I love that era of aviation. The red baron is like the most badass thing ever.

What's interesting about the First World War is the role played by class in the society of the time, with no real hardship among the rich, and the poor massacred like cattle due to the misadvised policy of top brass who had inherited their positions. The impact this would have on the 20th century is fascinating, especially considering the last few years have shown how social class is still very much an issue.

Yeah, it was completely stupid and awesome at the same time. There was lots of glory involved for those who did well (like the Red Baron), but I find it hard to understand the relative strategic importance of winning such dogfights. Perhaps protecting zeppelins or something from enemy fire (?) ..

But yeah, it was totally cool nonetheless :)

Well, I know that the early dogfighters were also bombers. So that probably had something to do with it.

Yeah, I am of course thinking of the kind of dogfighters similar to the picture I posted earlier .. although I'll repost it here.

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraf...1-dogfight.jpg

I think this is the kind of fokker flown at some point by the Red Baron himself. I was not really sure if these commonly carried bombs or not, but if you say they did, I'll take your word for it. Aside from bombing, they could of course have strategic importance as scouts as well so I'm not saying whatever they did would be completely pointless .. just maybe a bit compared to some of the other stuff that went on. Like generally, how much of the war was won and lost in the air by these dogfighter planes?

I guess I've been partial to the WWII due to only learning that at school (I didn't continue history). Due to a majority of war books being based on WWII I've mainly only been introduced to stories from that respect. I find war incredibly interesting full stop.

Growing up, I heard lots of little stories from the war from old teachers and grandparents and such that were alive to experience it. That's another thing that adds to WWII's interestingness.

Originally used for reconnaissance. In fact, using them for anything else was considered a war crime.
It quickly progressed from shooting at each other with hand held weapons, to mounted machine guns.

Yep. Early bombing runs also dropped bricks instead of explosives.

I don't find WWI interesting. Too much military inefficiency. Enormous amounts of casualties, only to achieve mediocre tactic and strategic results.

Trivia: French troop transport in the Battle of the Marne. Taxis:

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5558/taximarne.jpg

First Battle of the Marne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia