Capitaine Vengeur

As said above, the old boardgame 'Central America' (1987, typical product of the Reagan era) provides many hypotetical campaigns linked to the Sandinistan years of Nicaragua. For those not limited to insurgency warfare and escalated support from regular forces, you can find: Limited (to Contra bases) to full invasion of Honduras by Nicaragua, with building-up US reaction, no Communist intervention Limited Honduran invasion of Northern Nicaragua (marginal to limited US support) Direct US sea invasion on Managua on some pretext (Panama-style), several levels of commitment, possible Cuban intervention Cold War warming up in the area with escalated US and Cuban/Soviet interventions Central American marginal to important theater of operations during a global conflict started there or elsewhere... For instance, Cuban escalated intervention can add up to mech & armored regiments, several MiG-23 units, and an improved SAM capacity; Soviet marginal intervention can just add a few spec forces & engineers sub-units, and some MiG-27 units. The Communist air defense heavily relies on a radar at Masaya near Managua which is usually the first US target and the best-defended target in all of Nicaragua. The level of US intervention can also decide about the number of carriers involved (both coasts available), whether or not an USMC sea invasion can be launched (Pacific coast), whether or not the B-52 are committed, whether the USAF units operate from Panama or Honduras in direct support... ; a small core of spec forces, helos and USAF units for cover are anyway included whatever the level. The US carriers are generic, but usually host two F-14 units (with standoff air attack capacity), two F-18 units, one A-6 unit, one EA-6 unit, and one E-2 AWACS unit (F-14 possibly replaced with two more F-18). Generic USMC air units also operate from the off-map carrier box (Harriers & helos from Tarawa-class ships, F-4, F-18 & A-6 from USN carriers?). There are also rules on limited special aerial ammo (smart, incendiary or cluster bombs) that can be easily transposed in SFP games. Viggen, let me know if you are interested in any of these campaigns. I just would need more time to transcribe the order of battle.

There is at least one other universal rule, which is the Rule of Gravity: whoever holds the power must remember he's sitting just next to the edge of the Tarpeian Rock. Not so an enviable place, thinking about it.

Quite a black face, it seems. He may have just abundantly used his machine-guns. So I wouldsay out of his coat.

A commended prisoner with a good record is being transferred to a new model experimental prison. Quite a surprising place. First, instead of a bunch of sullen screws, he is welcomed by a smiling convict dressed in cool civilian clothes: - Welcome to your new home, brother. A dream purgatory, just for good boys like you and me. Here, we have great latitude to organize our own social life, as long as we can keep things under control. For example... Do you like music? Jazz, rock? - Yeah, I love rock! - Well, so you're gonna love the Saturdays. We have several bands here, and every Saturday at night, we organize musical contests with polls. And if everything goes round, we can have lights out at two a.m., and even have some alcohol. And do you like sports, man? Football, basket-ball? - Sure, I love hitting the basket! - Fine, so you're gonna love the Fridays! Every Friday, we organize a basket-ball tournament, gangs versus gangs, versus the warders' team, sometimes even visiting other selected prisons. Always in a good mood, I've never seen a blade but twice in all on the court. And the Mondays... Aaaah, yumyum Mondays! By the way, are you homosexual? - No, by no means!! - Ah, damn... So sad, brother, you're gonna hate the Mondays!

Viggen, I give you the ground OB as is from the Soccer War scenario. The places you could easily find in Google maps. The boardgame's units stats: 1-2-4 = Attack value:1, Defense value:2, Movement allowance:4. HONDURAS: - Nueva Ocotepeque (in the 3-corners area with Guatemala): one CES (Special Security Corps) inf btn (1-2-4), one Rangers spec forces btn (1-1-4) - Concepcion (border, further East): one CES inf btn (1-2-4) - Marcala (border, further East): one CES inf btn (1-2-4) - Goascoran (North of the Gulf of Fonseca): 2nd TAC (Tactical Army Group) inf regt (2-3-4) - Tegucigalpa: 1st Presidential Guards inf regt (2-3-4) - Puerto Cortes (Gulf of Honduras): 7th inf btn (1-2-4) SALVADOR: - Facing Nueva Ocotepeque: 1st inf bde (1-2-4 = 2-2-4 with diminished strength), 8th inf btn (1-1-4) - Further East: National Guard inf regt (1-1-4 = 2-1-4 with diminished strength), Treasury Police inf btn (1-1-4) - Further East: Belloso Immediate Reaction inf btn (1-2-4) - Facing both Concepcion and Marcala: 2nd inf bde (1-2-4 = 2-2-4 with diminished strength) - Lislique (between Marcala and Goascoran): 5th inf bde (1-2-4 = 2-2-4 with diminished strength) - Santa Rosa de Lima (facing Goascoran): Cobra/4 inf btn (1-2-4), 11th inf btn (1-1-4) - Santa Cruz (just South of Santa Rosa): 1st Naval Commandoes spec forces cpy - La Union (naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca): 6th inf bde (1-1-4 = 2-1-4 with diminished strength, low supply moreover)

I had read about the accidental firing of the Zuni rocket while reading John McCain's biography, but for some reason, had stayed on the idea that the accident happened in a hangar, not on the flight deck. Had it been the case, the carrier may have been lost, watching such pictures. Carriers have always been floating bombs, with crowded ammo, volatile fuel, and never enough aired hangars acting as big sound boxes for giant blasts. It's enough to see the death toll on some unfortunate ships like USS Liscome Bay or USS Franklin, not even to speak about the Jap flattops during WW2. Firefighters on these ships would better have an updated will accepting the possibility of missing body...

