowledge about WWI planes and of playing time in both games.
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-10-2023 at 11:04.
What took you so long to share this?! I think I'm in love! <3
Blue Max is Canvas Eagles light, by the way.
I used the bases from the worst aerial combat game ever released - Angels 20 that is, a pole antenna and some sort of a joint.
Attachment 324070
Jan, this may be enough for me to keep my sanity through the rest of this semester. Very kind of you.
If I am not mistaken, Canvas Eagles is currently a free Print & Play game available here, so I guess the free version of it as a Mod of Tabletop simulator, the video game available on Steam (the mod being in Steam Workshop), can be mentioned here, so that its game mechanics can be easily tested and (why not ?) maybe adapted as House rules in WGF. The mod includes planes, hex maps, rules, counters, dices...
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-11-2023 at 03:11.
Yes.
Also https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/...kies-1914-1918 has a nice input for it.
I added some improved damage tokens to the file section.
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/1...amage-counters
Interesting ! Thanks. I’ll look at the links.
I still have some doubt about Canvas Eagles being that different from WGS. But maybe I miss something. (I read the version 3.6.2 of the rules.)
_____________________
Here is an example :
1) Let’s imagine a Spad XIII in Canvas Eagles at an altitude of 4 and an initial speed of 2 that wants to move forward as much as possible, using either a level flight or a dive :
- If it stays at level flight, it can move 3 hexes forward during the next 1st turn then 4 during the second one, that is 7 hexes in total.
- If it dives 2 altitude levels during the first turn (that is a steep dive), it can move 3 hexes forward, then only 4 hexes during the 2nd turn (as Speed 4 is the maximum speed) that is 7 hexes in total.
So the speed (or the covered distance) during a steep dive or a level flight seems identical like in WoG (at speed 2).
2) Likewise with an initial speed of 3 (8 hexes) or 4 (8 hexes), if I am not mistaken.
3) It is only if the initial speed of the Spad is 1 that the final covered distances will be different :
- At level flight, it can move 2 hexes forward during the 1st turn then 3 during the second one, that is 5 hexes in total.
- If it dives 2 altitude levels during the first turn (a steep dive), it can move 2 hexes forward, then, as the Spad is considered as having a speed of 3, 4 hexes during the 2nd turn, that is 6 hexes in total.
... and this difference is small : one hex.
_____________________
Maybe I didn’t fully understood the rules and I am wrong. If you play Canvas Eagles, you’ll be able to correct me. Maybe there are (many) cases where the outcome is different comparing WoG and CE. I’d like to know them (1).
But at first glance, moving the planes in Canvas Eagles actually feels much more like a simulation (with the use of energy, acceleration, throttle…), but are the outcomes in terms of maneuvers (trajectory, speed, altitude) that different from WoG ?
Of course, I don’t try to stand up for WGF against Canvas Eagles. Just trying to understand both systems.
___
(edit)
(1) The numerous speeds in Canvas Eagles, allowing to move either 0, 1, 2... hex(es) per turn, is actually a difference with WGF (but not that much with WGS).
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-11-2023 at 06:06.
Inline, vee, and radial engines had a conventional throttle. Rotary engines had a "blip switch" where you could cut off the engine temporarily to decrease its output, but I'm not sure if they had more than that. It may vary from engine to engine and year to year.
"Always warm [an engine] up slowly and gradually. Never run it at full power, in the air or on the ground, for longer than is absolutely necessary".
"Never open the throttle suddenly, as it strains the engine"
"It is well, also, to throttle down the engine a little in the air, for it is never a good plan to run it 'all out' at any time. On a long flight it pays to throttle down the engine every now and then and glide down a thousand feet or so." -- Practical Flying, a WWI-era instruction manual.
Thanks for the infos
For example, the Spad VII and XIII had V8 Hispano-Suiza engines (with throttle).
My one intro to Canvas Eagles highlighted the 'simulation' aspect of the game. Mostly, what it highlighted was the level of administration one needs to implement to simulate combat in a way that more accurately reflects maneuver and damage in aerial combat. I was not impressed.
