Capitaine Vengeur

Very interesting.

Most of the terrible German abuses against civilians in Belgium and Northeastern France, occured in August and first half of September, when the instructions were to advance as quickly as possible, and to secure the rear and avoid any emergence of partisans by terrorising the local populations. The local elites (traditional rural trio mayor-priest-teacher) were held as hostages and sometimes preventively shot. In several occasions, the German troops, having suffered flanking friendly fire, or suspecting the presence of partisans, or simply upset for having been delayed for several days by the Allied firm opposition, slaughtered masses of Belgian or French civilians where they had fought. Sometimes it happened in a coldly organized manner, through superior orders; most often, once orders were given, the enraged soldiery escaped any control from its management. General paranoia and individual seek for revenge played a decisive role. During the battle for Dinant for example (where Lt Charles de Gaulle was wounded), the angry Germans, having mistaken architectural slits in the local cliff walls with loopholes destined to fire on their flanks, gathered and slaughtered over 600 Belgian civilians. Another smaller but more personal example: the day after, in the small town of Haybes (French Ardennes, on the same river Meuse, a nice hilly meander where I was wandering the past month), the Germans, enraged for having been delayed for two days, burnt the whole town to the ground and slaughtered some 60 civilians (between 11-month- and 61-year-old, the older one while holding the body of his grand-daughter) ; a reported dialogue between a horrified lieutenant and his superior seems to confirm that the Germans there were following superior instructions (army-level) for terrorising the populations. About Belgium again. Just next to the Norman city of Le Havre, where I am living, is the town of Sainte-Adresse, which became for the four years the War lasted the capital town of Free Belgium, hosting all of the Belgian ministries and government after the fall of Brussels (but not King Albert who, while having been granted a Norman manor, chose to stay at De Panne, on the last square miles of Belgium, till the liberation of his country). Of course Sainte-Adresse has some personal reasons to heavily commemorate the centenary of Year 1914, bearing lots of Belgian flags and having repainted many places in Belgian colors. Many public boards with pics and historical informations give some funny hints about this refugee mess, for example about the Minister of the Colonies administrating the giant territory of Congo, over 30 times the size of Belgium, from a back shop and often receiving on the pavement! The last Saturday (October 4) was the main commemoration with the presence of H.M. the King of the Belgians, no less, and of the French and Belgian aerobatic teams performing in front of the beach. Nice show I heard, but busy elsewhere, I could only see and hear parts of it from some distance. [sigh]

Birthday of the Herakles of Siberia? I've found the right gift: a nice Shirt of Nessus, bear fur version...

Why not "Operation SET"? That Egyptian God was the archenemy of ISIS, after all...

Very telling map. I just planned to add it as an appendix to an update (work still in progress - since years) to my Medals Pack for First Eagles. Rather than one single panel for the whole German Air Service, it would include four panels to be selected at will, for either a Prussian (default), Saxon, Bavarian or Württemberger pilot (my present pack proposes but Prussian and Saxon). All of them will include Prussian and Hohenzollern awards used as imperial awards during the Second Reich (Cross of Iron, Blue Max...) alongside specific royal awards, and some from other kingdoms, duchies and other minor to micro-states. The default Prussian panel will include awards from Saxony, Oldenburg, and the Free City of Hamburg. The Saxon panel will include awards from Saxe-Ernestine (covering the SA,SCG & SMG duchies on the map) and the Free City of Hamburg. The Bavarian panel will include awards from Baden and the most Catholic Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The Württemberger panel will include awards from Baden. A map like yours was clearly necessary to keep landmarks in this imperial mess, if you're not German (and even if you are, perhaps...).

Modern wars let nobody out of harm's way. Any place can become a battlefield before evacuation is decreed. And on a battlefield, the ones who survive are the ones with loaded weapons and training and will to use them. "World War One: one civilian killed to one hundred soldiers. World War Two: one civilian killed to one soldier. Vietnam War: ten civilians killed to one soldier. Now you know how to survive the next war: ENLIST !" (Pierre Desproges)

My favourite would be the hot pursuit in "Firefox", amazing for the year when the movie was made. For non-computer engineered pictures, I remember a fine dogfight, P-40s vs Zeroes, in "Tora Tora Tora". For tweaked pictures, several sequences of "Flyboys" I really enjoyed. Oh, er, and "Hot shots" too... About StarWars, my favourite would be rather the assault against the second Death Star (Return of the Jedi).

Speak in lower voice! Putin could listen...

Year 5775 if I don't mistake? Now that's ancient history! And a year that can be read in both the Semitic and Latin writing directions seems a good omen.

So, worth making a note of that day... For the rest of the stuff, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States may at best drop worth 1 USD of bombs for each 50 USD provided to the terrorist networks. Hypocrisy goes to war.

More than roads, I'd like to have the wide Tigris and Euphrates, and Mesopotamian marsh, appear on a new map for the DS mod. The two rivers are outstanding visual landmarks, that could allow you not to lose orientation during a dogfight over Baghdad.

One of the reasons why I fancy studying the American Civil War, is the large variety of characters one can find among the military leaders of both sides. Virtually all of the failings in mankind can be identified there, sometimes an incredible amount of them in one single hopeless man. On both sides, many imcompetents reached high positions only due to their political supports, and as well, some valuable leaders lost their commission due to the lack or withdrawal of such supports. Among faults, alcoholism was probably the most common, but one can also enumerate: messianic lunacy, narcissism and unability to listen to others' recommendations, acrimony and unability to keep good relations with superiors or subordinates (several senior officers challenged in duel or even shot dead some others), unbalanced recklessness or hopeless faint of heart, unability to obey orders or complete lack of initiative, and also the "lack of that raw rigour of character through which the leader imposes his rule" mentionned by de Gaulle (the main fault of Robert Lee)... At least, physical cowardice was extremely rare in that lunatic asylum honorable corps.

Also sounds like Buck Danny #44 "The Agressors" (one of my favorites), with a defector MiG-29 intercepted on its way to Elmendorf AFB.

I had expected some very close, hence dubious and controversial, 50.xx%/49.xx% in favor of the 'No', like in Quebec 1995. But here we have unquestionable resultats, with over 55% Scottish voters wishing to keep a Hanoverian Queen, Anglican ministers, and neighbours Southern compatriots finding their accent too stereotypical even to play 'Macbeth'. Congratulations. One does not always have the option to choose own's fate.

Yesterday September 16 has seen (with some delays) the opening access to SWTOR's new expansion pack, 'Galactic Strongholds', for the Preferred status players like me. Suscribers have access since one month, free-to-play members shall have to wait for one month more. 'Strongholds' allows the players to buy with in-game money some private cosy nests located on various planets for their avatars, and also afford very expensive Guild flagships. If allowance granted, these places can be open to visit by other players. To be frank, I was pawing the ground for this long-awaited access. Now I just have bought, and am enjoying furnishing with personal touch: a large flat in the vertical tops of the Galactic capital city-planet of Coruscant, for my Jedi sage Master (unrestricted view at sunset over the astroport and never-ending streams of flying vehicles around) another overlooking flat same size set on Dromund Kaas, capital planet of the Sith Empire in the game, for my dual-swordsman Darth (oppressive darkness, thunderstorms and heavy rains all year long, book your holidays there) an actual stronghold nested in a rocky cliff of Tatooine, no introduction needed for that planet, for my armor-clad Jedi Knight (mix of ambiances, between "Dune" and "Kingdom of Heaven", I just like it) [There is also a Nar Shaddaa Sky Palace, a sort of bling-bling sci-fi version of Playboy Mansion floating over a smugglers' moon looking like Las Vegas by night; it is dreadfully expensive and does not appeal to me that much.] At the moment, I handle up to six avatars, four of them at max Level 55, and I nurse them all. I have played the game for nearly two years now, and still enjoy it very much. This addiction partly explains the lowering of rates for my deliveries to CombatAce during these last two years. Apologizes for being still an old sci-fi nerd. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - January 2015: my three fully furnished "strongholds" can now be visited at tor-decorating.com. I do include the links, but lots of fine creations by other players can also be visited there: Avshalom's Sith Academy - Battle Meditation Geilmer's Jedi Academy - Battle Meditation Valorix's Galactic Stronghold - Battle Meditation

I'd like to fly the F-16 with big scorpion for Squadron 105 in Wings Over Israel. Has it been designed somewhere already?

I had forgotten the most famous and, with good reason, laconic one ever: "Molon labe!" (Thermopyles, 480BC)