Very short campaign (July 12-18), but very interesting terrain, if available, and very interesting panels of aircraft. I suppose the SF2 Spanish SpeechPack would not even be necessary: Honduran Colonel Enrique Soto Cano had worked closely with the US Military Advisory & Assistance Group (MAAG) to prepare his pilots well. Indeed, Honduran Major Fernando Soto became a national hero by shooting down 3 Salvadorian aircraft flying a F4U-5N. If you wish, I have an order of ground battle from an old boardgame ('Central America', Victory Games 1987).

In : 'The Blue Max', with a tragically ending ménage à trois... Out : 'Pearl Harbor' with a boring and ridiculous ménage à trois...

Will you please contemplate one later day a SF1 conversion, even on these already excellent Beta models? As are, they would be a fine improvement for Wings over Africa...

Well, so a phallic and orgasmic view, that I bet the jerk woke up with wet pants! [and unfortunately, short of 42 bonds to have new pants granted by the Party by 3 months !]

I reserve my sentence until I have seen what a North Korean war movie looks like. But for the moment, I can't see 'Windtalkers' without smiling or openly laughing at some sequences. John Woo can make the rogues glamourous, but can't help to make the warriors ridiculous.

I love the films of the Sixties. Of course, you have 'The Blue Max', 'The Battle of Britain', or 'The Longest Day' which just lacks original colors to be perfect. But you also have older war episodes like 'Alamo', 'Zulu', 'Khartoum', 'Waterloo'... Few such super-productions on non-20th Century war episodes have been made before the 2000s...

Add 'Air Force Bat 21'. But I would also put 'Hamburger Hill' as #1...

I'd like to see the story of old Baroness Maggie reviewed by Tarantino: "Put a f**king foot on my freaking Falklands, and you're a s**t one-legged Argie dictator, alright?"

Before bio-engineering, women able to lift their man and break him in two, surely had some difficulties to find a steady partner and transmit their genes. So of course, there is not many of them nowadays. I admit that the question of weight carrying capacity is a serious contra for admitting women in combat units. Anyone who is not able to carry quickly a wounded fellow to a secure place, whatever the distance and terrain, endangers such a unit. Of course, the argument falls in the case of all-female units gathering soldiers of similar weights. Such units also would have advantages on a logistic point of view ("Do we have here all the standard supplies to be sent to B Company's outpost? Yes Sir, and this time, we have not forgotten the extra two boxes of tampons for Corporal Jeehi Jane.")

With many women in the military, we shall see appearing several new military jobs. Sure, there are already military gynaecologists, and military dieteticians. But there would also a need for military fashion hairdressers, military manucurists, military dream interpreters, military astrologists...

On January 21, 1793, Citizen Louis Capet, formerly Louis XVI King of France, deposed and sentenced to death by the National Convention, was publicly guillotined at Paris on the Place de la Concorde. Probably one of the most significant events of these troubles that threw Europe into 25 years of endless wars, and instilled national consciousness in all of monarchic Europe (and South America as well). Ironically enough, Louis XVI, loving engineering, had helped Dr Guillotin to perfect his killing machine the past year, himself redrawing the blade! This anniversary date is yearly celebrated by mourning masses by the few French monarchists. Mostly folklore.

I can imagine in a late future the protester's daughter relating in the same way her mother's feats; "My mother had an umbrella opened up her arse by an old toothless raging Fascist to defend our rights to protest!"

I'd rather like a series about one special unit, in the same time one of the best known and most discreet in the US military, in the same time a cause for pride and shame for America: the 442nd 'Nisei' Regiment, made of Americans or Hawaiians of Japanese ascendency. They served on the hottest battlefields of Italy and France, with the highest loyalty and devotion, even while their Japanese-born parents were ignominiously dispossessed and interned in camps by the government they swore allegiance to. And through the blood poured, through the most incredible achievements on the most impossible objectives assigned, they ultimately became the most decorated unit in the US Army - even while their superiors were reluctant to simply admit their existence, in a general climate of anti-Jap racism. American values and heroism, bitterness and crual familial fates: true, there is some rich matter for a rich production. I wonder if some serious work has ever been produced about this legendary unit?

The reign of perfect virtue may not be perfect either. Back to the French Revolution, only one French politician in History has earned the nickname 'The Incorruptible'. This was Maximilien Robespierre, the mass guillotiner who sent dozens of thousands of his compatriots to the 'National Razor', after swift mock trials, under the slightest pretexts of speculation, at the most pointless denunciations of corruption... Universal virtue, righteousness, and perfection were the ultimate goals of this bloody madman, whatever the means. He wanted his compatriots either spotless, or dead. Under his rule, the reign of virtue was also the reign of terror. But Men are not perfect, and a world ruled by Men can't be. An unperfect world, is thus still a world proving alive.

Ooops!! Not a wrong method of counting, indeed: substract to 220 years too much of 40% alcohol this week-end, matching about the number of IQ points lost in the process, you get 180. Or something close.

"- Here are your names. Mr Brown, Mr White, Mr Blonde, Mr Blue, Mr Orange, and Mr Pink. - Why am I Mr Pink? - Because you're a faggot, alright?" (Reservoir Dogs)

Hello. Does a Soviet skin exist for the P-40E or later models, Red Fleet aviation if possible, or is someone working at the moment on such matter? Thank you for your answers...

Sure. Anyway, having Wings over Russia means that the user is already registred at Capun's, so no problem for downloading models from the site or copying them from WoA, Now just need to ask Starfighter2 for using his skin, er, his Kittyhawk skin I mean. And yes, red star in all 6 positions I suppose, for like the Airakobra, very few Kittyhawks I could see schemes had red stars on the tail...