Andrea and compatriots did a lot of play testing to come up with Wings of War/Glory. What I took away from my first intro to Wings of War was the simplicity of the mechanics, but the feel of dogfighting. I still feel the game is the best of all worlds, if you can just keep it as it is. It isn't a simulation, it has flaws, but it is so quick to play, and no requirement to put pencil to paper.
Mike
"Flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams
"Wings of Glory won't skin your elbows and knees while practicing." OldGuy59
That is how i see it Mike. I love WoG the most. I really like Canvas Eagles/Blue Max but that game is demanding and i can’t play it any time like WoG.
Imho there are elements of simulation in both games you can't find in the other one.
In WoG, you can shoot 'all the time' (at the end of each phase of your turn/maneuver) while in Canvas Eagles (CE), you can only shoot at the end of your turn which is not realistic. The hexes in CE or having to take your pencil at each turn, counting hexes and 'wasting' time in CE are less realistic than just quickly choosing your trajectory like in WoG. Etc.
And in CE, there are other elements of simulation : detailed damages, the ability to dive 1, 2, 3, etc. levels of altitude per turn...
WoG is a simplification but if you play with most of its advanced, optional and ace rules, the two games are quite similar in their outcomes.
Having played simulation video games, what I miss most in WoG compared to CE is the feel that diving allows you to gain speed and, conversely, that a steep climb slows you down, more or less speed depending on the angle of dive or climb :
- in WoG, you fly slower when climbing and faster when diving because of the size of the arrows on the maneuver cards, then using an Ace with Height control allows you to choose between a steep dive and a shallow one via the number of climb counters you keep,
- in CE, it seems simpler, more 'simulation' : you choose the distance to be covered and the number of altitude levels you want to dive. For example, diving 4 altitude levels in 2 hexes (steep dive) or 1 altitude level in 3 hexes (shallow dive) or 4 altitudes levels in 3 hexes. Here you feel the dive imho. Likewise "stall" (as defined here) is great in CE.
Aside from that, I really like WoG.
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-12-2023 at 00:30.
Everyone has their own view of what realism means in an air combat board game. Finally, every game is a simplification that reproduces certain aspects of the real thing while it omits others.
interesting discussion. yeah, id agree the game slights the spad some for the sake of simplicity. but i guess thats the price of having an elegantly simple game play. a spad vs a DVII is a tough battle, but it is winable if you force the DVII to react to your zoom and boom maneuvers. but it requires enough maneuvering space (ie 2+ maps) and can have tediously few firing solutions.
I’ll most likely state the obvious.
Let’s start with an genuine anecdote. In February 1917, two French rookie pilots flying Nieuport 17, including the future Ace Maurice Boyau, are behind a German two-seaters unsuccessfully trying to shoot it down for several minutes, each in turn. Suddenly, a Spad VII appears, gets between the Nieuports and the two-seater and fires a few bullets. The German plane immediately catches fire and crashes. The Spad, one of the first delivered, faster than the N.17, comes close to the Nieuports and greets them. It is the Georges Guynemer. Back in the airfield, the two rookies receive a call from Guynemer who apologizes for having interfered and gives them an advice that’ll be of great help according to them : ‘You were too far from the German plane. To shoot down a German, you must crash into it’, meaning the pilot must fire at point-blank range, ‘his propeller almost cutting the tail of the enemy aircraft’.
Here is maybe one of the historical advantages of the fastest planes of WWI, including the Spad (an advantage not fully handled by the game) : the ability to quickly close in and fire at point-blank range, allowing more deadly and quicker shooting (if the pilot masters his plane, his shooting, his nerves).
Last edited by Le Piaf; 03-31-2023 at 15:22.
A few months ago we played a game featuring three SPAD VIIs and three Germans. The Germans had the maneuverability advantage, along with superior firepower. The American players used mostly Immelmann and split S maneuvers, and outlasted the Germans for the most part. I think a SPAD player has to be patient and not give in to the temptation of slips and turns.
Well, the S.VII's turn diameter is more than 1 inch tighter than the S.XIII's, so...
Still about the anecdote I mentioned in post 40 and the advantage of fast planes able to fire at point-blank range, it's always dangerous irl to stay behind an enemy for too long minutes focused on trying to shoot it down in vain as the Nieuport did. This leaves time for an enemy to spot you, place himself in your tail unnoticed and shoot you.
Sometimes I am under the impression that the turn rate of the Spad XIII in WoG is too large, too unfairly detrimental :
…especially as the max speeds (and general performances) of the Spad VII and the Spad XIII don’t seem that different (at least if you look at the Spad VII with a 180-hp engine) :
Moreover, the ‘normal’ turn cards in the WoG decks seem partly calculated on the basis of the max speed (the straight maneuver card).
I’ve already posted the turn performances of several planes including the Spad XIII in the ‘Airframes with superior dive’ thread.
I don’t know whether or not the Spad XIII deserves such a bad turn as in game…
Then I chalk it up to my bias for Spad and play
(Edit)
And this long turn is actually useful is other cases...
Last edited by Le Piaf; 04-01-2023 at 01:00.
It's a little fiddly but you could always try this solution to turn less than 60ş on a standard turn card:
Before anybody plays the cards you must state that you are Turning Less! so that you won't have an unfair advantage over the other players. You start by making the normal turn, then place the plane's card at the start of the turn.
By laying the ruler inside the arc of fire on the card from the red dot on the card to the arrow on the manoeuvre card & placing the aircraft base alongside of that (as in the photo) than you may get nearer a 30ş turn instead of a 60ş one. Speeds the same and at least you'll be able to make a 90ş turn over two cards which might help. The example uses an Albatros but the principle is the same with any deck.
https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sh...acceptable-way
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
@Dave : This way to be able to turn less than what is allowed on the turn maneuver card of a deck is interesting ! Thanks for sharing.
Actually I'd like the deck A to be able turn more (ie tighter) than what is currently allowed, even it'd mean flying slower. I guess technically it would mean using something between the turn maneuver cards of the A deck and the B deck or directly the turn maneuver card of the B deck. The question is would it be realistic, historical ?
According to this paper, p. 7 (click here), the Albatros D.Va of 1917 has a Sea Level Turn Rate of 68 degrees per second while the Spad XIII has a Sea Level Turn Rate of 73 deg/sec (and the Fokker DR-1 a Sea Level Turn Rate of 82 deg/sec). (Other data may exist.)
Last edited by Le Piaf; 04-01-2023 at 05:40.
I think it is worth mentioning that in reading WW1 pilot memoirs, I have not (to my best recollection) noticed any complaint about the Spad. Rickenbacker, for example, praises the Spad as he recounted his combat experiences, and those of other pilots. He relates engagements if Spads taking on superior numbers of Fokker D-VIIs in level combat; the Spad was not at all a "dive, hit, and run" sort of aircraft, if a reader is to trust what Rickenbacker writes.
Apart from this, I don't recall any German pilot memoir that is critical if the Spad's ability to dogfight.
Ironic that the models don't gain speed in dives but that do in turns ! The arrow of the turns is much longer than that of the straights; funnily enough the turn of the B deck is about the length of the arrow of the A deck straight, so could do the job. I guess that it's the same throughout the decks - the turns of the next slower speed band deck would fit for the turn of the next faster deck. Whether that would give you what you want I don't know. I have a vague recollection from one of the books I read not so long ago that the SPAD XIII had a tighter right turn than left due to the torque of the engine (think it was an American who flew with the French) but that's the only time I've ever seen that trait mentioned. Maybe that requires some further research.
Sapiens qui vigilat... "He is wise who watches"
TYVM for the paper link, Luc: it truly shows the interaction between engine power, airframe characteristics, climb, minimum stall and turn performance. Rep-worthy, but the rep gun is jammed.
Not just WW1...
The quest for a successful fighter plane has always been a search for more speed.
As soon as engines became powerful enough to provide sufficient lift on a single wing, all nations dropped the manoeuvrability of biplanes in favour of more speed.
The introduction of jet engines eliminated sharp manoeuvres, and aircraft designs shed multiple guns in order to lighten the load and further increase the speed.
Greater speed controls the engagement - you can choose to escape an superior enemy, or chase down and eliminate an inferior force.
Interceptors can engage an enemy sooner, further away from friendly "targets",
Speed is everything.
I laugh in the face of danger - then I hide until it goes away!
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