Capitaine Vengeur

An ill-matched couple of lovers exchanges SMS. Romantic call: "Tell me dear, what are you doing? If you are writing, send me your words. If you are crying, send me your tears. If you are sleeping, send me your dreams." - Philistine answer: "I'm s**tting right now!! What the f**k you want me to send you?!"

Direct democracy can't work in a plane. Just sit down quietly and let the skilled crew fly you to the Promised Land. Er... Isn't it what our politicians say?

I pointed out to my girlfriend that there was less and less room left in her trousers. She pointed out that there was still much room left in my condoms... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A man admires his naked body in the standing mirror of his room: "Two inches more, I would be a king !". His wife passing behind: "Two inches less, you would be a queen..."

No war can be won through speeches. But sometimes, they can help much, especially Old Winnie's.

It is sad that Peace occured only after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after terrible bombings on anything urbanized in the Home Islands, after Japan had passed the edge of starvation. But to be honest, most of Eastern Asians would not have felt sad if the whole Archipelago and all of the Japanese race had been erased by nukes from the face of the World. The problem is that most of Eastern Asia would probably not feel sad either would it happen today. Japan should have shown repentance for mass crimes then, and humble modesty thereafter, in the way Germany has, which made this country reputable again to its neighbours.

RIP

Tribute to the admiral ...

Oh, I thought they would call him Jack, after the two best kings in English history. No, wait a moment... Weren't they the two worst? OK, forget it.

His Most Catholic Majesty's forces shall gain a firm asset with you, Mac. I had once read a long report about the Spanish Marines: it seems to be a very demanding unit, with harsh selection and harsher training, but a very strong esprit de corps afterwards. Will you face the challenge of your life?

What about the classical threatening quote for American highway cops: "Don't make me take off my sunglasses!" ?

"It's a boy!" - I wonder what they said when Grandad Prince Charles was born: "It's a... er... bat?!"

Finely said. And I like the Arthurian Legend summarized in the French series 'Kaamelott' as: "Hah! Between his sword flashing light, his Merlin raining stones, and his Lady-of-the-Lake thinking herself a trout, our King of Brittany lacks but a trapeze act!"

What weapon exactly was this giant mole banger?

For the french planes, very few nicknames: 'Parasol' for the Morane-Saulnier L and 'Bébé' for the Nieuport 11 are the only ones I know. 'Longhorn' and 'Shorthorn' for the Farman M.F.7 and M.F.11 were nicknames given by the Brits. Another plane who deserved its nickname was Sikorsky's four-engined 'Ilya Muromets', named after a legendary giant warrior (also nicknamed 'Ruskiy Vityaz', the Russian knight).

Who captured them? East or West? I mean, any woman would look quite uncombed and unhappy after interrogation by a whole regiment of sprightly cossacks!

Actually, I have solved the problem already. It seems that airfields close to other strategic nodes are automatically captured when the neighbouring node is captured, even while they had been designed as independent strategic nodes. All of the mess with victorious attacking units vanishing without obvious reason is also related to this problem. Airfields should never be used as strategic nodes. So I have modified all of my strategic nodes network, adding on the map several new target places to compensate for the low number of strategic nodes still available in the Crimean area: Yalta, Feodosiya, Yevpatoriya, Cape Chersonese (also an airfield there)... I have tested the campaign several times: now it works, with victorious attacking units surviving. I can even get a satisfying duration in spite of the campaign being very unbalanced, by adjusting the resupply rates. I am working now on the hardest part of the project, gathering scarce informations about the actual aces in each unit; it takes longer than for my former MTO campaigns. In order to recoup my works on the map, I plan to add later a campaign about Crimea 1942, the first fall of Sevastopol: Gordon Gollob's JG 77 vs the Black Sea Fleet's MiG & Polikarpov aircraft, another very unbalanced campaign. Much of the work on the data and units is done already, yet still not tested...

Do you remember this sketch from the Monty Python: The Bournemouth Gynecologists vs the Watford Long John Silver Impersonators? Quite an uneven match, indeed...

150 years ago, Vicksburg MS, last Confederate bolt on the Mississipi River, surrendered to the Union, thus granting Grant his first step to the White House and the USD 20 note. The town did not celebrate the July 4 any more before 1944. The same day around Gettysburg PA, shocked and exhausted men were still digging the biggest mass graves ever on the American continent to clear an extensive slaughterfield from thousands of bodies and parts of bodies. All of them American, having seen more than their life part of fireworks during the three previous days. Wonderful days... Oh, well, happy July 4 however!

It's easier to catch tasty birds with some good Colombian snow...

Surprising that there is still a hill after that!

Not the primary intent of the name, but it happens that in French slang, 'rafaler' is also a verb that means to dominate overwhelmingly, to humiliate in contest. Now it takes sense...

I don't think that some ruddy potbellied Rebel re-enactors at Petersburg 2015 will look as skinny, ill and underfed as the average Rebel private looked in the last weeks of the War !

True, the last weeks of the War were very intense, a real fall of stars, and I found, especially among the ten top-scoring balloon-busters, who also took great risks to boost their scores in combustible flying sausages during these last weeks: - September 16: Maurice Boyau (F, number 4, with 21 balloons out of 35 kills) is killed either by Georg von Hantelmann or by an AAMG while passing under the falling last balloon he had just put aflame. - September 18: Jacques Ehrlich (F, #6, 18 out of 19) is shot down and captured, also after his last kill. - September 29: Frank Luke (US, #9, 14 out of 18) is forced to the ground by AA defense after scoring his last 3 balloons, and killed while resisting his capture. - October 14: Willy Coppens (B, #1, 35 out of 37) is wounded by an AAMG (or balloon MG?) while flaming his last balloon, and loses a leg. The same day, Friedrich von Röth (D, #5, 20 out of 28) is wounded (he scored his last kill on a DH.9 that day). - October 27: Karl Schlegel (D, #10, 14 out of 22) is killed by French cover while attacking balloons, possibly by Pierre Marinovitch. - October 29: Michel Coiffard (F, #3, 24 out of 34) is mortally wounded by German cover during an ill-coordinated balloon attack, and dies after landing back. Seven out of ten! (and actually, Heinrich Gontermann, #7, was dead already). It can explain why Fonck, always seeking for low-risk kills, attacked very few balloons...

Are there badges for Cubans, Syrians, Iranians, North Koreans, or at least a generic "Axis of Evil" badge? No? Tsss, everything is political...