Some of my favorite ones: "My right wing is retreating, my center is collapsing, no way to move; situation excellent, I do attack!" Ferdinand Foch at the opening of the 1st Battle of the Marne, 1914 "I was to weak to defend, so I attacked." Robert Lee after the Battle of Chancelorsville, 1863 "Yell like furies!" Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson ordering a bayonet charge at the 1st Battle of Manassas, 1861 - Alleged origin of the 'Rebel Yell' "And I tell you that Wellington is a poor general, that the English are poor soldiers, and that this battle will last for a picnic!" Emperor Napoleon at the opening of the Battle of Waterloo, 1815, just before midday "The cowards will go and die in Siberia! The braves will die here as men of honor!" Marshall Davout to his troops surrounded by Russians at the Battle of Eylau, 1807 "Heads up! Grapeshot is no s**t!" Colonel Lepic to his ducking Horse Grenadiers Guards at the Battle of Eylau, 1807 "Have a look at those mugs, look they keen on surrendering!" The same when surrounded, to a Russian officer who offered his horsemen to surrender "A hussar not dead by thirty is a dodger." General of light cavalry Antoine Lasalle, himself KIA at 34 at Wagram, 1809 "This battle is lost. But we still have time enough to win an other one before the end of the day." General Desaix bringing reinforcements by early evening onto the battlefield of Marengo, 1800 - He was then KIA "Fall back!" "Damn, what is falling back but retreating?" British lieutenant and sergeant at the 1st Battle of Ticonderoga, 1758 "Had the French had 50,000 men like you, I would have never won this battle." "They had them, Sir, they just lacked the leader you are." The Duke of Marlborough and a martial-looking captured French sergeant he had noticed during the Battle of Blenheim, 1704

I'd like once to hear a Scotsman say: "Rally round the referendum, really, raise the ratings, whether they're right or wrong!". And to record it too. So many questions if the "Yes" wins... Where will Her Majesty go on holidays if Balmoral now lies in a foreign country? Will the Scot Guards be disbanded? Will Scotland Yard be renamed? Will the Disunion Jack banish everything blue? What about the RAF roundels? When I think of "The Empire on which the sun never sets", just one century ago in 1914, torn apart down to see, in a week perhaps, the miniscule British Isles divided between three states... Oh, well, after all, the sun may have never much set, neither risen, over Scotland... Anyway, Jocks, don't make the Ukrainian mistake to rent out Scapa Flow Naval Base to Her Majesty's Navy. Remember what the Russians made at Sevastopol this year... I don't think that such a secessionist will could happen anywhere in France. Most of the separatist regions in Europe are seeking autonomy mostly for economic reasons. Scotland, Catalonia, Flanders, Padania, are richer than their national average, and have the impression to pay for hopeless stragglers. In France, the capital region is by large richer than any other place, and through Jacobin centralisation and welfare state institutionalisation, is the one wasting money in bottomless pits. Those who bay for autonomy would not like to see their subsidies and compensations cut. Fallenphoenix, true, no country that has gained its independance from another state has ever asked to return; but some may have had regrets. The Archipelago of Comoros got its independence from France through referendum in 1975, safe for the island of Mayotte who chose to remain French. And now, the independent Comoros, an allegory state for political instability, corruption and hopeless poverty, flood the small island of Mayotte under crowds of illegal immigrants searching for the favours of the welfare state financed by the faraway home country.

Maybe the most praiseful comment ever about the French military had been stated by Alexander von Kluck, commander of the outflanked 1. Armee, in the afterwards of this battle: "If you search for the reasons of our failure, refer to the papers of that time; they will tell you of the lacking of ammunition, of the failing supply: all of that is true. But there is one reason prevailing over all others, one reason totally decisive in my opinion: this is the most extraordinary and specific ability of the French soldier to rally quickly. It is a factor that can hardly be translated into numbers, and therefore, that disconcerts the most accurate and foreseeing planner. Men can fight to death where they stand, this is something known and expected in every battle plan. But men having retreated for ten days, men lying down dead tired, that could yet take their rifles again and attack at the sound of bugle, that is something with which we had never learnt to reckon. That is a possibility never taken into account in our war colleges." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In his Memoirs, Charles de Gaulle gave a much less fair comment about his enemies' behaviour during this battle: "While the French, once paid his negligence, rises again by surprise, the German, unmatchable in the planned effort, loses balance facing the unexpected. That is the philosophy of the War's first act." And he carries on with the following analysis: "Besides, by strange fate, the generals of the Imperial Army, where the troops observe an unmatched discipline, are in open conflict. Kluck's disobedience, Bülow's apartness, the Kronprinz' distension, are the results of a fateful command system. On the account of imitating the victorious initiatives of 1866 and 1870, every one wants to act on his own way. To cap it all, those Nietzscheans tolerate no limit to their greed for power. At least, shall a firm hand tighten the bundle? By no means. For by superstition of the name – common in the victorious armies –, has been chosen, as representative of the supreme authority, Moltke, a distinguished mind, a fine-shaded soul, but lacking that raw rigour of character through which the leader imposes his rule." [De Gaulle did not actually participate in the battle, having been one of the hundreds thousands of French soldiers who had drawn lead during the first terrible month of August 1914.]

