MigBuster

Fantastic!

Pilot does well

During the early days of Vietnam Conflict, the US developed a special kind of attack aircraft to stop the flow of enemy troops and supplies: the gunship. The Gunship aircraft, born from the conversion of cargo aircraft into powerful aerial weapons armed with big guns, were based on the concept of the circling attack. In other words, the guns were mounted on the left side of the gunship so that the plane could fly a bank circle, achieving a good accuracy in strafing the target by using high velocity guns with a caliber of at least .30. The first two types of gunships developed by the US were the twin-engine piston powered Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar, but the final leap was made relying on the size, speed and heft of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules which became known in the gunships world as the AC-130 Spectre. The first AC-130As were deployed in Vietnam in 1968. They were armed with two 20 mm and two 40 mm cannons and they flew their first missions teamed with F-4s, which had the task to attack and destroy with cluster bombs the enemyAAA (Anti Aircraft Artillery) that opened fire against the gunship. During the first missions the Spectre was also able to achieve an aerial victory when on May 8, 1969 an AC-130 shot down an enemy helicopter, as told by Wayne Mutza in his book Gunships The Story of Spooky, Shadow, Stinger and Spectre . But the AC-130s were best and widely used from October 1969 to April 1970, the so called dry season, during which the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) trucks transported ammunition supplies by using the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Spectres crews, that had the task to hunt trucks, were able to destroy and damage 25 of them in one mission: among these there were also AAA vehicles and, some times, the gunships came back to the base badly damaged. In the 1969-1970 dry season the NVA moved about 68,000 tons of provisions on the Trail, 47,000 tons of which were destroyed by the 12 deployed AC-130s with their 20 mm high density rounds and 40 mm Bofors cannons. The 1970-1971 was even busier for the gunships since American and South Vietnamese soldiers began moving into Laos: in fact, while the numbers of AC-130s increased from 12 to 18, the western part of the Trail became filled with an always increasing number of vehicles coming from east, where interdiction sorties had concentrated. Therefore, during this period a gunship could destroy more than 25 trucks per night and the 1970-1971 dry season ended with 58,500 tons of material destroyed. By the end of the 1971, after the NVA increased the number of the armored vehicles and the caliber of guns along the Trail, the U.S. deployed the first example of AC-130E. As explained in detail by Wayne Mutza in his book, the new Spectre model was armed with a new more potent gun, the M102 105 mm Howitzer which replaced one of the Bofors cannons on the left side of the gunship. The first Howitzer was installed in a gunship after it was repaired from some battle damages. Since it could fire from a distance of 12,000 meters, the Howitzer highly increased Spectre stand-off capabilities: the result was a higher kill ratio against trucks, since a vehicle hit by a 105 round had only a 10% chance to be still operable. During its first Vietnam deployment this single howitzer-mounted AC-130E destroyed 75 trucks and damaged 92 ones with the 105, and destroyed 27 vehicles and damaged 24 ones with 40 mm fire in 32 missions. http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/28/ac-130-vietnam-war/

Its been in development for so long - the release date is whenever it comes out basically

Lots of people will moan about it............

A well earned rest is long overdue.......take care and we hope you get well soon.

Interesting - thanks for posting

Didnt notice this in the link to RT I posted above - the Su-25 looks a bit like a Raven! - so the US shot it down

http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB3w/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=9654 Thanks, and we appreciate all your input. I know I just said this in the other thread, but we can't just walk into other people's store and sell our games. I do see GOG has added "indie" section just last year, but the application process to get our games on there is still the same as pre-Greenlight Steam (and most other online stores). We need to submit our games and hope they're interested in selling them, and chances of getting our games on there, even after spending a lot of time and money, is very slim. And if you look at other indies' blogs that show the numbers, you should see that sales numbers on most online stores other than Steam are very small, usually a tiny fraction their own online store. In fact, they're so small that its usually combined with all other stores, so the charts usually has only three items - 1. Steam, 2. their own online store, 3. far distant third is "all other online stores" combined. So just getting on one of those isn't going to do us any good, it's only going to cost us more. It would make sense to try those other stores if we didn't already have our own online store. If you are not happy with the service we provide on our online store, and only willing to buy our games from more established stores, then we do apologize, and I'd like to remind everyone that we do offer 100% refund. Good news here is that the Steam is *rumored* to be getting rid of Greenlight process all together, and go "open" store later this year - meaning anyone will be able to sell their games on there, much like Google Play or Apple iTune. If this rumor is true, and they do open up their store, then we can look at moving some of games on there (and even consider closing our own store here), but whether we do or not will depend on how much it costs and how they sell. The decision will have very little to do with what we want, it'll be based on what we can afford. I think I've said this many many times before, and I sound like a broken record, but at the end of the day, its not about what we want (or what we're interested in), it's about what we can afford. It costs us time, resources and money (and a lot of it) to do anything - work on a patch, work on new dlcs, work on new games, and even work to put our games on different stores - and we're not "interested" unless we're confident that we can at least recover the cost (so we don't get deeper into the hole or go out of business completely). We are not interested in anything that loses us more money because we've already lost everything once, and can't afford to lose anymore. Luckily, the mobile games are doing well enough to cover for the cost of SF2 Exp2 and SF2 NA (almost), and things are finally getting close to back to normal around here. If you're offering a million dollars, we'd be happy to take it, as long as you understand that that's not a lot of money for game dev today and certainly not going to get you everything you want in a game. If you're going to insist that we spend extra 15+ million dollars to do the games you want as a condition to take that 1 mil, then no. Again, not because we don't want to, but because we can't afford to. And while all the complaining, fighting and bickering, and personal attacks and threats here do mean we're much happier working on mobile games, it doesn't factor much into deciding what we do. Despite all that negatives, we are still working on new PC games (we must really hate ourselves ), but they are something much smaller and cheaper, because again, its not about what we want, its about what we can afford. Thanks,

