Capitaine Vengeur

Happy New Year to all of you. Mm, this new bouquet of 2016 is smelling... oh, very nouveau, indeed...

File Name: WW1 Medals Pack for FE - Beyond the Western Front File Submitter: Capitaine Vengeur File Submitted: 17 December 2015 File Category: First Eagles - General Files - Hanger, Menu Screens Designed to complete my just updated WW1 Alternative Medals Pack for FE, this new Pack provides you with rich panels of decorations, for four air forces who fought bravely on fronts far away from Flanders or Verdun, with limited resources but some few worthy native models – namely the Russian Imperial Military Air Fleet, the Italian Military Air Corps, the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops, and the Ottoman Aviation Squadrons. Generally speaking, awards for enduring service have been assigned highly demanding requirements, to hang on to Ojcar’s Armchair Aces dynamic campaigns allowing to go through that long-term World War in its seemingly never-ending aspect. As usual, each panel includes several decorations from allied countries: thus, as an Imperial Russian officer before the fall of the Tsar, you may be awarded decorations from the grateful sister nation of Serbia; and as a Russian pilot keeping on fighting a hopeless war by 1917, you may be conferred prestigious Orders by the Kingdom of Romania desperately relying on its stumbling Slavic ally. I chose to have the citations display the decorations’ names in original language without subtitle, as you can notice on the screenshots. Be easy, the awards you deserved are still announced in English on the Debrief Screen, and listed in English on the Medal List Screen. Two Nations lists are provided, the first one devoted to campaigns and missions taking place before early 1918, and the second and default one reassessing the state of the belligerents from early 1918 on (before and from early 1917 regarding Russia). You’ll have to juggle with both lists according to the period of the War when you plan to fly your campaigns. Everything has been designed, when swapping the pre-1918 for the 1918 medals file during an extensive career, for the decorations you were awarded before April 1918 both to be preserved with original look and citations, and not to be awarded a second anachronistic time thereafter. The pre-1918 list grants much more lenient criteria to be awarded the same distinctions you could also receive later spending more sweat, and prevents you to get awards unavailable before 1918. A complete set of musics includes national anthems and marches devoted to each nation's overtures and successful debriefings sequences. Other interesting optional assets include optional lists of awards, designed for pilots of the belligerent nations of the Western Front fighting over Venetia, Galicia or Palestine, as well as optional lists of ranks with tweaked sequence of promotions allowing you, IMHO, much more realistic careers if used with Ojcar’s long-term campaigns. This Pack is a huge lot, and has been repeatedly re-engineered by a psychotic perfectionist. Each list of medals includes many links to other files, sometimes to my Western Front pack’s contents, and not all of the available panels have been tested on the long term. Please report all of the quirks, crashes, and other non-appearances of medals or citations you could experience. I shall then edit the Pack according to the problems found. IMPORTANT : There was an important warning in the ReadMe file of the latest upgrade of my WW1 Alternative Medals Pack for FE, to inform downloaders that this updated version had reshuffled orders of precedence, and that the decorations in each panel had their code names modified and their personal numbers reallocated, in such a way that it may certainly alter the lists of honours received already in any of your ongoing Allied or German campaigns. With this in mind, I have designed this ‘add-on’ “Beyond the Western Front” in order that it is actually a ‘stand-alone’. I mean that you won’t need to have installed any older or upgraded version of my Pack for the Western Front to enjoy the medals lists and bonuses enclosed here for the four Nations of Russia, Italy, Austria and Turkey. Still, you need to have installed the latest version of my Pack for the Western Front to use the optional medals lists. January 2016 modifications: Corrects a couple of graphical and regulation mistakes on the Italian panel, also adds a wound stripe (Distintivo di Ferito). Beware, these amendments could alter the Italian awards received during your ongoing campaigns started with my December 2015 panel. Click here to download this file

