Knights of the Air

For many years in the mid-1970s through the late 1980s my main hobby was re-enacting the Revolutionary and then the Civil War. There were lots of parades and lots of explaining to people that the Civil War wasn't the one where we beat the guys in the redcoats, but in between was an invaluable education in how soldiering was conducted in early America. What I learned was that the academic historians often didn't know what they were talking about because the stuff that turned battles around were little nitty-gritty things that didn't get written down in reports.

Naturally I was attracted to the many simulation games that were around in the '70s and '80s as well. I became Randolph High's simulation game club advisor. OK, I became the head of the Dungeons and Dragons Club. I learned important things like never approach an angry dragon from the front which is exactly the opposite of the way to approach horses in the real world (to the front and side).

Then along came computers and the age of simulation took off. A man named Sid Meier invented  Civilization and stuffy historians like me could test out various hypotheses on the processes that drive real events. Meier is now 59 and has a number of other famous games to his credit including a railroad game where you can see if you can build a transcontinental railroad without a variety of stock finangles. You'll quickly develop an appreciation for Oakes Ames with that one. Recently he has developed a game called Ace Patrol that is a simulation of World War I air combat.

Air combat games usually combine battle simulation with a flight simulator. You might not think so, but you live most of your life in a two dimensional world-left and right, backwards and forwards. Flight simulators add the dimension of up and down. That's OK if you are flying a 747 simulator and an air traffic controller is looking out for you. If other guys are flying around trying to shoot you the mechanics get complicated fast. Add in that an IPad has a built in gyroscope that actually allows you to twist and turn it to fly a plane and an old guy like me is not going to learn much about the war in the air in 1917-18 with a typical air combat game.

I really want to learn about this era because my great uncle Fred was one of the first Marine pilots and actually flew at least one combat mission over the Western Front in a DH4, the so-called "Flying Coffin." Enter Sid Meier whose new game combines some of the features of the old time board games with modern computing. You actually get to plot the flight of your plane step by step in a turn based system not in life or death real time. Planes have their own design limitations in climbing, diving, turning, and speed and pilots start with a very limited skill set of maneuvers-not everyone can do an Immelman turn, but they can learn one with experience. So what can a historian learn from a simulation like this? First, the saying that "there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots" is true. Hiding in a cloud bank while waiting for the perfect time to swoop in on a recon mission is much better than fighting your way through the enemy lines. You may never become an ace (five or more confirmed kills including balloons), but you get to do your job day after day. Second, no matter how good a pilot you are inferior aircraft will always do you in. There are certain points early in World War I where German planes are substantially better than those of the Allies, but by the end the tables are turned. The game really gave me something to meditate on as my single German plane took off against a squadron of superior American planes with no hope of victory late in 1918. Third, the simulation shows you that most of the missions performed by the Air Force today were developed in World War I including strategic bombing, strafing ground targets, tactical air superiority missions, and recon. It didn't take the "Knights of the Air" long to move from shooting at each other with shotguns to creating modern air combat. Fourth, the phrase "you can't get there from here" has special meaning in the air as there are many times when a pilot wants to maneuver into a certain position, but can't get the plane to do it. Finally, air combat in World War I was intensely personal. These "canvas falcons" came as close to birds in flight as any machines man has made. They twist and turn around each other, often only a few feet apart, in their attempt to get in position to fire. They are called "dogfights," but in World War I they look more like small birds attacking a crow in flight. Like dragons the best attack position is behind, actually behind and above.

So, a little imagination has gotten me thinking about the experiences of my Uncle Fred. An invaluable aid in updating the family story. Philosophically, I've argued against simulations ever being close enough to the real thing to be considered real. Chaos theory limits the accuracy of weather simulations, the Turing test still tricks computers trying to pass as people, but a good simulation game can stimulate good historical thinking. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol is such a simulation.