File Name: Medals & musics for SF2: Korean Air War File Submitter: Capitaine Vengeur File Submitted: 05 September 2014 File Category: Menus When Edward's Korean War mod for SF1 had filled a gap in the world of combat air simulations, I had then participated with a dedicated Medals Pack. Now the range of available models for SF2 expands at lightspeed, a new all-inclusive KAW mod for SF2 may soon be laid, and I'd want to be a part of it too. A former work of mine had proposed new counters and screens for SF2, now I'm delivering a Korean War Medals Pack that is a largely expanded version from my former set of national awards for SF1 (also including anthems and musics). The decorations sources are: stock SF2:E, stock First Eagles, Charles' Medals Pack v2.0 for SF1, my own works for Wings Over Vietnam, and many new personal creations devoted to that mod. The complete lists of now available awards are displayed below. You will notice that North Korea and Communist China are still missing, I could try to update in a later future... US Air Force : Medal of Honor (Army model) Distinguished Service Cross (Army) Silver Star Medal Distinguished Service Medal (Army) Legion of Merit Distinguished Flying Cross Soldier's Medal (Army) Bronze Star Medal Air Medal Purple Heart ROK Eulji Medal ROK Hwarang Medal UK Distinguished Flying Cross Korean Service Medal United Nations Service Medal US Navy & US Marine Corps : Medal of Honor (Navy model) Navy Cross Silver Star Medal Navy Distinguished Service Medal Legion of Merit Distinguished Flying Cross Navy and Marine Corps Medal Bronze Star Medal Air Medal Purple Heart ROK Eulji Medal ROK Hwarang Medal UK Distinguished Flying Cross Korean Service Medal United Nations Service Medal RAF/RCAF pilots on exchange duty in USAF F-86 units : US Distinguished Service Cross (Army) US Silver Star Medal US Legion of Merit US Distinguished Flying Cross US Soldier's Medal US Bronze Star Medal US Air Medal US Purple Heart Distinguished Flying Cross Order of the British Empire, Member ROK Hwarang Medal US Korean Service Medal Korea Medal (Canadian version available) United Nations Service Medal Royal Australian Air Force (No.77 Sqn, first attached to USAF 8th FBW, later 4th FIW ) & South African Air Force (No.2 Sqn, attached to USAF 18th FBW) : Victoria Cross Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Flying Cross Air Force Cross Order of the British Empire, Member Mentioned in Despatches badge (Australians only) US Silver Star Medal US Legion of Merit US Distinguished Flying Cross US Air Medal ROK Hwarang Medal Korea Medal (South African version available) United Nations Service Medal Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (TF 77 & 95) : Victoria Cross Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Service Cross Air Force Cross Order of the British Empire, Member Mentioned in Despatches badge US Legion of Merit US Distinguished Flying Cross US Air Medal ROK Hwarang Medal Korea Medal United Nations Service Medal Republic of Korea Air Force : Taegeug Medal (Military Merit 1st Class) Eulji Medal (Military Merit 2nd Class) Chungmu Medal (Military Merit 3rd Class) Hwarang Medal (Military Merit 4th Class) US Legion of Merit US Distinguished Flying Cross US Air Medal Standard Wound Medal War Service Medal Soviet air forces in Manchuria : Gold Star Medal of Hero of the Soviet Union Order of Lenin Order of Suvorov, 3rd Class Order of Alexander Nevskiy Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Star Medal for Valor Medal for Battle Merit Membership of the Communist Party Wound Stripe DPRK Order of Freedom and Independence, 2nd Class DPRK Fatherland Liberation War Participation Medal PRC Chinese-Soviet Friendship Medal Click here to download this file

Agree with most above. To me, a typical 'Latin Beauty' has to be a living ad for milk products, has to make you believe your hands will never be large enough to reconnoitre all of the ground... If Spain praises this discount kind of 'Latin Beauty', well the Crisis may not be over, there.

70 years ago, 15 August 1944, the Holy Mary Day also saw the D-Day in Provence (Operation Dragoon), involving the U.S. VI Corps, 7th Army (removed from Italy, including Audie Murphy's 3rd Division) and the first commitment of a whole French army since 1940. This contributed to totally unfreeze the situation on the Western Front within one month. The landings themselves faced little opposition. The French and local partisans were given the task to eliminate the main German strongholds at Marseille and Toulon, done by 28 August after hot fighting. The drive along the Rhone Valley proved irresistible to the few second-line German units facing overwhelming air superiority. Lyon was liberated by 3 September and Champagne was reached by 13, with troops from Provence soon holding hand to the tired heroes from Normandy. Big naval demonstration this sunny day on the coast with the President and all of French top-ranking political clique. Hope they've got some sunburn...

Wow, Grace Jones ! The real snake woman, old fantasy of puberty... So wet memories...