SayethWhaaaa

Definitely looking forward to this one Erwin! Loving your Flanker series!

Howdy Doody? Heh... doody.

Damn dude... that's a looooong time ago!!! :yes: I have to admit though, I saw the title and immediately thought it had something to do with Alonzo Mourning... oops!

So i keep hearing about B-52s that are either currently, or potentially having their M61 turret replaced with stinger missiles as a means to better defend themselves and it got me thinking, how could this work in SFP? Adding an invisible hardpoint and having a missile fire to the rear are the main issues... but can anything be fired backwards? And if so... who's up for making Firefox? JK Only problem is that if stingers are heat seekers, and this ^^ problem could be solved, head seekers fired head on would be damn near useless. But like I said, it got me thinking, which is about the only thing I have the energy for in this damn heat...

It would have been an online defense subscription or something I might have read waaaaaaaaay when I was at ASPI... way back!

I think the big kink in my experiment was the vision range of the turrets. I've since trashed the testbed in question so I don't remember what exactly I had in there, but if the turrets (the bomber itself?) were able to detect incoming hostiles at greater ranges (10kms or further)and assuming the bomber was at sufficient altitude and the missile had the requisite fuel load (and sufficient turning circle), I think it would be a nasty deterrent. Is it possible that turrets have a fixed vision range? ie, the turrets are limited to a gun range limitation that is less than 500m and irrespective of the weapon type, weapons and response is limited to that anything that comes within that range?

Yeah, I know dude. I watched you develop it. This post will be 2 years old next week. I gave it a go a while ago, but I lost interest in the idea for SFP as for some reason I couldn't get the missiles to fire unless the bomber/hostile were practically on top of each other (well within gun range) which meant the missile hardly ever tracked. I think I saw a couple of hits against slower moving targets but I remember the kill rate against a target sans flares was roughly a 50-50 chance, against one equipped with flares, it seemed to be a lot less. Although I think this was long before Kei Nagase and his QAAM arrived on the scene. It might have made a difference as the flight characteristics of that weapon make it far more forgiving than other IRMs that I've seen. It was a fun experiment though!

Was that the one involving two planes and everyone in the cockpit saluting...?

...without laughing you say? Damn. That's gonna be hard...

Sliding across the bonnet of that's gonna give you a serious case of road rash! And there's nothing worse than doing something funny that results in your losing all the hair on your arse!

This is the 35BM model and doesn't have canards, per se (although, the aircraft does have provisions to have them fitted). I'm curious to see if Fast Cargo's canards mod could be added... Hmmmm...

Isn't the newer C-130 gunship proposal going to involve an airborne laser variant? I know this one's a testbed vehicle: but how close would this resemble a production variant?

Awww... Crap! I just saw that too and I'm 25 mins into my 8 hour working day!! Crapping crap it!! It's always the way!

Where did you move to in Oz??

I've heard about this one too, but I can't help but think that it may be too small a platform. For those who haven't heard of it, the description can be found here.

Gary Gygax's death was... *rolls dice* ...sad. After all, wasn't it he who said: "Jesus saves, everybody else takes damage." A little role playing humor all you RPG types out there.

No offense taken at all dude. I think that was the situation with the Oberons before they were laid up, not sure though.

Skills shortage is a big issue here. It's relatively easy to gains skills in the ADF, but once gained, the ADF just doesn't pay as well as industry. And flexibility is always an issue. I mean, once I finish my training and complete all the modules required to become a vehicle commander, I'll be making about the same hourly rate as what I'm making in my civvie job now (which is still less than when I was working in Libraries and the University system). I think if the pay for entry level jobs in the navy was something along the lines of 45-60k per year (as opposed to the 30k-ish now), and maybe tax free like the reserves, more people would see the cost of being away for so long as much less of an issue. There are lots of other reasons too.

And just for the record, I apologise if that sounds a little cynical, but if I go to one more godd***ed job interview where they ask me stupid questions about it, I'll snap! I mean, when I used to work at the University of Adelaide, a few particularly "intellectually obsolete" people in my department I worked in thought people who committed lower level crimes were given the choice of joining the army or going to jail!! From what I've been getting over the years, the average Australian's attitude towards the services is pretty apathetic unless its about the cost of a new platform or our troops are somewhere. Then they suddenly have an opinion. By the way, Ghost, we have six conventionally powered Collins class subs in our 40 ship navy. They're kickass little platforms too, once they got the majority of the bugs out of their systems. Even nailed the amphibious assault ships USS Tarawa amd USS Rushmore during Rimpac 2002

But many of you are discounting the cultural difference here. For one thing, we're known for being generally relaxed over here. It's a bit of a stereotype, but it's true. If this had happened in the US, there's no question that there's be calls for his dismissal, for an apology, etc. But here, seeing him as just a guy in the ADF answering questions from Ralph (knowing what they're like and what they'd probably ask), most people here will look at this as an authority figure who said something stupid and dismiss it, or maybe as someone who should have bit his tongue. People will look at the man rather than the services on this one (just going by the feedback I'm hearing on local radio and by people I speak with). The only people who seem to be baying for his blood are the Coalition (not to make it political) and others who're trying to score some mileage out of this. The ADF is a little sensitive about it's image (especially when it's professionalism comes into question), but I think if it was announced that he was being stood aside, they'd gain the bad publicity they're seeking to avoid. As for the honor, it won't be the first thing on the minds of the general public. They'll look at it like most Defense Force issues, with a detached point of view. Military culture isn't as ingrained in our culture as it is in, say, the US, where the military touches almost everyone's lives in one aspect or another (ignoring the historical context for the moment). Most people will know or have known someone in one of the services there, will live nearer military facilities, have been on a ship, been to an airshow, and so forth and of course most people here will have had relatives in the services during WWII. But most won't know a lot about the ADF today, and if pressed, would probably only be able to recite something vague about Gallipoli, Kokoda, Midget subs or the Darwin bombings-- at a stretch, Simpson and his donkey. To them, this event will be a negative, but joining the ADF really isn't at the forefront of the public's minds, so it won't do much to dissuade people from joining.

This story is a complete beat up, both by sections of the media and by the opposition who're trying to keep attention away from their own internal squabbles at the moment. The Cmdr in question was being interviewed by Ralph magazine (similar to FHM or Maxim). The questions were posed to him in a casual, jocular way (he didn't make the statements of his own volition and that's the crux here!) and the commander responded with equal tongue in cheek. Both He and the interviewer in question weren't taking the situation seriously at all. There were even some in the media here (ABC and a few others) who asked how it could be taken seriously considering the magazine's history of hard hitting journalism, such as their monthly top ten bums listings.

Nope. I installed both versions myself, created a folder on the network with 5 aircraft in them and then added those same five aircraft to both installs. Everything was identical. We even tried keeping the standard installs but introducing bunyap's weaps pack, same thing, I installed them both from scratch, added the exact same weaps back to both, tested both in single before trying hamachi... then nada. Got the boot. So far, I've only played HL or Hamachi with vanilla installs. Maybe the set up for multi only uses certain resources, I don't know.

Have you guys ever had trouble with getting add on aircraft to work? I remember last time I attempted to get it to work, we both had install s that EXACTLY mirrored each other, but it dropped out every time... thought it might be Hamachi, but couldn't figure it out.

Heh, no, I just meant in the vert tails alone. I know the Su-35 and 37 had extended tips for larger fuel tanks and an advanced RWR avionics fit. I don't remember if there was much, if any difference in the flight characteristics.

There's a different kind of RWR or some kind of avionics system, isn't it?