ACES OF THE WESTERN FRONT

Biplane dogfighting · Western Front · 1917

Allies

Germans

Two pilots enter the sky.
One controls the air.

Sealed orders. Simultaneous reveal. No reaction, no take-backs.

Human opponent or AI adversary

Aces of the Western Front is a free browser-based WWI aerial combat game for one or two players. Pick a 1917 fighter — the British Sopwith Camel, French SPAD XIII, German Fokker DR.I triplane, or Albatros D.V — and engage in a one-on-one dogfight over the Western Front. Challenge a human opponent online or fly against an AI adversary. No download required: runs in any modern desktop or mobile browser. Both pilots plan their orders in secret, submit simultaneously, and live with the result.

CHOOSE YOUR MACHINE

Sopwith Camel

RFC / USAS · Allies

A wilful, rotary-engined killer with a vicious right-hand turn. The gyroscopic torque that can flip a novice becomes a weapon in trained hands — the Rotary Snap reversal flows from the engine itself, effortlessly natural, and almost impossible for the enemy to predict.

SPAD XIII

Aéronautique Militaire · Allies

France's answer to German air superiority — fast, stable, and built to take punishment. Structural damage slows it down but cannot catastrophically destroy it — a part hit twice holds rather than fails. Choose your moment, commit to the dive, and make the burst count.

Fokker DR.I

Germans

The triplane of the Red Baron — compact, climbing, and devastating at close quarters. So long as the tail holds, the Dr.I Weave chains into an unpredictable defensive pattern almost impossible to break. Once the tail is hit, every option narrows. Guard the tail.

Albatros D.V

Germans

In spring 1917, the Albatros D.V made every Allied fighter obsolete overnight. Britain rushed the Camel to the Front. France accelerated the SPAD. Every machine in this guide exists as a direct answer to the Albatros — the benchmark for fast passes, heavy fire, and boom-and-zoom discipline.

TAKE TO THE SKIES

Plot Your Move. Commit. Live With It.

Sealed Orders

Both pilots select their next manoeuvre in secret. When both submit, the orders resolve simultaneously. No reactions. No take-backs. You live or die by what you committed to.

Aim and Fire

Guns fire automatically if the enemy falls within your arc. Closer range hits harder. The cockpit view shows the enemy's bearing and distance; the tactical map shows the geometry. Both matter.

Tailing

Get directly behind the enemy and the engagement becomes a pursuit — the tailed pilot moves blind, the tailing pilot watches and responds. Breaking out requires patience, creativity, and nerves of steel.

FROM THE FIELD REPORTS

Every Sortie Leaves a Record

VICTORY Ypres Salient · Belgian Flanders

WeatherOvercast and grey, 7°C, moderate winds at 18 km/h

SortieOffensive patrol — orders to deny the enemy access to our artillery spotters

The grey came in overnight — proper Flanders weather, the sort that turns the whole front into a bad watercolour. I went up as part of the morning offensive sweep above the Salient, orders to keep the enemy's eyes off our batteries while the infantry readied their positions below. At eight thousand feet the cold had my hands nearly useless and the castor oil smell was thick in the cockpit when I found him — a Fokker triplane, red and purposeful, climbing fast from a gap in the cloud with the sun, such as it was, somewhere behind him. Four passes we made of it, each tighter than the last, his machine turning inside mine until the moment he forgot what he was up against. A Camel pilot never forgets her right-hand snap — the torque is as much a part of you as your trigger finger — but your enemy sometimes does, and when he does you make him pay. My guns found him on the fifth pass. He went down over the Belgian mud — not in flames, just going down, slowly and with a sort of dignity. I watched him until the overcast took him, then turned for home with the archie thumping away below me, entirely indifferent to the small matter just concluded above it.

The Machine Behind the Machine

⚙

Tactical Opponent

Your computer opponent does not follow a script. AI reads the tactical situation each turn — your position, heading, damage state, and whether you have the tail — and selects its move accordingly. It scores manoeuvres for firing opportunity and exposure, predicts your next position when it has you in its sights, and picks from the best options with enough variance to stay unpredictable.

✦

Radio Contact

Both pilots transmit during the engagement. AI voices each pilot in character — clipped, period-accurate radio patter addressed directly to you. The German is formal and cold, English with the occasional German phrase. The Camel pilot is dry and understated. The Frenchman rather more expressive. Hits, near misses, collisions, and the end of the engagement all draw a response.

📜

Field Reports

When the engagement concludes, AI composes a first-person field report in the voice of your aircraft and your pilot. Real Western Front locations — the Salient, the Somme, Verdun, Arras. Period weather drawn from the season. The tactical arc of the fight rendered in prose. Every sortie leaves a record in your pilot's log.

BEFORE YOU ENLIST

Questions From New Pilots

Is Aces of the Western Front free to play?

Yes. It's a free browser-based game — no download and no install. Enlist with a username and password and you're in the air.

Which planes can I fly?

Four WWI fighters split across two factions: the Sopwith Camel and SPAD XIII for the Allies, and the Fokker DR.I and Albatros D.III for the Germans. Each has its own handling — the Camel and DR.I are nimble rotary-engine types with a signature snap turn, the Albatros trades agility for a hard-hitting boom-and-zoom attack, and the SPAD is the only airframe immune to structural failure.

Can I play against another person, or only the computer?

Both. Invite a specific pilot by username for a human-vs-human dogfight, open a game for anyone to join, or fly against the AI opponent if you want to practice or nobody else is online.

How does combat actually work?

Both pilots plot their next move in secret — a "sealed order" — and the moves resolve simultaneously once both are submitted. There's no reacting to what your opponent just did; you commit to a manoeuvre and live with the outcome. Get on an enemy's tail and the engagement shifts into a pursuit, where the tailed pilot moves blind and the tailing pilot reacts.

Is there an AI opponent, and is it any good?

Yes — the computer pilot evaluates position, heading, damage, and whether it has your tail every single turn, and picks manoeuvres that score well for firing opportunity while staying unpredictable. It also talks to you over the radio in character, and writes a first-person field report when the engagement ends.

Do I need to download anything?

No. Aces of the Western Front runs entirely in your browser on desktop or mobile — nothing to install.

Pilot	Victories	Win %
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Pilot

Victories

Win %

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Part	First Hit Effect	Second Hit
Engine	Slow moves allowed; one cruise in a row; fast blocked	Structural failure
Wings	Cruise slashes, fast hard turns, and barrel rolls blocked	Structural failure
Tail	All advanced moves blocked	Structural failure
Fuselage	Fuel drain doubled	Structural failure
Pilot	Forced down (immediate loss)	—

ACES OF THE WESTERN FRONT

Two pilots enter the sky.
One controls the air.

Plot Your Move. Commit. Live With It.

Every Sortie Leaves a Record

The Machine Behind the Machine

Questions From New Pilots