Informative........... http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/an-elite-f-14-airman-explains-why-the-tomcat-was-so-imp-1610043625

A whip round perhaps? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28459093 Two ex-RAF jets could find their way into private collectors' hands after being put up for sale with no reserve. A 1976 Hawker Siddeley Harrier GR3 jump-jet and a 1988 Panavia Tornado F3 are being sold at Silverstone Auctions in Northamptonshire this weekend.

Well done - that sounds really positive and I hope it works out for you.

With a bit of help

You mean this? http://rt.com/news/174412-malaysia-plane-russia-ukraine/ It must be true because it's already on Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-25 That's right 3.0mtrs and what you doubt these figures for service ceiling?

Probably why they are all desperately pointing the finger at each other. Basically a ceasefire and a peaceful out come suits Putin more doesn't it.............

I would also like to see the Airline companies getting a good kicking as well..............for being so naive into thinking it was an acceptable risk!! Shooting down friendly aircraft and airliners over war zones is consistent throughout conflict. Whether it was downed on purpose or (more likely considering the outfall) someone screwed up doesn't matter - it should not have been there!!

Stick a needle in the chart! http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh17#3d6095b

Doesn't this come back to the guys with the SAMs actually having adequate Identification procedures and reliable systems to provide a 100% ID? And which one of the Airlines is so confident in those systems - they are happy to fly over them safe in the knowledge there is no way they could ever be mistaken for a military transport? And the people in the airlines making these decisions - do they have any clue as to the ID procedures or who is actually operating these systems - think that's a big no. Bare in mind we have no idea how far they were from the Airliner - were they in range for a visual ID (was the weather clear?) or are they just looking at a radar scope and guessing base on incoming vector and flight profile - we will never likely never know.

The one mission RT was either a bug or you basically joined a squadron that starts in 1968. Burning Sands is a ground war is it not - so your ground guys need to reach the objective to win the campaign. if you successfully completed 6/6 missions it might be doable.

World cup tail:

Two A-7 Corsair jets of the Hellenic Air Force (including a cool Special Color) made a stop over at Aviano airbase on their way to RAF Fairford’s RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo). The Hellenic Air Force operates world’s last ageing but still much loved venerable Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II jets. The aircraft, flown by the 336 Mira (Squadron) “Olympos” belonging to the 116 Combat Wing from Araxos, will be phased-out in October this year. For this reason the one at the RIAT 2014 at RAF Fairford could be the last overseas appearance before retirement. To celebrate this event, the Greek Air Force sent to the UK two “special” Corsairs: an A-7E in a black special livery with the famous “Fly Low – Hit Hard” motto and a TA-7C two seater Corsair that was recently painted with a new wrap-around camo. http://theaviationist.com/2014/07/14/worlds-last-a7-special/

Hmm - they might not be going http://breakingdefense.com/2014/07/no-f-35s-coming-to-farnborough-safety-first-says-secdef-hagel/ FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW: That whoosh sound you just heard was the air rushing out of all the Pentagon officials, Lockheed Martin employees and the myriads who still hoped the F-35Bs would fly here. Rear Adm. John Kirby issued this statement at 7 p.m BST during a Pentagon press conference, less than 12 hours after news broke about the fleet’s grounding being lifted: “This is a limited flight clearance that includes an engine inspection regimen and a restricted flight envelope which will remain in effect until the root cause of the June 23 engine mishap is identified and corrected. “That said, I can confirm that the Department of Defense — in concert with our partners in the U.K. — has decided not to send Marine Corps and UK F-35B aircraft across the Atlantic to participate in the Farnborough air show. “This decision was reached after consultation with operational commanders and air worthiness authorities, despite the decision by air worthiness authorities to clear the aircraft to return to flight. Never mind - there is always next year Or even the next 50 years after that...............