"Triplane tonight" Topic

Three silly games. Each one silly in its own way. The first was a couple of French scouts on, well, a scouting mission. But they were jumped and interrupted by an Albatros D.3. At the point these pics were taken, the Spad VII had gained an altitude advantage over the Albatros, the Nieuport 24 had just broken his gun with his first shot in the dead six of the German, then turned away in a dive for his own lines. The Albatros pilot zoomed up to pursue the Spad, but the French scout's speed was already at maximum and he was climbing away. Game over.
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Next we had an early war artillery spotting mission by a Caudron G.4, escorted by a Morane H. Far above an Eindecker jockey spotted the pair of French machines and started down. He made a pass at the Morane, then the Caudron. No effect. A second pass resulted in the Eindecker's gun breaking (snake eyes followed by a one). The Morane was in hot pursuit as the pair of them dove, and the very first shot from the Hotchkiss machine gun, it too rolled snake eyes, and a one; broken gun! What is it tonight with the breaking guns?
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The Caudron sailed serenely on and completed its artillery spotting mission.
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Third game I didn't take any piccies. Too tired. But it was the longest game: another artillery spot, this time by a Roland C.2, "escorted" by a Pfalz E.2. Heh, the Roland's top speed is faster, it is much stronger and has guns fore and aft; no need for an obsolescent monoplane to "escort" it. But, oh well! A pair of Morane L parasols attacked audaciously. They were slower and their armament was inferior. Nevertheless they succeeded in touching up the Roland and damaging the controls of the Eindecker, before the mission was completed and the Roland simply drove away, with the Pfalz in tow, but falling steadily further to the rear. The parasols, of course, had no choice but to watch the faster German aircraft disappear over their own lines…………

Sweet ! Did you use the old Triplane rules?

Looks more like Red Baron to me. Coincidentally, we played a RB game yesterday.
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Yes, Triplane, and the rules are old, but nevertheless the last "edition" printed (with in-house clarifications, of course; "clarifications" needs clarifying: we discuss, and discover that even after forty-plus years, we still don't always agree on "this is how it has always been done").

This is fantastic in all its "hardcore and oldschool" glory!.. So far removed from the quick boardgame style games that we see a lot.

1/72 scale?

Just a small idea: Those hefty flight stand could be made much, much thinner (and thus les intrusive) by using carbon fiber tubes, but I guess all the stuff was build way back?

The planes are almost all 1/72 scale. One "heretic" has the beginnings of a 1/144 scale collection. Thankfully, it has not grown in numbers!

With the larger planes, heavy movement stands are necessary. The dimensions of the stands, wheel spacing, etc., are fixed in place. Thickness of the movement stand is not going to change any of that, and we do need that lead weight beneath.

A note: I scratch-built that Caudron G.4 back in 1984, In thirty-three years this is only the third time I've flown it, though a couple of others have borrowed it over the years. I've built a lot of new models for the very early war, but this time I decided it was time to trot the old thing out again.