Pfalz D.III unjamming

[kevan]

I picked up Osprey's Pfalz Scout Aces of World War I a week ago, which got me reading up a bit on Pfalz planes in general. One criticism of the D.III (corrected in the D.IIIa) was that the guns were buried in the fuselage. By what I've read, there was a panel that could be removed to get at them, but it was next to impossible to do in combat.

I also caught a reference to this being a holdover from early Roland designs - I don't have a good picture of a D.II to see if the guns were buried on that plane as well.

I'm wondering, should the Pfalz D.III have the same restrictions on unjamming as the Phonix D.I and Aviatik D.I?

[kirkh]

Didn't the Oeff*g's have the same issue with their Schwarzlose's? I'm surprised the 7th edition rules restrict the Aviatik and Phonix but not the Oeff*g.

[kazorm]

In the 8th edition, the Pfalz D-III will not be able to clear jams in the air. There are 3 different models of the Oeff*g Albatros D-III in the 8th edition. the 53.2, which cannot clear jams in the air, the 153 which can clear them after Jan. 1918 on a roll of 1 on a D6 before the game, and the 253 which can clear on a 1-3 on a D6 before the game.

[alien01]

"09-17-01 - Just a note from Flying Machines Press' Pfalz Aircraft of WW I by Jack Herris. Quoting from the first complete paragraph on P.31, 'Like the Roland fighters, the Pfalz D III had it's machine guns buried in the forward fuselage where they were inaccessible to the pilot in the event the guns jammed. Pilots criticized this feature, and the D IIIa was produced with the guns mounted in the normal position for those times; on top of the fuselage immediately in front of the pilot.' I guess it sucks to be a Roland pilot, or Pfalz D III."

The above quote is from the e-mail I sent Mike Carr when I first discovered this. (By the way the Herris book is excellent, I highly recommend it!) This change will be in the 8th Ed.