Why the hell to bother about that? I bet that long before global warming becomes a real problem, mankind would have find another way to blow own's brain out. There are so many possibilities, growing exponentially each year we become more and more dependant on technologies we don't fully understand, master, or control. Which face will have the Horsemen of the Apocalypse? A global plague by bio-engineered virus released accidentally or deliberately? A complete extinction of the most vital cereals, through another global plague by bio-engineered virus or tweaked seeds released accidentally or deliberately? ("We knew there was a risk, but it was supposed to make more money!") A global crash of Internet and Cloud data, resulting in the complete collapse of global economy, leading to famine, anarchy and rise of lords of war? With mankind reduced to a few millions of terrorized neuropaths driven back to the Age of Silex, I suppose that there won't be much concern any more about pollution and global warming... One always deserves the fate one has deliberately prepared. Sounds very selfish towards generations to come, but at my age and considering the global situation and race to disaster, I feel quite relieved to be closer to the exit than to the entrance.

Hard to think that in a few years will come the Centenary of the Volstead Act and Prohibition. I can imagine what America looked like wihout racial mix, without intercontinental highways, without big SUVs, without Internet and cellulars... I just can't imagine what America looked like as an alcohol-free country. That decade sounds like some kind of spatio-temporal rift.

"Invictus" was just broadcasted down here a few weeks ago. The movie depicts the terror Lomu had become to the Springboks in 1995 - but not that all of the NZ team was dead sick during the final match...

When shall the Turks finally take part in slicing those meatbags apart?

Limited retaliation bombings last night over Raqqa, which seems yet to have shaken the town, and to have reduced this day movements within, after the Turkish NGOs. Seemingly the largest number of sorties in one single mission to this day by the Armée de l'Air over Syria. Command posts targetted - if we knew where they were, why not having blasted them before!? The aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle is to be dispatched soon to Eastern Mediterranea. Bring more bombs !!

The terrorists made a double gotcha, first by striking the heartland of a country actively bombing DAESH, and also by drawing in the face of the World a blood-red cross on an attractive touristic spot, the way they did in Tunisia, and Morocco, and Egypt, and so on... If they keep on targetting such touristic spots and high places of Western culture, beware Rome, Madrid and London, you're next. The terrorists surprised and killed 130 that night, but 66 millions are still left, and next time they won't be that surprised. For months and years we've been swamped with news about targetted attacks like at Charlie Hebdo's, miraculously failed attacks like in the Brussels-Paris train, or terrorists cells arrested just before they strike; but now that's it, we know we are at war. Actually we were already, since we started bombing Sharia cavemen in Mali and Syria, and even since we passed laws to protect ourselves as a laic progressive, deeply Western country against social evolutions threatening to sink this country back to the Dark Ages of Hegira. But now, we can't ignore it any more, we are at war. We were already 100 years ago on this same soil, and in those dark times, a count of 130 would have been deemed a quiet day - suprise and terror excepted. So let's banish surprise, let's turn fear into careful watchfulness that can keep us alive, and let's accept the fact that we now live in a country continent world contamined with a fifth column able to strike anywhere, anytime, anyone.

When Murphy's Law meets Black Friday's time extension... RIP

The first kill markings that come to my mind were on the German aircraft of the Legion Kondor in Spain. At that time and in 1939-40, the Luftwaffe Experten used to mark their few air kills on the vertical stabilizer. When their scores exploded, they used the large rudder instead. The Soviet aces during WW2 were weird guys. Considering the enemy black crosses to be a profanity soiling their planes, they used instead red, white or golden stars. The only Soviet fighters displaying black crosses were the ones flown by the Free French air regiment Normandie-Niemen, whose pilots had usually flown before in the RAF. Roger Sauvage was the most successful Black ace ever. Like the Japanese during WW2, the Israeli fighters display the successes accumulated by the plane rather than the ones of the pilot currently flying it. This Mirage may be the most successful one ever.

