Capitaine Vengeur

The most advanced BVR capabilities in that time were of absolutely no use when illogical, s**king rules of engagement required a lockon AND a tally. It's just like using a sniper rifle at bayonet range.

Yes indeed, take the carriers for example. I can understand names like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, or even John F. Kennedy. But USS Ronald Reagan!? Have anyone seen Abe or FDR playing in a movie alongside a chimp, or taking the content of a spittoon on the head? And USS Carl Vinson? I can hardly imagine what it is to be a dark-skinned seaman serving on a ship named after a supporter for the Southern Manifesto.

Same think for the SE5a and the Camel during WWI. The SE5a was better in acceleration and dive, and the more securing of both, but the Camel turned tighter, and you could expect for unexpectable feats from it. It was known that if the Camel didn't kill you on your first flights, you were on the good way to become an ace.

The problem is that France only operated small carriers (265m-long, 24000t, far below any Forrestal or Kitty Hawk, not even the Essex-class): they missed room to accomodate large aircraft like F-4s, and the huge stores of fuel and ammo these heavy planes needed to be fully effective as long-range support aircraft during an extended campaign. And contrary to the UK, France never fully developped an outstanding versatile VTOL aircraft like the Harrier. One of these carriers is now the Brazilian São Paulo, and I believe she operates nothing heavier than A-4s and helos. So, talking in an operational, not tactical point of view, the F-8 can be a good choice for small units seeking for pure CAP/ air superiority missions, as well as the A-4 for nations planning sea-ground operations. But in both cases, a versatile aircraft like the F-4 (or F-18 now) is badly missing.

"Ubi bene, ibi patria". Where you feel good, there is your country. That's my motto.

A French President once died from heart-attack while meeting his regular mistress. I wonder in which position he would have been exposed for his national funerals!

It completely lacks any class, dear. I should recommend other rules: one cage in the middle with plenty of melee weapons, one champion for each side, two men walking in, one man walking out. Basic European democracy before the Greeks.

In any country of Anglo-Saxon or Latin (not Germanic) language, such a single name would be sufficient for you to win a set at the Scrabble game!

Try the Russian way: the Taran (ramming). Nesterov did it. Do it for your country, don't fall alone.

Who is right? Who is wrong? I think that as usual, the point will go to the one who rents the more expensive lawyers. And the gender has no involvement in that. It is the way our society works...

A French caricature had made some scandal here in the same month of February 2006 when the Danish cartoons shaked the World. It displayed Mohammed crying and complaining: "It's hard to be worshipped by stupid sods!". There were many hot discussions up to the higher levels of State about freedom in artistic expression.

Yap... Playing a hotdog could probably be the best role ever for Kevin Bacon.

Does it mean: firing a heat-seeking missile while a friendly aircraft was also presenting its nozzle right ahead? Wasn't it completely against any rule of engagement?

I've learnt in the local news that the small French museum dedicated to the remembrance of the Régiment Normandie-Niémen's struggle in USSR is about to close this year. No more subsidies, due to the lack of visitors. The museum has been opened in 1992 (50th birthday of the "Neu-Neu") in the small Norman town of Les Andelys, hometown of late ace Marcel Lefèvre (Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously, DOW on June 5, 1944, the day before the liberation of his beloved province). The collections, including a heavily-decorated Mirage F-1 in front of the entrance, will probably be scattered, mainly in profit of the Musée de l'Air, in the outskirts of Paris. Sad conclusion for a great epic. I had seen some other remnants of the Normandie-Niémen in the War Museum of Orël, Russia, the first place where the Régiment has been involved. Sad to think that there won't stay a dedicated place to this legendary unit here in France.

Yes, under command of Marshal Toukhatchevsky, everything was sacrified to mobility. See the BT tanks. In the early 1930s, the Soviets were also pioneers in airborne and paratroops attacks. It may have inspired the Germans too.

