Capitaine Vengeur

Sounds to me like another opposite quote from Napoleon: "The only thing worse than fighting a war against a coalition is fighting a war within one".

Have just replayed all of the CoD 2 missions. At the moment, I'm engaged in a long-term adventure on Jade Empire. Had a short break with a scenario on Combat Mission - Shock Force: got ambushed, mashed, and humiliated. So, will preferably keep on kung-fuing bastards. So relaxing...

Yep, excellent modern series, with Baskerville as a military research center and Irène Adler as an SM escort dame... Not yet seen Colonel Moran, yet, as Moriarty is stone dead already. But I like both of Guy Ritchie's movies too: casting a genuine junkie as Sherlock Holmes gives some authenticity, and Stephen Fry as Mycroft is priceless!

My towel is standing by itself in the bathroom. Strange... Perhaps it's time to put it at last into the washing-machine.

Uff, allowing myself a long sigh of relief... Feeling so intensely relieved and deeply relaxed that I could almost allow myself the according fart... Er, well, later...

During the War, there were many 'German' deserters from these formerly French regions, but they seem to have been people from Lorraine (the region around Metz next to Sarre, who originally spoke another form of Germanic dialect different from Alsatian), much more than Alsatians (many 'German' deserters on the Western Front also claimed to be Poles, unhappy about the Prussian regime). For that reason, most of Alsatians served on the Eastern theaters of operations (actually, it was the same during WW2: the most broken veterans are those who survived the Soviet POW camps and came back home as far as 1955 into a Republic who judged them as shameful veterans). I don't know if they were prohibited to serve in some branches, but I know no ace or even airman originating from Alsace-Lorraine, during both wars. At the time of the Second Reich, made of more than 20 federated kingdoms, duchies, principalities or free cities, Alsace-Lorraine had an unique status of a district directly administrated by the Imperial authority, a military border. The first decades of German occupation may have been hard, and many Alsatian families emigrated to various places of France, or North Africa in the process of colonization. In my city of Le Havre, there were several industrial dynasties of Alsatian ascendency, which gave two mayors to the city. But I have read that by 1910, the new generations were on the edge of feeling much more integrated into the Reich, in spite of Hansi and older people. The main problem came when the Imperial administration wanted to completely obliterate the Alsatian dialect in favor of 'Kaiserreich' German. Their language has always been the most prominent part of the Alsatian identity: still in this 21th Century, during travels abroad, I have met many Alsatian people (over 40/50, mostly) who, between them, preferred to speak their Germanic language - while people from Lorraine seem to have completely lost their own dialect by now. After WW1, when Alsace and Lorraine became French again, some people born as German chose to keep this nationality and left their province: I have known of one Lorrain at least, officer during WW1, who stayed in the German Army and became a general for the Third Reich. Alsace always had a strong symbolism in the French Republican spirit: the Marseillaise had been composed and played for the first time in Strasbourg, and in 1941, the 'Oath of Kufra' Free French General Leclerc required from his troops in Libya implied 'no pause until the Tricolore flies on top of the Cathedral of Strasbourg'. Controlling both banks of the Rhine had also been for long a strong argument into cementing the German unity and identity. It was hard for the Alsatians to feel themselves members of either one of the warlike and irreconciliable nations of France and Germany, with all of these back and forth moves. This duality can be considered in the fortified town of Phalsbourg, which had its Western gate named "France Gate", and its Eastern gate "Germany Gate"... That's why Alsatians feel themselves Alsatians above everything else, and that's why, for what I've heard, if Alsace is a fine place to visit, it's not a so fine place to immigrate! These places between France and Germany have weird histories. I have read recently about the town of Saarlouis (once Sarrelouis, a French-speaking fortified enclave into German-speaking territory), which could give one of the finest French soldiers ever, Marshall Michel Ney ('The bravest of the braves', accidentally perfectly bilingual in French and Rhenan German), and one of the finest German soldiers ever, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (the first Rommel of Africa, during WW1).

Just to add with some delay that 10 May 2012 was also the 40th anniversary of the hardest day of aerial battle over Vietnam. That day, no less than 7 Viet MiGs were downed in various air combats, to one F-4D. With 3 kills tallied during an epic fight, 'Duke' Cunningham and 'Irish' Driscoll became the first American aces of the War, and the last ones for the US Navy to that day. The same day, Steve Ritchie shot down his first victim on his way to become the last US Air Force ace pilot to that day...

File Name: Counters and screens for Battle of Britain File Submitter: Capitaine Vengeur File Submitted: 06 May 2012 File Category: SF/WO* Hanger/Menu/Loadout This mod provides you with lots of new screens for the Battle of Britain add-on for SF1 by Baltika. Most of the screens are built out of relevant screenshots from Guy Hamilton's “Battle of Britain” (1969), which already gave all of the musics provided in the BoB add-on. I hope they will please those who enjoyed the movie like I did. Battle of Britain Campaign Pack - Beta v0.60a While the BoB add-on is designed to be installed over Strike Fighters, Wings over Vietnam or Wings over Europe, and clearly not over Wings over Israel (many problems noticed), I preferred to use the screens' frames of WoI to design my screens. I find these screens using the WoI frames more attractive, and giving informations clearer on transparency over dark pictures. Just have a look at the propsed screenshots. As I have included here the ini files from WoI, the screens should work without problems on an installation from SF1, WoV or WoE. Yet, there may still be some possible problems if you run other add-ons using non-WoI screens' frames on this same installation. Please read carefully the full ReadMe notice and the warnings in the installation instructions. A set of dedicated menu screens exists for each air force, you can switch at will from one to the other according to your present campaign or mood. But you will notice that several BaseScreens or end screens don't match with screens actually used in the BoB add-on. My generic BaseScreens have been designed per model of planes, while BoB uses screens per flyable unit; my generic end screens have been designed per air force, while BoB uses screens per model of planes. I chose such generic screens for those like me who have since long modified the original BoB campaign files to have many more units flyable, taking advantage from the countless new skins available down here since the BoB add-on release. The ReadMe notice will give you clear instructions (anyway, I do hope so!) about how to proceed to adapt either this pack or the game's files. This mod also provides you with a batch of colorful, reduced-size, more immersive counters, devoted to each of the nationalities present in the Battle of Britain add-on. Besides having a more attractive map and less confused stacks, you can also find more easily the units you're after. As a rule, the counters with rectangular national flags and division or corps devices show the ground units, while the counters with roundels concern the air units. As a bonus, I have also included a 'French' folder containing a translation in French language of all of the campaign texts (units presentations, campaign intros and epilogues) – for those who have chosen an installation in French language from an Euro version. Enjoy fighting over the misty Thames ! Click here to download this file

Happy birthdays !

I have practiced some versions of Star Wars roleplaying games. Of course, this sentence is commonly used as a typical example for a critical failure in the Deception or Persuasion skills...

Some of the weirdest dogfights could be seen a few time after WW2, during the Israeli War of Independence of 1948, when the IAF's Messerschmitt 109 flown by Jewish pilots (actually Czech-built Avia S.199) fought Arab Spitfires, some of them possibly flown by German mercenaries!!

Favorite character: Obi-Wan Kenobi as a young knight/master, Episodes 2 & 3. Sharp and smart, with a "so British" touch. An elegant weapon, for a more civilized era. Favorite ship: TIE fighters. Inimitable shape and legendary sound. Favorite quote: "Why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic life form?"

French almost pilots Clovis Hual, Théophraste Afarian, Casimir Mayonnaise, and Hercule Surrendeur.

Let me introduce you the twins Mary Christmas and Harry Newyeap, the ambivalent Apollo Fagg, and the blazing Lord Almighty...

In case, also consider the unofficial Russian rule: "If you can't shoot it down, ram it down! Falling alone is a waste." Take it or leave it, but admit, what a memorable way it is to take one's leave with panache!

The terrain may show sharp contrasts at short distances. I have spent some holidays in Rhodes and nearby islands, and some others sailing around the Datça Peninsula and Bay of Bodrum just north of Rhodes (the peninsula here seeming strangely split into four islands!). The peninsula is underpopulated, sharply montainous, with an almost deserted coast but Datça and a few other small places, and short vegetation. Wanders on the trails to the inner Anatolian villages only showed dust and miniscule terraced pale orchards. The north coast of the Bay of Bodrum looked greener, with woods and a few small green islands. The slopes north of Bodrum look green too, but driving to the airport, the vegetation remains short and scarce. On the other hand, Rhodes looked quite a green island from every high lookout I could reach. The central backbone ridge is heavily wooded, and the decent density of population makes the flat coastline a largely cultivated place, with delineating hedges or scrubs. I could see also that the island may have had its share of summer forest fires, a yearly Greek speciality in the Euro news proving that the country has much to burn (rarely heard of that on the other hand in Eastern Anatolia). Populated East of Kos Island also looked quite planted to me, even if a paler green in my memory.

Just installed the game, with the same problem on Campaigns than Jarhead. Thank you very much for the precious tip, which resolves everything.

At the time of Italian Premier Berlusconi's famous 'bunga-bunga' parties, the politicians actually screwed their brains out much more than their bodyguards. But I suppose their bodyguards didn't stay out of the games either. Everybody probably f**ked as much as Italianly possible, in fear of being suspected of being homosexual, a much bigger crime in the Premier's entourage than being a maffioso...

Happy birthaday !

I've read about these traffic rules and resulting never-ending traffic jams in Joe Sacco's "Footnotes in Gaza", testified from his own eyes in 2003. But though his work may look one-sided to an Israeli, I have not read in the same part any allegation nor testimony about this settlers' "sport". Yet, I suppose some may practice it: every place on Earth endures its batch of morons, either young or old...

No accidents during take-offs from these tossing short strips, with these heavy crates carrying much more fuel than they could, just prove the skill of these crews. These also knew there were no return, and perhaps even no chance of reaching a safe strip at a range further than first expected, which proves their courage.

Jaydn doesn't look very happy about the outside world. I hope he may soon change his mind. Best wishes for his future...

It reminds me of the first book of The Adventures of Tintin: Tintin and the Land of the Soviets. Typical political product of the late 20s, and yet, still terribly topical...

Happy birthdays ...