The English knights surely spoke French, but the soldiery rather spoke Saxon only with a mix of Norman words that had become usual. I don't know if in 1415, comparing to the previous Century, most of the longbowmen were still of Welsh mother tongue. I did not know that the English monarchy used written French in its official acts, but it may have been a Norman custom rather. In France, the Parisian French did not become the official language in royal justice and central administration before an Act dated 1539. Before that, for an Act to be official, it had to be written in Latin.

RIP...

Yes, landing the FW-190 may be safer than landing the 109. But after readings and repeated personal experience in UbiSoft's Il-2, taking-off is a really different matter. I won't say that the 190A killed as many rookies in take-offs as the 109 in landings, yet there may have been quite a number of them. By the way, about the most beautiful German fighter, I would place the Ta-152 above the 190D, IMHO. Looks like a glider with a Formula One engine! Indeed, landing without the gear down may prove lethal. One of the best French aces of WW2 died in such a stupid manner. Pierre Le Gloan, controversial for having scored 7 out of his 18 kills against the RAF in Syria, converted to USAAF planes after Operation Torch. In 1943, he experienced malfunctions while flying a P-39, and had to come back to base for a belly landing. Not his first crash-landing, after all. The problem is that as an old-generation pilot, he was not familiar with the belly tank his plane was carrying, and completely forgot to drop it before crash-landing his plane. Everything ended in a great fireball...

Priceless, you Stringfellow Hawke. I'd want the same kind of report for your first lesson on an orbital brick space shuttle. One day, maybe.

I had read somewhere that Marcel Détroyat, the authoritative test pilot who convinced France to put a mass order on American Curtiss P-36 (Hawk 75 A in the French AdA), also tried the Spitfire and gave a strongly unfavourable verdict about ordering this aircraft, mostly due to its narrow landing gear. During the Battle of France, the Hawk did wonders against the 109E lacking armor, but lacking cannons, it often had to let German bombers escape while as holey as colanders. The problem was the same with the Spitfire and Hurricane during the Battle of Britain.

Oh, damn, I guessed that old UK 'John Bull' Widowmaker would not let the day pass without pouring some limey lime juice on old wounds. At least, the terrible Crispin's Day was more a shock therapy to the French than all of the previous defeats had been. They had fought their previous battles with one century of technological backwardness, with mounted knights against entrenched longbowmen. Now they would fight the next ones with blatant technological lead, relying more on more on newborn field artillery to support their knights now fighting dismounted, while the 'Godons' neglected this potential advance, and stayed stuck to their longbowmen who had brought them astounding victories - that were appearing further and further away in old times as the English captains were routinely wiped out by the 'New Model' French army. So in the long term, Agincourt can be seen as a kind of French victory, as Iena had been to Prussia or Pearl Harbour to the States: that's what the shock therapy is. Regarding that period, any Englishman knows the blazing names of the Black Prince and Henry V. Any Frenchman knows who Du Guesclin and Joan of Arc were. But not one Englishman or Frenchman out of 10,000 would know the name of Jean Bureau, and personally, I did not until recently. He was no blazing warlord in armor, just a dull manager and administrator, But he can be considered as the father of the French artillery. He took a prominent part in the victory at Formigny (1450), where the English Army of Normandy was wiped out, letting Normandy French for ever. And at Castillon, the last and decisive battle of the War in 1453, Jean Bureau the pen-pusher defeated and killed John Talbot, a remarkable warlord and a perfect knight, annihilating his army of longbowmen under a rain of cannonballs. This was symptomatic of what warfare was becoming, and the true exit from the Middle Ages. And from then to this day, artillery has always remained, for better or for worse, the most favoured arm of the French Army.