File Name: Coalition Pack for Operation Desert Storm File Submitter: Capitaine Vengeur File Submitted: 14 April 2010 File Category: SF/WO* Hanger/Menu/Loadout This mod for Operation Desert Storm (free add-on available on Combatace downloads) provides adequate awards systems, anthems, and lists of ranks for the flyable non-American Coalition members: the British Royal Air Force, the Canadian Forces Air Command, and the Aeronautica Militare Italiana. The awards panels for the US Air Force and US Navy/ US Marine Corps have also been enlarged by adding some new decorations, reshaped in the good size. Click here to download this file

I had read much about the unit, but never heard about that movie, and had to search for infos. The movie is a 1959 French-Soviet production, using Yak-11 rather than the Yak-9 and Yak-3 the French flew. Just like any other Soviet pilot, the French were simply extatic about the Yak-3: their scores exploded when they began to use it. This year, a comics series is being published, and Volume 1 ends just at the time the unit becomes operational, in spite of countless NKVD harassments. There are many tragic or amusing anecdotes about this unit's epic. Could it be different, as before 1941, Soviet Union was to almost any Westerner the far side of the Moon? For example, the first foreigner to ever become a Hero of the Soviet Union may have been a pilot of this unit (a total of four earned the Gold Star), and this first one was from an old aristocratic family! Speaking of Western pilots in the close citadel USSR was, I know that many Poles in devoted units, and some Slovaks, have also fought displaying the red star. I've also read about the short stay of the RAF 81sqn in Murmansk, 1941 (actually, Marcel Lefèvre flew with the 81sqn in 1942 before his departure). But I don't know much about the German pilots who trained in USSR in the late 1920s, allowing the Luftwaffe to be born (I just know that some late WWI aces died there from accidents, which seem to have been numerous). There must be also many surprising anecdotes, as USSR was still a young laboratory of Socialism. Can someone propose links about this?

This MiG is simply the new plane recommended for any active organization from the Chinese Communist Party. Ahead is the local chairman, in second the province supervisor, then come the 2nd and 3th secretaries, and at last some incompetent nephew of an important executive in the Party. A minimum of two of these people are actually agents of the Guoanbu (secret services). The pilot is in the nose and can't see anything.

Chuck Norris is the ace to beat all aces. Thus: When Chuck Norris faces Baron von Richthofen flying his bright red Triplane Fokker, He throws him to the ground by breaking his three superposed red wings with one single forearm blow, just the way he would have done with a pile of superposed red bricks. Besides, a red plane acts on Chuck Norris like a red cloak on a bull, triggering the Delta Force conditioned reflex called "F**k Communism!" When Chuck Norris faces Erich Hartmann, scourge of the Russian Front, who has just managed to place behind Him... Hey, wait a minute... It's a trap! Can you just imagine Chuck Norris flying a plane whose wings display red stars!? When Chuck Norris stretching on the ground faces Major Rudel swooping down upon Him in his Stuka, His eidetic brain (sic!) remembers that Indiana Jones' father had once had a German plane crash by frightening a flight of gulls. But Chuck Norris can't use such a vile trick, and besides, he is a wildlife protector (sic again!). Fortunately, He can have the Stuka crash just by Himself imitating the flying gull!

This MiG can take 5G while turning. That means, when it turns, the 5 people on board just say: "Gee!!!"

Another warship, the French logistic ship Somme, has been under direct attack from Somali pirates during the night from Monday 19 to Tuesday 20, far away from the Somali coasts. Six pirates have been captured, and their mothership as well further away, with no loss of blood. The Somme happens to be the ship that already faced such an illogical attack in October 2009, with the same outcome. At that time, it had been said that the pirates had mistaken her at dawn for a merchant ship, but I'm beginning to think like AmokFloo that it's a new way of asking for asylum.

What a flying limousine ! I thought "The Cadillac of the sky" was still the P-51 ...

I imagine that one day within some decades, we will wake up too, and realize that we and all other people on Earth can speak Chinese only.

Mmm, yes, flammable US flags made of cannabis fiber... It would soon become sales #1 to the old Californian hippies!