Luftkrieg 1919

Has "the war to end all wars" really ended?... After the false armistice of November 1918 the victorious Entente has failed to heal and give hope to a shattered generation. Feeding on this disillusionment, the Bolshevik revolution spreads conflict and division across Europe in the ideological vacuum that follows the Great War. The technological advances made in the First World War meant that land, sea and air warfare was changed forever and many inspired and revolutionary concepts were being developed at the war's end that were not pursued by the Allies in the years following the Armistice. The laziness of peace meant that the RAF went well into the 1930's equipped with biplanes and was ill-prepared for Germany's ambitions in 1939. ​Can former adversaries forge new alliances, explore new technologies and stem the Red Tide?

I've had life-long fascination with WW1 history, science fiction and the arts.

Even as a child the final "fighter trial" scene in "the Blue Max" film gripped me and the realisation, much later, that it was based on actual events and much intrigue led me to study the world of WW1 prototypes and "what if?" projects.
The arrival of a recent new range of superb 1/32 kits from Wingnut Wings and others by Roden etc give us some scratch building opportunities at least to convert and model some of these fascinating Fighter Competition contenders and others.

But what of the people and stories that would have accompanied these designs should they have gone into production?

In my mind I started populating imagined airfields with known personalities, given another, invented but plausible storyline. It was just too tempting to develop the idea further and with the success of Aviattic's regular WW1 product ranges I began to commission some sculpts to get this idea "off the ground"!

As well as inspiring a growing range of figures the "1919" scenario has led to dreams of developing this idea into a table top war-game and a series of graphic novels, even a film?! Anyone wishing to help bring these ideas to reality is welcome to Email me! sales@aviattic.com

I brought the first of many characters to life with the help of some masters in their respective fields.

Most were inspired by real personalities, some of whom have disappeared from the history books on land, sea and aerial warfare.

Many coincidences occurred as I researched each character, which helped drive their stories and the intertwined plots that bind them..

Heroes (and some villains) thrown into a new and terrifying conflict with new stories to tell.

Ltn Walter Karjus

Ltn Walter Karjus really flew alongside von Richthofen with a hook for a hand (re-imagined, later, as a robotic arm). With the shortage of experienced pilots and leaders he is propelled into command of a defence Jagdstaffel that tests and challenges everything he believes..

Amelia Earheart

Amelia Earheart (re-imagined as "Airheart"!) was a teenage nurse, caring for returning wounded soldiers in Canada. Already a pilot, could she have been inspired to join the cause in Poland and, ultimately fall in love with "Buck" Crawford, real Kosciusko Squadron commander?
Many young men, after months of training to fight a common enemy, arrived in Europe too late to see service or action. The idea of the real Kosciusko Squadron was formulated in the bars and brothels of Paris in 1919 as a disparate group of flying adventurers offered their services to the blighted Polish government, earning a place in the annals of that proud country's resistance to Russian rule for ever. Sometimes you don't need to make this stuff up...

Captain Kinkead

Captain Kinkead was part of an elite task force (including Raymond Collishaw!) sent to aid the White Russian forces in 1919. I imagine him left behind with the survivors of his squadron in the chaos of the withdrawal, joining a gang of brigands and saboteurs hell-bent on halting the Red advance..

Otto, "the Giant"

Otto, "the Giant" - the Zeppelin re-fuelling crewman - I based on a photo I found of a wrestler who earned his living at the Coney Island fairground. Re-imagining him as a German immigrant who returns to the Fatherland and pursues his dream of flight, assigned to the flight deck of one of the new, mighty, super-Zeppelins, "Wodin", that roams the upper reaches of the atmosphere, re-fuelling and re-arming the aircraft that can then return to the perpetual fray below.. These re-purposed airships are the ultimate prize in the new air war and are fought over like galleons in the sea battles of old. Newly developed, highly compressed engined fighters struggle to achieve the ceiling heights necessary to reach them in the icy, sunlit wastes of the lower atmosphere.

Captain Peter Strasser

Captain Peter Strasser was one of the leading supporters of and commanders of the wartime Zeppelin fleet and its bombing campaign. He and his crew were brought down over the Channel during the last airship raid on Britain in 1918. ​I have given him a new lease of life, rescued, severely injured from the sea and returning to command the new Zeppelin fleet with his feverishly loyal crews, drawn from the ranks of wounded and scarred ex-servicemen, shunned by polite society at home but welcome in his "Brotherhood of the Skies"..

