Elmar Bijlsma

Well, my beef is that it's very much a neither here nor there vehicle. The US army tried to make a do 'everything vehicle' and as a result it's a jack of all trades, master of none. The L7 is the biggest blunder, IMHO. Not your first pick to take out a modern MBT these days, yet too much gun to lob HE. Note that the ammo count is pitififul, partially because of this. Seen the size of those shells? For an infantry support vehicle only to be able to chuck token amounts of HE is laughable. Good enough in Iraq or Afghanistan, but bound for failure in a conventional war. IMO they would have done better to drop a manually loaded 75-105mm howitzer on there and perhaps a pair of ATGMs. Also, the sucker is too heavy for what the Stryker concept was intended to do. Air mobility? Transporting a vanilla Stryker in an C-130 was farcical, doing so with the MGS is out of the question.

Just a little reminder that the emoticons of Ye olden Days were so much better. Being angry or rolling ones eyes at someone just isn't the same anymore. Could we have them back? It might even be fun to have the community offer up emoticons for use on these boards, with the best/useful 10 or so being used by BFC. A competition of sorts.

Bang? Someone called a warship Bang?

The thread title is another good one. Yanks/Yankees was a derogatory term reserved for Dutch settlers around the New Amsterdam/York area. This on the assumption that they would be called Jan or Kees, two very common Dutch names. Funny how that term evolved to include every USian.

I don't know about that. I reckon that with their Empire and waging war with damn near everyone at some point or another the Brits probably have a vast amount of derogatory names.

Hi Hellas1, looking for something to tide you over till Empire TW gets released? ToW is certainly a whole lot of fun and pretty accurate, it does have a distinct RTS feel to it. Combat Mission is well worth exploring if you are looking for a bit more slow (though I wouldn't call it boring!) and realistic in the way it plays. I can still heartily recommend CMBB and CMAK as the best two games on East and Mediterranean WW2. As you have noted, they ain't the prettiest. There's a fair few graphical mods that improve on vanilla a fair bit, but its an old engine, so don't expect too much. Graphics are, shall we say, functional? CMSF, after a bumpy start, has really shaped up nicely. But the pacing of modern combat isn't like WW2. Modern weaponry punishes even the slightest mistake severely making combat quite unforgiving. This may limit your enjoyment. However if you've got an interest in modern warfare, it is a must. Anyway, try the demos, it's well worth your time.

Eh? Haven't read it in a few years but according to my recollection Gandalf has more to do in The Hobbit then in LotR.

Gandalf is not a human, normal aging does not apply. If they can make him look the same age as last time, mission accomplished.

Naming the photo-recce version Thunderflash is rather good, now that you bring it up.

I'm with Abbott. Don't read the article, let your bias lead you where it will, damn the facts!

Irrelevant. People paid extra money for the Special Edition that included a few extras. Once you start spreading those extras for free to others, you are humbugging the BFC business model. So I suggest everyone goes on more then assumptions before proceeding.

Errr, if you guys wanted the special edition map, shouldn't you have bought the special edition, or barter with someone who did? I'd wait for BFC to speak on this if I were you.

US working nicknames are generally quite good and make up for a lot. I particularly like "Bone" (B-1b) though the old "Buff" (B-52) is not bad either.

Even the nicknames of the US planes were often taken from how the British named their Lend Lease stuff. For shame!

Since this is a commercials thread, this slighhtly NSFW one from guiness should not me missed. Share

Am I weird for thinking that sign would've been a whole lot funnier if it'd been the famous Calvin image? Now it just comes across as hateful. Unless it's another famous character? It's notot racist, mind you, but incredibly bad taste. More divisiveness, just what the US needs.

You move units by issuing them move orders like you would during normal play, though the move will, of course, be instantaneous. Yup, you can delete the foreign language files if you don't plan on using them. They are installed in the 1st place to allow you to switch from one language to another instead of deciding this upon installation, IIRC.

None of the experiments have this goal as far as I am aware. Pretty generic unravelling mysteries of the universe stuff.

That's twice now that I have to ask someone to withdraw a completely unfounded and spurious comment . I'm neither moral or ethical: I'm a Dutchman! And thank you Viljuri, no offence taken if none was intended. I would point out though that walking is a fairly normal part of daily life. If the universe does decide to go *plop* as a result of a jog around the park, so be it. **** happens, I guess. Paying billions upon billions for a chance to un/re-do the universe is not the smartest of moves unless there's a pay off at the other end. Looking at the experimental goals, this simply doesn't appear to be the case.

Eh, to me it smacks of scientific decadence. Sure, it's kinda cool, and science is a good thing. But when you throw the obscene amounts of money at it that are involved with CERN and the LHC I kinda want, nay demand, a real in my hands tech to result from it in the end. But from my reading this isn't in the cards. Also, while the CERN guys are quick to rule out any risk (and why wouldn't they?) they also expect unexpected, spectacular results results. How can you possibly rule one thing out if you also predict unexpected and spectacular results. WTF? That's not reasoning of a quality that you can let the fate of the known universe depend on. Need I remind you there is no Undo button if they do mess up. Once again, I deem the chance of anything like that incredibly small, but that doesn't mean it should be brushed aside lightly. Also, Viljuri, I would ask you to explain or withdraw some of the comments you made. While I find the entire tone uncalled for I found quite out of line.

It's a deal breaker if they DON'T.

Still a scary idea, because they aren't entirely sure. Naturally scientists aren't supposed to be 100% sure of anything, but when such merely theoretical uncertainty is applied to the existence of Earth it gets my attention. What are we supposed to get out of this whole deal, anyway? All of it sounds like highly theoretical experiments with no real foreseeable use to me. Hyper expensive geeking.

I have a suspicion that it had been an actual commercial for Phil Collins, it wouldn't have effected his sales as positively as the add did now.

By having a lagging popular culture NZ pulls ahead of Oddstralia by the mere fact of having any culture whatsoever. I don't get the commercial at all. It's neither clever, funny nor does it link to the product in any way I can see. Want to see some really brilliant commercials, feed Centraal Beheer to the YouTube monster.

Or she pulled it out in a reflex. Because if you do that quick enough your body (and your friends) won't notice you just stabbed yourself.