File Name: Modern Russian Federation Medals Pack File Submitter: Capitaine Vengeur File Submitted: 25 October 2015 File Category: Menus This pack is mostly intended to complement other works (campaigns) that YOU modder would like to design, involving the post-Cold War Russian Air Force as a flyable belligerent. Like my recent Medals Pack for Modern Ukraine, it allows campaign modders to explore both sides of local conflicts in the Black Sea / Sea of azov areas (using PFunk’s Black Sea 2.0a map). But it could also be used in modern what-if campaigns designed on many other maps bordering the Russian Federation (North Cape, Kamchatka, Korea/Manchuria...). And the recent involvement of President Putin's pilots in Syria (October 2015) gives new opportunities of campaigns where this pack could prove useful. The complete list of your available decorations is displayed here. Two panels have actually been designed, one for the Russian Federation before 2010 and one thereafter. While my work focuses on Russia’s conspicuous second wind in the 2010s, it seemed important to reflect the changes that happened on that year: not only did the Russian Air Force’s aircraft begin to display a new design for its insignias (the three-coloured star, see below), but also the Russian system of awards underwent large reforms in September 2010, with design and/or purpose of several orders and medals completely modified. Russian Federation Air Force Gold Star of Hero of the Russian Federation (2 possible awards) Order of St. George (4th Class) [available only in the post-2010 pack] Order For Merit to the Fatherland (3rd & 4th Classes, each one awarded only once in turn) Order of Alexander Nevskiy [design and purpose completely reformed in 2010] Order of Zhukov Order of Suvorov [3rd Class before 2010, single Class new design thereafter] Order of Kutuzov [3rd Class before 2010, single Class new design thereafter] Order of Courage (multiple awards possible) Order For Military Merit Cross of St. George (4 Classes, each one awarded only once in turn) Medal of the Order For Merit to the Fatherland (2 Classes, each one awarded only once in turn) Medal For Bravery (multiple awards possible) Medal of Zhukov (2 possible awards, available only in the post-2010 pack) Medal of Nesterov (multiple awards possible) Medal For Distinction in Combat [Ministry of Defense, available only in the post-2010 pack] Medal For Military Valor (2 Classes, each one awarded only once in turn) [Ministry of Defense, available only in the post-2010 pack] Pilot's qualification wings (4 Classes, each one awarded only once in turn) Click here to download this file

Some reports say that there has been Russian support units in Syria for at least 3 months. Premeditation... But seeing the legs of the mechanics, I would say they had not worn shorts in a sunny place since ages.

After checking, the encounter is dated at 23 June 1917, while Guynemer scored no confirmed or unconfirmed kill between 5 June and 6 July. Possibly on leave, indeed, or testing new SPAD models. What I was surprised to learn browsing the French Wiki, was that naval ace Theo Osterkamp also wrote in his memoirs that he too had been spared by Guynemer after his MGs had jammed! Don't know much more: Osterkamp fought over Flanders all along, Guynemer was there only during his last weeks, from ending July to 11 September 1917. Udet is the only source for this dogfight, the only eyewitness who said he had identified Guynemer's SPAD by the stork and part of his motto. Guynemer himself never said a word about this encounter (neither about the one with Osterkamp, actually) before his death less than 3 months later. Maybe after all he was not the knightly pilot, usually he rather displayed the attitude of a crusader knight in divine mission, rampaging without mercy across the armies of Evil. Maybe he did not boast about this for the same reason the knight of the Luftwaffe above did not boast about his choice: sparing one of the enemies who are scorching your fatherland, so that he can come back later and cause more damage to your side, can indeed be considered as an unforgivable act of treason in wartime. Later, Guynemer could have write down this moment in his memoirs, had he survived the War - which was not in his plans.

When Guynemer spared his life after a famous dogfight in Summer 1917, Ernst Udet was but a young ace with only 6 kills on his score. But Guynemer could not have missed the promising fighter pilot he was to become, and the Frenchman's quaint act of chivalry condemned to death dozens of French and Allied airmen, not to speak about countless strafed infantrymen. No Coubertin here: War is no sports, and when you fight one, the most important thing is not to compete, but to prevail.

As long as no bug makes this sound like The Monty Pythons' Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook...