Thog10

Air - Combatace.com Land - SimHq.com (though I go there mostly for air) Sea - Navalwarfare.net

I've not heard. You might want to check around the message boards at their site. If anyone would know, they would. http://www.redorchestragame.com/

I've played Red Orchestra - and now its Western Front Mod, Darkest Hour - a fair amount. It's definately not a single player game. The available bots are pretty brain-dead, but the online action can be quite good. It is not an indepth sim of tank ops as it is primarily a infantry-themed FPS, but it does give some sense of combined arms. The armor of a particular AFV is stronger where it should be stronger, and the game now includes a fairly wide range of tanks. The tank aspect alone might be comparable to a "sim-light" in the flight sim world. Overall it is definately worth the $20.

Ever since owning A-10 Cuba! I have been a fan of the hawg. In earlier years I move mud with the little A-4.

To echo and expand upon earlier comments, probably not. Deckwise, IMHO, I believe that the SCB 125 Essex class carriers were about as small as practicable for use by even relatively light jets such as the A-4 and F-8. Not only was the CV-9 class capable of carrying a much larger deck than the Cabot, but it also had much, much more internal volume. Even if it were just possible to cram appropriate arresting gear, an angeled deck, and a much more powerful catapult onto the Cabot's hull, you would have little or no margin in terms of weight and volume for little things such as an airwing. Having said all that, Norman Friedman writes that "... Saipan and Wright served continuously after the end of the war, both being decommissioned in 1956-57. At that time limited interest was expressed in an angled-deck conversion, presumably to keep the Saipan as a training ship at Pensacola. No design work appears to have been done, although an SCB project number was assigned" (Friedman, U.S. Aircraft Carriers. pg 195.) Friedman is referring to the two light carriers completed later in the war that were in some respects a larger development of the CVL-22 class light carriers. Perhaps, based upon this note in Friedman's book it is just possible to imagine Cabot so upgraded, but it does require one to stretch one's imagination a bit.

Hmm, First as at a friend's house: either Red Baron or Strike Commander. I know I played both, but I can't remember the order. First on my own computer: Chuck Yeager with Jane's ATF following later in the year. When I got ATF I had to double my RAM to 16mb in order to run the game. Then I got NATO fighters and then the Duosoft toolkit. Man, those days were fun...

judging from the results thus far we must have some P-40 fans hiding in the wings...

Okay, so I've been eager to get my hands on the Sabre pack. Now I just wonder whether or not I've been hallucinating... Twice today (once in the morning, once not too long ago) I've seen the Sabre pack posted. I've downloaded it. I've had a problem extracting the file. I've deleted the file intending to try to download it again. Then, I check CombatAce and... poof! No Sabres. Of course, at this point, I've deleted the file already - so I've got no easy proof that I have ever had the file. So, my question is thus: Is this a case of "not quite ready for prime-time" and I should wait patienty? -or- Should I check for a gas leak or some other reason my mind might not be all there?

I would be interested to see what folks say, too. Well, my position is not quite unlimited. A year after my gaming rig died I am looking at spending about $1450 on a desktop, and I may throw another $250 in for a monitor. My time and talent for building my own is nil or close to it, so what would folks buy if unlimited funds weren't quite available?

Could we get a little bit of gold leaf? Not too much though, we wouldn't want this to end up looking tacky...

After seeing missle after missle miss in that scenario, I really do start questioning loudly "who forgot to mount a gun on this airframe?"

Su-24 Su-25 Su-30 Su-33 Su-34 Tu-95 F/A-18C,D,E,F Many, many thanks to all those who have worked so that my wish list is so short!

Ooh... Sorry to hear it. I know how you feel. My machine bit the dust last summer. I've been flying (on very low graphical settings) my wife's laptop since then. Good luck getting airborne again!

Wow, can't wait. I'm going to have to until at least May, though. My computer that could decently run this sort of stuff died last summer. My wife's laptop will sorta run the older games, but I am hoping the stars will align in May. All that to say: Please keep the after action reports, screen shots, observations, and other comments of note coming so the rest of us can drool in the mean time! Enjoy your flying!

Hmm, too close to my actual day. Instead it was a Toyota Tundra that augered into my car's right rear bumper... Oh well, worse days are indeed possible.

Well, I have less flight time than Icarus, but I have spent a fair amount of time with Ancient Greek of various sorts. Hippos: horse - think hippodrome potamos: river

I love the A-10 - hence my screen name: (war)thog. However, LOMAC seems to do a decent job with the plane. There have also been hints of a DCS treatment of the aircraft, and if I just want to fire off a half dozen mavericks in fifteen seconds, there is always WOE. I wonder if such logic was behind anyone else's omission of the hawg?

1. High moddability 2. Detailed carrier ops 3. Story-driven campaign 4. Detailed comms and ATC 5. Good performance on older systems 6. Detailed cockpit procedures 7. Dynamic campaign 8. High res graphics, terrain and effects 9. Seat-switching Hmm, tough calls. I think "moddability" is key to sustaining interest over the long haul. Carriers are a must. I have yet to play a dynamic campaign that did not begin to seem like an endless series of near identical missions. (Sometimes very good near-identical missions.) As someone who is part of a family where having the latest and greatest computer is not a priority, games that can run on a wide variety of machines is a priority. And seat-switching would be great. I think, overall, that a sim that was strong in even a couple of those categories would be a very tempting buy.

If: 1: The featured aircraft is a two-seater and 2: It does not create nightmares for those responsible for development Then: I would love to see the AI WSO be a helpful fellow who would assist you in spotting the bandit, call out sam launches, and provide useful and humorous comentary such as "Come on, do some of that pilot sh...." I still remember when I first heard my RIO in USNF use that line when I got into a sticky situation.

1: F-14 2: F-4 (preferably including both USN and USAF variants) 3: A-4 However, I think I would like a good Hornet sim most of all (if the era under consideration were to be extended a bit).

I remember that the approach taken with the Jane's USNF/ATF/FA series was to have their "core aircraft" be flyable while all others were easily made flyable through a "cheat." (No more than a selectable menu in the last versions.) It seems to me that much of the efforts of modders in less-moddable sims is to make those AI aircraft flyable even if it means using a F-15 cockpit as you take a spin in a F/A-18. Might giving players a similar "cheat" allow the purists to claim that the sim is a "study sim" while making those hungry to fly everything with wings happy? One other thought: does any one else miss story and plot in flight sims? Perhaps I am only looking back on the "good old days," but I seem to remember more attention to setting the scene. I wonder what could be done to enhance the immersion experiance without big studio $$$ on hand?

Unfortunately that article from inquirer.net is at least 15 months old. Who knows what has happened in the mean time.

A-10 first and foremost, but I do have some leanings towards the early marks of the Spitfire and even Hurricane.

i90807065, I didn't mean to pick on you, and I hope that my posts were not / are not taken as such. I intended my words to be light-hearted, but looking back over them I can see how they might be taken in other ways. It's great to take a free hand to design and dream about what could be, to wonder about how steel could be shaped in fantastic ways. Good luck with the design. Thog10

Yeah... probably. With aircraft I would happily accept an F-22 tri-plane with four GAU-8s mounted in each wing, but with my ships I am a little picky.