ConradB

Thanks for the link to the library RAF_ Louvert! Another one to add to the list!

The auto industry and every industry in Detroit is so rotten, that we call it "The Used To Be Motor City"! Check out some of the vids on youtube of Detroit. Looks like a bombed out city in places. My mom's old neighborhood looks like the aftermath of Stalingrad, to where you expect to see machinegun nests in abandoned homes and buildings.

Interestingly, I have a u-boat history book that talks about the blockade of Germany by the Royal Navy, and with no surface fleet to take them on, Germany used u-boats to blockade Britain. Woodie Wilson, is rather interesting, as he turns a blind eye to the Royal Navy blockading Germany, ie, starving German civilians and troops, and then turns around condems the German U-boats for doing the same thing. Starving British civilians and children. And let us not forget the Lafayette Escadrille. Americans flying for France as mercs, but America was supposed to be neutral. Neutral my butt. America's position was declared long before she entered the war. War Is A Racket is a good one. As the author was quoted, "...... the only time we should take up arms, is to defend our homes directly, and the Bill of Rights." One of Butler's most widely quoted statements: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." Read it for free, it's only 5 chapters: http://www.barefootsworld.net/warisaracket.html And the author? USMC Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler. 2 time recipient of the MOH, and until WWII, the most decorated Marine in American history. But he was asked by Wallstreet to lead a 500k strong army to oust FDR, which included the Morgans, Rockefellers, and even the Bush family. He went along with them to find out who was calling the shots, and when he did, he dimed them out. And in return, since they were in control of the media, he was smeared by them, calling him a coward, and a communist. Well, they were great friends with the Hearst family who controlled the main media outlets, so it was inevitable. And Congress, well they conveniently ignored his testimony to their inquiry. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because they were beholden to those involved?

It's my last achilles heel. Gave up alchohol the day my daughter was born 20 years ago, and have quit the darn smokes umpteen number of times, but it is tougher than the liquid cuorage to toss. What I did find helpful, was smoking a brand from NM, that is all natural, no chemicals added, and it is true, that the nasty chems in them are what keep you hooked. The all natural ones was interesting, because for the first 2 to 3 days, even after having one, it fealt like I hadn't even smoked. But i was able in a couple weeks to drop to smoking a pack every 5 to 6 days. What has made it tough, is the continual upheaval of the economy, and work being only temporary on a regular basis, and moving often to find cheaper lodgings. I know if things would just settle down, I could go back, and do it again, and for good. I know, my kids have bugged me for the last 10 years to stop permanently, but it is very difficult to say the least. I wish I could just stop like I did with booze. von Baur, keep up the stature you have on this bad habit. I tell kids, if you haven't started, don't, and if you have, for God's sake stop! I wish I had never started. And if I could just stop, I would. My best friend's dad died from emphysema, and he when he was on oxygen, he would come out to the garage where we would be building model airplanes, and smoke all our cigarettes up. That's just how hooked he was on them. So for different people, there's different levels of how it keeps them hooked. Some can drop it no problem, others struggle, sometimes for years to stop.

Shiloh, set up a pilot to use in single flight and test flight situations. Don't use him for campaigns. For flying the rotary planes, use him in single free flights to get farmiliar with flying the rotary crates. They are all in a world of their own the way they handle in the air. A lot more rudder and aileron coordination is what I have to always get used to. The Fokker DrI is a nice turn fighter, but it's a lot more twitchy than an Albatros or Fokker DVII. Same goes for the Camel versus the SE-5, or the SPADs. Get used to the Camel in freeflight single missions, like climbing and diving, and basic turns. Get a feel for that part, and once you are good at doing the basics, take her up high, and try some basic stunts like loops, and rolls. But make sure you have some altitude. Remember, nobody ever collided with the sky. That way, if you do go into a spin, you have some altitude to recover.

Silent Hunter 4 With the TMO 2.1 Supermod Batlle of Britain II WOV Most of my old games either won't work with 64 bit OS, or are a pain in the butt to get working, so I don't mess with them anymore.

Farscape, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sdZVqapWa0 And the Original Star Trek

Careful! Tea can be habit forming! The withdrawls are killer!

I was fishing one night out in the country, for catfish, and snappin' turtles, and I decided since fishing was slow, to lay back on the river bank, and I noticed a solid bright light that I first thought was a plane flying at high alttitude, until I noticed no flashing lights. Just as it passed overhead, it made 2 perfect right angle 90 degree turns and shot off to the west like a flash. What it was, I have no clue. Since I left my field glasses in the car 1/2 a mile back in the car, I couldn't get a closer look. Pretty cool to se though! Whether it was terrestrial or not.

Uriah Heep, Easy Livin'.

