CANVAS EAGLES???

[Dubar]

On the Aircraft Maneuver Schedule/Aircraft Record Sheet, there's a box in the lower right corner labeled "REDS".

What's it's purpose???

[bluewillow]

Hi Dan,

When you receive a red marker damage to the tail or wing on the combat results table you place it there until the problem phase, then take a spin test.

Auto lose one height level, no firing by pilot or observer plus the result of the table.

Hope that helps

Really must play another game soon I am getting rusty!

Cheers
Matt

[Dubar]

Matt...You may have me confused with Dunbar...I left out the N!!!

Quite alright and thanks for the response.  I'll keep it in mind.

The nickname "Dubar" Comes from a time long ago.  Back in the last century, I worked with a bunch of guys and about 6 of us had some uncommon last names.  We all got transferred into the same work group.  There was a guy there that couldn't pronounce any of our last names so he gave each of us a nickname, mine was Dubar!!!

[bluewillow]

Sorry, my apologies Dubar,

Same as my nickname Bluewillow, as a red head in Australia you get called blue, as there were several red heads with Williamson and Williams in our town (I have 56 first cousins and most of the men have red hair being of scots ancestry) I ended up with Bluewillow!

Cheers
Matt

[Dubar]

No problem Matt.
Wow...56 cousins.  At my age I'm down to maybe 5, everybody else has passed on.  Only 1 redhead in my family that I know of and she never had kids.

I did some work for an Aussie engineer (Robin Wissing, Hydrapower International) when I was a draftsman, he was a great guy and told me a lot about his life in Australia.

I was scrounging thru my stack of rules and came across one that I found on the internet, maybe even on this forum.  It's a very basic set of rules, 1 page.  I tried it out and it worked well but I felt I could improve it a bit and ended up taking pieces of it and bits from Canvas Eagles and making my own set of very simple rules.

Played a few rounds last night, fixing flaws in what I had written, until I came up with a very playable and simple set of rules.  It's 3 pages long but the last page is aircraft data and not really "rules".  I printed it out and made aircraft data sheets for the 18 aircraft I currently have, laminated them (should have waited because I need to add a few things) so I could mark (and erase later) when an aircraft fired and had taken damage.  I need to add AMMO usage, PILOT info, and a photo of the plane on my data sheets.

More play time is necessary, but I have some chores to do today so maybe later.

[Dubar]

I have searched the internet to no avail.

Aircraft with 2 forward-firing, fuselage-mounted, machine guns...were the triggers connected somehow so that BOTH MGs fired at more or less the same time?  Were any fired independently of each other?

Also, were any flexible, wing-mounted MGs, on a rail, made to swivel from side to side or did they shoot straight ahead only?  I know some were fixed in place while others could be moved on a rail for reloading and for shooting up instead of just straight.

Looking forward to your replies.  In the meantime I'll go read some books!

[SteveBurt]

Pretty sure all the twin MGs fired together. I think the rail on the top wing mounted guns was for reloading (as in the SE5 A). Pretty mad standing up in your open cockpit to reload the gun, and I wonder how often it happened

[Fitz]

The rail used for the Lewis gun on the SE5 and RNAS Camel kept the gun on the line of the fuselage only, the gun couldn't be swiveled.

The earlier system, used on planes like the Nieuport 11, in which the gun was firmly fixed to the upper wing was indeed quite perilous to reload. There's at least one recorded incident of the aircraft flipping upside down while the pilot was standing in the cockpit reloading, and he was left hanging from the magazine of the gun, to which he clung for dear life until the aeroplane righted itself and he could scramble back into his seat.

[Dubar]

Thanks guys!

SteveBurt I think you're right on the twin MGs, at least in the movie The Blue Max!  And that's the way I'm going to use them.  I feel the reason for 2 MGs was purely increased of lead down range, makes sense to make them both shoot at the same time.  A pilot had very little time/chance to aim and fire anyway.

Fitz I think you're right too.  Some of the wing guns were solidly attached in place while others were on a rail so the could reload and shoot upward.

[gweirda]

...on the twin MGs...makes sense to make them both shoot at the same time...

Pilots had triggers on the stick that allowed them to fire one or both of the deck-mounted guns (at least on some - saying "all" is perilous!).  That said, it may well be a step too fiddly?  I do have players roll for jamming on each gun, though...

...in the movie The Blue Max!

That bar-thingy was added so it looked like the actors did something to fire - a closeup of the stick in their crotch was probably deemed too risque!  They also removed the center-section struts for the shots so the actor's face wasn't covered up.    Still a good flick, though.

[Dubar]

Yep, too fiddly.  And NEVER go by what Hollywood portrays. 

[Dubar]

Last year after playing Canvas Eagles "by the book", I decided to type up the rules from the book, leaving out all the "chat" from the book so I could concentrate on just the rules.  Of course I made a few mods along the way, but for the most part they follow the rules very closely, ended up being 9 pages long.

Along the way I ran across some simple rules I found on the web that someone came up with, probably on this forum.  I did the same thing with these, re-typed them while adding my own twist to them, and came up with a 3 page set of rules that are quick and simple to play.  Not nearly as detailed as Canvas Eagles, but if I want a quick 30 minute or 1 hour game I pull them out and have a go.  Basically these are page (1) Movement, (2) Combat, and (3) Aircraft data. Plus I've made data sheets for each type of aircraft that I currently have (just ordered 10 more different planes from Reduced Aircraft Factory).

I'm still "testing" this 3-page rule set but so far I like what I see.  The past few days I've been working on what to do with planes that had 1 MG vice 2, having 2 has got to be an advantage and the rules should show that.

[Dubar]

I posted this pertaining to a topic on Hexes on the WW2 forum but thought I'd post it here too.

Here's my 4x6Plus battle mat from Cigar Store showing a Nieuport 28 and Pfalz DIIIa, 1/144 scale from Reduced Aircraft factory.  Periodically I also use a few 1/48 scale models when I want bigger models:

[Dubar]

A closer view:

[Dubar]

For my stands I bought some 2.75" across the flats acrylic place cards off Amazon, some long bamboo skewers from Walmart, and a pack of alligator clips.  Drill a hole in the bottom of each plane for a pin with a ball head to fit into.  On my 1/48 scale planes I bought some RC car ball head screws (ball joints), drilled holes in the bottom of each plane and screwed them in.  I tried collapsing antennas for stands but them seemed flimsy and would tip over easily, plus found once the battle started I never changed altitude anyway.