Did Manfred......

crankcase · 2 April 2007, 12:11 AM

i have to agree with the previous post... i am sure there were plenty of RAF (fighter) pilots who were ambitious and intent on claiming the honor of ending the career of the "bloody red baron"!
crankcase

Ginger. · 2 April 2007, 01:47 AM

Wonder if they'll ever do a 'Manny' doll... all dressed in black leather with a Blue Max round his gregory?
OvS could snuggle up with his 'Manny' at bedtime.

OvS · 2 April 2007, 06:43 AM

No offense to ANYONE British here, as I don't mean it this way, but pick up the book 'First Day on the Somme' by Martin Middlebrooks.

If there was ever an example of Battlefield ignorance and stupidity, the BEF proved it in less than 6 hours by decimating 60,000 lives with the 'push forward at all costs' theroy.

OvS

Roadhog · 2 April 2007, 11:01 PM

Dear OvS, Read the new book

Bloody April, about the fateful month of April 1917 and the offensive policies that led to that bloodbath on the ground and in the air. VR, Roadhog "Memento mori."

Ginger. · 3 April 2007, 04:50 AM

'Bloody April' is a superb read, it shows very clearly how the ground campaigns dictated what happened upstairs with the birdmen, and the heavy price they had to pay.

rammjaeger · 3 April 2007, 05:18 AM

>>Did enemy pilots steer clear of him?I would think that being the legend he was most pilots would "run away" rather than engage him.<<

How can you know the black spot in some distance or the colourful attacking aircraft in short distance is MvR?

Even if you would know type, colours and other details of his airplane - you would only know "my opponent if Richthofen" if it is too late for you to avoid "contact" with him.
A double seater crew should wisely avoid aircombat with fighter squadrons (if possible) but fighters should do their duty - and this duty includes also to fight Richthofen and his men (if the conditions are not very very unfavourable).

OvS · 3 April 2007, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ginger.

Wonder if they'll ever do a 'Manny' doll... all dressed in black leather with a Blue Max round his gregory?
OvS could snuggle up with his 'Manny' at bedtime.

Now this comment... yes.. this IS the work of a pure genius... yes...

A 'Manny' doll... Genius... nothing short!

No thanks, I have a MILF for a wife that does very well taking care of that business

.... you can keep this "Manny" doll you speak of as a token of my pure appreciation of your higher level of ign...er... intelligence.

All the best!

OvS

Roadhog · 3 April 2007, 10:13 PM

Howdy gang. The man is dead on. When observing enemy planes approaching from several thousand meters, you see them first as black specks or from the flash of sunlight off of a wing surface or fuselage. I'm not sure that you could make out a red airplane until it was too late to call of the upcoming unpleasantness. Also, from what I have read and seen in artist's prints, MvR often flew triplanes and some Albatros scouts that were NOT painted completely crimson. Any comments? VR, Roadhog "Memento mori."

4 April 2007, 06:13 AM

Use your imagination a bit. There's an awful lot of aeroplanes out there - if you're a newbie like May then most of them are flown by people who've been at it longer than you. You don't have a parachute (unless you're in the German Air service and it's getting well into 1918). You're flying a primitive aeroplane with badly harmonised controls and a tendency to fall apart in mid-air (the last two points were truer of some WW1 aircraft than other, but more or less true of them all). FLYING was still really dangerous, even without someone shooting at you. And above all, running away from someone else attacking you was the last thing to do - it's what May did, for instance - and exactly what nearly killed him.

The point I think is that most WW1 flyers' main preoccupation was obviously not self-preservation, or they wouldn't have been there.

Barrett · 4 April 2007, 09:45 AM

Rammjaeger and Roadhog beat me to it.

FAR too much is made of The Red Triplane Thing. But aside from the physical difficulty of determining an aeroplane's colo(u)r is the fact that in 1918 The Red Baron Thing was nowhere as familiar as today. Forum new guys might look up

Wop May's own account: he was attacked by a red tripe but had no idea of the owner. He said (approximately) "Had I known it was vR I would have dived straight into the river."