Kati von Otersdorf

Kati von Otersdorf allegedly nursed von Richthofen back to health (of sorts..) in 1917 after receiving a serious head wound. An affair has long been speculated, I took that as her awakening and the loss of Manfred leads her down a very different path. Seeing the shortage of male pilots as a worrying issue, High Command accepts her application to Flight School seeing the public relations potential and her plan to train female pilots to ferry newly-built aircraft to the hard-pressed front line units.
Flying at night, with new night-vision and listening equipment, chance encounters with roaming enemy patrols lead her and her "Fledermausen" to forbidden combats and victories en-route that become the stuff of legend to the smitten squadron personnel and impoverished public at home , hungry for a new breed of hero to be inspired by and follow.

Yumiko

Yumiko (I chose the name because I liked it - by pure, strange coincidence it means "Arrow girl") was inspired by a photo found of a stunning Japanese model. Descended from one of the fallen Samurai dynasties (her family were renowned archers) she was gifted to the Emperor of Japan as a child and becomes one of his concubines. Along with many other such children, these trusted elite are trained to defend their master and, with the gift from Germany of the Zeppelin "Imperial Cloud", along with squadrons of the latest fighter aircraft, she takes to the skies as the war with China is waged below.

Herman Göring

Herman Göring, the narcissistic, incompetent and drug-addled buffon as he is now known was a successful WW1 fighter pilot, succeeding the Baron in leading Jagdstaffel 11 until the war's end. Racked with pain from premature arthritis he turned to opiates for relief and I imagine him hiding his growing addiction, paranoia and frustration as he returns his squadron to Germany to fight the Bolsheviks threatening to overrun Berlin. The unit's spirited and inspirational defence of the capital earns him the title "the Beast of Berlin" as he leads attack after frenzied attack, ordering waves of "Mistel" guided bombs against the Reds and demanding the ultimate sacrifice from many of his pilots..

Natalya Gagarina

Natalya Gagarina, daughter of "disappeared" intellectual parents in the Czar's death camps and, along with many "orphans of the Revolution", imprisoned in cold, damp, windowless cells until their liberation in 1917 the imagining of Natalya came from the idea that such children could be easily trained and taught to avenge such terrible injustices rather than attempt to re-habilitate them. Her daylight-less existence has resulted in her and her brethren having the ability to see in the dark and so their training as night-fighter pilots to seek out and raid enemy airfields is a logical role for these emaciated, damaged teenagers. Natalya will, one day, find comfort with the birth of a son..

Anthony Fokker

Anthony Fokker, the legendary aircraft pioneer and designer, was a Dutchman who offered his services to the Royal Flying Corps but, after being politely turned away by the British air ministry turned to a welcoming Germany and helped create one of the finest and most formidable fighting services in history. A wily businessman in reality he managed to return to his native Holland, even smuggling banned aircraft out of the country and was allowed to start a successful airline... I re-imagine him in 1918 seeing the tide turning in favour of the new Russia and, evading a court martial for sabotage (he was renowned for unsatisfactory and cost-cutting construction practices) he escapes to put a new, revolutionary collection of fighter and bomber aircraft into production in secret factories in Russia and its newly captured territories..

Many thanks to Guillaume Menuel (Ubisoft) for enthusiastically helping to bring my ideas to life with his paintings.

Sculptors Patrick Masson (www.artiktoys.com), Doug Craner and Nino Pizzichemi for embracing the concept and bringing their flair to the magnificent sculpts that are now part of the Luftkrieg 1919 range!

Existing Aviattic products were designed with cross-over potential for 1919 and so we have imagined "Freikorps" camouflaged Marienfeld lorries (thanks Bo!), late war pilot figures who, with the latest breathing apparatus and high performance engines are able to reach new altitudes, the Ansaldo Balilla kit in Polish "Kosciusko" Squadron markings - the real beginning and inspiration of the story...

So, where would a continued conflict have taken the design and development of 20th century warfare? The leaps made in aerial warfare alone in the four years of the Great War were astounding...imagine a 1920's aesthetic added to the combination of many nations skills and talents...imagine a Revolutionary Russia attracting idealistic (or just opportunistic) designers, engineers, fighters...imagine Japan under attack from emboldened, Bolshevik-backed China...imagine the United States, its citizens tired and wary of another foreign conflict, unhappy to commit and support to recent enemies...imagine young men and women choosing to fight and defend what they believe in rather than the governments they have lost faith in..

Richard Andrews, Stroud, October 2018
​All stories and characters copyright Aviattic 2018

Some inspiration...

Gallery