Olham, we actually have a very huge proportion of people with German anscestry. With WWI, the Brits were a bit worried about who the Americans would side with, if they got involved. And once involved in the war, my great-great grampa had to get special ID, because he was originally from East Prussia, and he worked for the City Department of Roads Docks and Sewage in the Detroit area. So he was in a tough spot for about 6 months, but his co-workers all put in a good word for him, so he didn't lose his job. Even during the War For Independence, there were problems with language barriers because of the huge population of Germans in Pennsylvania, many of whom did not speak english, so there were always needs for translaters.

So would you be part of this crowd Louvert?

Awe heck vP! Come on out my way. We can drive the Bronco out on the ice, chop a couple holes in the ice, and drink cold beer while we fish through the ice! Typical Michigan winter sports!

Depends on what you want to spend. I have had both. They both have their good and bad points. But AMD / ATI can more cost effective. Intel / Nvidia, a lot more money, but from past experience, a lot less tweaking and fiddling with things. That's been my experience anyways. Although from what i have been seeing, AMD is getting more and more solid in what they offer to reduce the fiddling part compared to 5 to 10 years ago. I used to have to set each game up with an individual set of settings for the processor and gpu, since what would work with one game, would cause anomolies in another, or even crash the game, or give the dreaded BSOD. But from what I have been reading lately, that has dropped dramatically from what it used to be. The last rig I built, I decided to go with Intel, and Nvidia. Yeah, it cost more, but Intel has come a long way too in giving the user more control over how the cpu works where it was almost impossible before, unless you were a hardware and software engineer. So really, it depends on what someone is looking for, that is the deciding factor, aside from their knowledge of computers in both hardware and software. And with the way things are changing, it's almost impossible to keep up with what's new unless you visit the tech sites at least once a week. Best thing, is figure out what you want out of your new rig, and compare components, i.e., quality, strengths, and weaknesses, longevity expectancy of the components, and the price, along with things like upgradeability of things like motherboard. One suggestion though, I would make sure to get a case with lots of fans! Also, depending on how powerful of a rig you want to make, I would really suggest thinking of a water cooled system if you really want a powerhouse rig that dims the neighborhood lights everytime you switch it on. Even with the rig I built 3 years ago, and it being winter in the north, if I close my door to my room, and the room temp is 68 to 70, within 2 hours, it will be 75 to 77 degrees in my room. And i built a modest top end rig then. So as things get more powerful, the need to disipate heat becomes more, and more apparent to keep things from burning up. Just my 2 cents.

Yep seen those before. The film with the Hellcat striking the island, and breaking the fuselage in half is actually in color. Just like the footage of the Arizona blowing up, at Pearl Harbor, I found out on a documentary, the original film was in color too. Taken by a doctor.

Trouble was, they missed their rendevous with the fighters who linked up with the divebombers fine, so they set out on their own. The problem with the TBD Devastator was that it was very underpowered, and obsolete when the war began. The cruise speed of the plane was only 178mph. When the average cruise speed of other planes of the era was 200 to 220 mph. So they were sitting ducks in the combat zone and made very easy targets. And after Midway, the TBD was pulled from frontline service and replaced by the Grumman TBF Avenger, but after the mauling they took, the Americans were very leary of using them for torpedo attacks, and for most of the war, they were used for what they called "glidebombing" where the plane went into a rather shallow dive, or for horizontal level bombing from lower levels. More like a strike aircraft where it really did well. Not to say they weren't used at all in the torpedo bomber roll, but it wasn't as much as the Japanese Naval Airforces did. Trouble with torpedo runs from the planes was you had to fly at about 100ft or less off the water or the torpedo would break apart on impacting the water, or it could detonate. The other thing too was that you had to fly just above stall speed too, which leaves you no room to jink and bob around for defense from AA fire. So in essesnse it was like the slow targets at a shooting gallery at the local fair. So just being in that position alone was suicide. Which is why the American Naval Airforces didn't use that tactic all to often. What they did figure out though, and the Army Airforce could do it too, was skip bombing, similar to the Dambusters. A bomber like the B-25, and B-17 could use a bomb with a delayed fuse, and get low over the water and drop the bomb at a good pace, and it would skip like a stone and slam into the side of the target ship and detonate. Worked great for harbors and shipyards. And since the planes came in low, they weren't usually detected until they started their attackruns on the ships. Rather interesting tactics they used. One of my favorites was the 5th Airforce in the Southpacific. They had a bunch of 25 to 50 lb pounds, and they were pretty useless from high altitude, so they figured out they could attach a small parachute to the tails of them, and twin engined medium bombers could attack things like Japanese airfields from treetop level, the chute slowing the bomb enough to let the plane get far enough away so the blast and fragments didn't damage the plane dropping them. They could even damage or destroy planes that were in revetments with them. Again, the attacking planes could drop their loads before ground forces could respond to them. Since they had the advantage of suprize.

Not sure Olham. But most of my duels end up with punctured petrol tanks. The ground crews aren't too pleased either having to always retrieve my kite from the surrounding area.

Both if memory serves. The escort fighters had to drop their gear and flaps from what I read on it, as the Swordfish flew very slow compared to the then, modern monoplanes. Like Torpedo Squadron 8 at Midway. 15 TBD Devastators without fighter cover attacked the the carrier fleet attacking Midway Atoll, and the flak and Japanese fighter cover knocked them all down, Out of the 15 2 man crews, only Ens George Gay survived, and was resued by American forces. The one thing their sacrifice did, was to pull the fighter cover down to wavetop level, and before the zeros could reclaim their altitude, the SBD divebombers showed up, and in the next 5 minutes, 3 of Japan's most experienced carrier crews and the airmen they carried were gone.

nbryant, Stock up on Osprey books. They have some very good renditions of the squadron insignias. I have used them for many skins in the past from WWI to WWII planes that I like to fly. If the rendition is a little crude looking, I will clean it up using the b&w photos in the book, and then use the colors the artist used, unless a color pic can be had, which I try to match.

1968 Torino GT Fastback 429 CID Cobra Jet V-8 Forged Pistons Holley 850 Double Pumper Carb Blue Streak Dual Points 6 Speed Racing Tranny 4:11 Posi rearend Creager SS Rims 5 Spoke Chrome 14x7 up front, and 15x8 in the back BF Goodrich Tires 60s up front, 305s on the back 3/4 inch square stock ladder bars (traction bars) Dual exhaust 4 inch pipes, with glass pack mufflers 0 to 60 in 4.75 seconds Best time in the quarter mile for street rods, was 10.91 seconds. She really loved 110 octane gas. It looked like this except in high gloss black with 3 color lames http://www.dragtimes.com/images/18232-1969-Ford-Torino.jpg

Hi Shred! Things are going well enough. Spring chores as usual. 5 acres of them! Plus a couple pices of the vynil siding I need to replace from those tough winter winds. I'll have to caulk all around the house to keep the wasps and bees and other critters out, and get everything ready for fishing season. Also, I found a couple real good pics of the forward cockpit of the CLIV, which it is said was almost a duplicate of the CLII. Even a gastank unde the pilot's seat, with retaining straps, and clips. So it will work as a good base to get everything built in. Including the wooden varnished seat.

Hey guy / gals, I was on another forum and found something that was posted to help with the little microstutters. I have tried this on 3 missions now and it seems to help at least on my rig. It also seems to have made a slight improvement to the framerates. The way to apply this, 1 Create a shortcut on your desktop or taskbar quicklaunch for the game exe. (If you don't already have one) 2 Right click on the game exe file and go to Properties. 3 Add this to the target box ahead of the target info: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /realtime "" make sure to leave a space after the second quote. And yes those are single spaces before the forward slashes. 4 It will look something like this : C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /realtime "" "D:\Program File......................................................................... 5 The game exe will change to a command propt, so don't freak out, it is normal All you have to do then is launch the game from this shortcut, and see if it works. If it doesn't work for you, it is easy enough to repeat the steps, and just delete the added line. Hope this helps! Again, I didn't come up with this, or figure it out. I just learned from someone else at a different forum for a different game. You can also try the same thing for other games that may be giving you some microstutter gameplay issues Hope it helps !

Also, the lacquer paint used by Germany in WWI and WWII had a "sheen" to it until it weathered a bit in the elements. Lacquer paint also likes to shine when rubbed down, especially with rubbing compound. My old 1965 Mustang was painted with lacquer, and it oxidized and dulled. A little rubbing compound and elbow grease, and it looked like it did right out of the booth.

Ok! Cool! Just lok outside the pit to the left and see an operating compass. Still coming to grips with the VC. Taking it slow, and doing lots of saves incase I need to backup and redo something. Also fooling with the artfiles for the surfaces, so it's a slow process, but I'm also doing the best I can to figure it out on my own, as I have enough bugged the others in the "know". Besides it's a triumph, when done with self reliance.

Well, at least I know one thing for sure though. is that the compass was on the port wing just outside the cockpit. So I think it may be interesting to model, and still make viewable for people with smaller monitors. Yep, trying to accomodate everybody's whim and want is a tall order. And from emailing Shredward we came tothe conclusion I will have to use the pit layout from the CLIV, which from what I can gather, was pretty much the same layout. Although there aren't a lot of pics of it, the ones I did manage to find from museum restorations are at least complete if not great in detail.