The freeze frame philosophy claims that game action is based on the final angles of airplane counters in the last square of a game turn. Hence, if the final angle or position of an airplane counter does not facilitate a particular action, then it could not have occurred at any other point during the game turn, either. This is in direct defiance of long-standing Dawn Patrol rules, which state that a game turn represents all the activities that would have taken place during the twenty-second time span that each turn was designed to represent. This freeze frame mentality has given birth to several new rules. Two, in particular, are changing the way we play the game.

The first restricts observers from firing at the same target as the pilot in the same turn. Freeze frame supporters claim that observers shouldn't be allowed to fire on the same target as their pilot because the plane would be angled upward and the observer's shot would be blocked by the back of his own pilot's head.

The rule book, however, clearly states that the firing phase represents all shooting that would have taken place during the twenty-second period that each game turn represents. Until that fundamental premise is removed from the game, we must address the issue in a manner that is logically consistent with twenty-second-per-turn movement.

Therefore, the concept that an observer cannot fire at the same target as the pilot even though that target is at a higher level is, by necessity, based on the assumption that the attacking airplane maintains its angle of attack for the entire twenty seconds of the game turn.

In order to fire the front gun at a target 100 feet away and 50 feet higher, an aircraft must reach a 28-degree climb attitude, also known as "angle of attack." This refers to the plane's upward "tilt" when the nose rises as the pilot aims at a higher target. The same 28-degree angle of attack would be required to align the pilot's gun on a target 200 feet away and 100 feet higher. Targets at still higher altitudes would require even greater angles of up to 45 degrees.

But the fact that World War I-era two-seaters did not have the ability to maintain a 28-degree angle of attack (much less anything greater)destroys the premise upon which the freeze frame rule is based.

The author spoke with former naval aviator Wayne Handley. Wayne is a three-time California Unlimited Aerobatic Champion with more than 27,000 flight hours and a good deal of time in several World War I types. Wayne brought famed aerobatic pilot Chuck Wentworth into the conversation as well for additional information. One of the legendary pilots of antique planes today, Chuck has even more flight time in Sopwith Strutters, Fokkers, Camels, Pfalz's, Nieuports and many others.

Both pilots confirmed that WWI fighters could achieve and maintain inclinations of 20-30 degrees, but the heavier two-seater airplanes could sustain only a 15-degree angle of attack... barely half of what is necessary for the freeze frame rule to be remotely authentic.

Sustaining a 30-degree angle of attack is not simply a ridiculous thing for any two-seater pilot to do in the middle of a dogfight, it is utterly impossible. Attempting to do so would result in an immediate stall and force the nose of the airplane sharply down... instantly opening up an opportunity for the observer to take the very shot that freeze framers are trying to outlaw. In other words, it is impossible for an observer not to have a firing opportunity somewhere within that twenty-second window because the airplanes of the era didn't have the ability to maintain the climb attitude necessary to block the observer's shot.

However, there is another problem that certainly would limit the observer's opportunity to fire at the same target as his pilot. The real issue has nothing to do with the attitude of the airplane - which would almost certainly allow for such a shot - and everything to do with the construction of the particular aircraft type.

If defensive shots are to be permitted with wing guns at all, consistency of logic demands that they must be permitted regardless of the attacker's angle of approach. The argument that the pilot “couldn’t see” a plane approaching from above and behind and therefore could not defend himself is illogical since every pilot in every air service was trained to be acutely aware of enemy planes on his tail and knew that his life depended on that knowledge. And even if a plane did approach undetected from above and behind, it is a defiance of physics to think that one plane could use its vastly superior speed and energy to plunge onto another, yet the momentum of the diving attacker would not result in a shot opportunity for the wing gun of the target aircraft as the attacker zooms away.

The nitpickers among us may want to change the defensive shot from a head-on attack to a bottom attack (if the attack originates from above and behind) but eliminating the shot entirely based on the freeze framer's logic requires a mystical form of aerial magic that WWI planes never quite mastered.

The true, gung-ho freeze frame addicts are determined to rebuild the game around their philosophy, which forces us to consider the disastrous ramifications of such a move. In general application the freeze frame mentality runs into far more serious problems and ultimately becomes its own worst enemy. For instance...

• All bombing rules become instantly obsolete and must be totally redesigned... after all, in freeze frame rules, only the last square matters. Your bombs will always fall in the last square because it’s a freeze frame. You cannot drop "during" your turn, because there is no "turn." There is only the last square of your freeze frame moment.
• All balloon attacks must now change. Think about it... anti-aircraft fire cannot take effect first because there is no "first." Everything happens at once in the last square of your move.
• Collisions would become a thing of the past. Collisions can't happen during that twenty seconds because there are no "twenty seconds." If they didn't collide in their last square, they didn't collide at all.
• The freeze frame mentality destroys the tailing system... tailing is now nothing more than ending your turn in a tailing position. What happened during your turn is irrelevant because there is no turn. There is only the snapshot.

Perhaps the only rule in the entire game that might survive intact is the old mirror image rule regarding blocked shots, which was always an exception rather than a precedent and was intended primarily to stop an endless array of head-on shots. But make no mistake, an adoption of the freeze frame mentality would quickly turn Dawn Patrol into a game that none of us recognize and few of us would want to play.

Freeze frame supporters are sure to say, "Well, Stephen, you're taking this way too far." No, I’m really not. What I’m doing is following the freeze frame logic to its natural conclusion, and its natural conclusion is a contradictory disaster.

What the freeze frame supporters really want is to use the freeze frame premise in certain areas of the game and ignore it in others. This, to me, is the worst of all worlds. One minute we're claiming that an SE 5 can't defend itself against a rear top attack because only the last square of your move really matters... the next minute we're penalizing someone's bombing run for a maneuver performed five squares before they finished their turn.

Shouldn't we make up our minds?

Attempting to mix the two mindsets is fool's errand. You'd have better luck mixing oil and water.

When its evolution is complete, the freeze frame game is exposed as a dead end. It is an antiquated relic that requires either a total restructuring of the game as we know it or a contradictory mixture of two opposing concepts. Ultimately the freeze frame game was killed by its own logic. It is not more playable. It is not more realistic. It violates the basic premise upon which every game turn is built.