Sgt Joch

yes, I doubt the problems with the T-14 and T-15 are mechanical, most likely an issue with the software.

lets not go off the rails here. LnL's native language is Russian, its easy to get hung up on the nuances of a second language, especially english which has more exceptions than rules. The main purpose here is to find out more technical details about the T-14. LnL is a huge help since he can actually speak Russian.

caption: "wonder if we can blame the CIA for this?"

According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Study, where that statistic supposedly comes from, in Russia 111 persons control 19% of the overall wealth in 2014 (p. 53). No comparable figure for the USA. https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=60931FDE-A2D2-F568-B041B58C5EA591A4 However, both Russia and the USA are ranked as having "very high inequality" (p.30). In Russia the top 10% own 84.8% of the wealth. In the USA, the top 10% own 74.6% of the wealth. The "very high inequality" ranking put the USA and Russia in the same category as Egypt, India, South Africa, Thailand, etc.(p.33) OTOH, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Finland are all rated as having only "medium inequality" since the top 10% own between 50-60% of the overall wealth. Not sure it is anything for Americans to be bragging about .

I dont think we know enough at this point to make guesses on the armor protection. The Russians claim a weight of 57 tons for the MBT configuration. a M1A2 is supposed to weigh 68 tons and the turret alone weighs 24 tons? I presume the Armata will save weight just by having a smaller turret even with an equivalent armor protection.

so what is the advantage of the unmanned turret? I was under the impression that the main advantage of an unmanned turret was to give a lower profile and hence, greater survivability to the tank, but the Armata seems to be as tall as a M1 Abrams.

I have been ploughing through Glantz latest tomes of his Stalingrad Trilogy, 2 volumes dealing with the nov. 42-jan. 43 period. What is interesting from Glantz's latest research is that he shows Stalingrad was a much closer thing than generally imagined. The Russian command and control, troop strength, supply situation in Nov. 42 was not much better than during the summer when most of their offensives failed. The Romanians did not simply melt away, most of the Romanian front held and the Russians only managed to pierce the Romanian lines in a couple of places through which they pushed their mobile forces. The big problem with the Romanians was a lack of effective anti tank weapons. OTOH what really hampered the Germans was a lack of mobile reserves and lack of flexibility for the Sixth Army. If the Germans had had 2-3 extra mobile divisions in reserve, they might have been able to stop the Russians cold.

yes, I already gathered that from AKD's and LockandLoad's posts.

nice find on the vid, but it does not look like an unmanned turret.

The U.S.S. Donald Cook was buzzed by a plane, that was reported last year: http://www.stripes.com/news/us/pentagon-russian-fighter-flies-provocatively-close-to-uss-donald-cook-1.277941

Hi, which Beta driver are you using, the 14.11.2 ?

Only a small group of left wing nutjobs consider mr. Kissinger to be a "war criminal", but how is that insinuation in any way pertinent to this discussion? I personally think his views are very pertinent, so do many U.S. policy makers, including president Obama.

I have to admit my playing experience so far is the other way. I am in a H2H game using BMP-3Ms in night, rainy conditions. With the thermals/night optics, they are spotting enemy units which are still invisible to my infantry units 50-100 meters in front.

good luck, the days when leaders would take bold actions are long gone:

Personally....with nuclear weapons proliferating, runaway population growth, depletion of natural resources, increasing pollution of every corner on earth, I highly doubt we will make it past A.D. 2300. The only question is what will wipe us out. These type of statistics should give every one pause: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_China over the next 10 years, the equivalent of the U.S. population will move into chinese cities and each family unti will require jobs, housing, transportation, consumer goods, etc. and that is happening all over the world.

I added one to compensate.

There is an issue with older ATI cards and the 14.12 drivers. Rolling back to 14.4 seems to solve it.

In my experience, the "3d model quality" setting is the one that has the biggest impact on FPS. You have to experiment with different settings to find the sweet spot. All the settings from "Balanced" to "Best" use the same LODs, the only difference is the distance at which it draws them.

Figures I have seen peg the cost of a Type VIIc in 1943 at 2-2.5 million RM. At the official exchange rate in 1940 U.S. $1= 2.5 RM,I get U.S. $ 800,000-1,000,000. Apparently, a US Gato class cost U.S. $2.85 million, but that was a bigger craft, 1525 tons vs 770 tons for a VIIc. However, as Tooze points out in "Wages of Destruction", the Nazis kept the RM at an artificial high exchage rate, its true value was lower.

The issue about the U-Boats is not that they had a chance to succeed, but that it was a better investment for Germany then building a strategic bomber force. No matter how you calculate, for each U-Boat built, 2.5+ ships representing 10-12k tons were sunk. Would a German Strategic Bomber force have inflicted economic damage equal or superior to sinking 14.5 million tons of shipping plus all the supplies that were lost? Doubtful.

I remember in 2005 when BFC announced they were revamping the engine and that (heresy) the first game would be modern. Dozens of threads popped up predicting the end of BFC, yet here we are 10 years later and 5 new games have come out, 2 just in the past 12 months. I think Steve and the gang know what they are doing.

no game has a "thinking" AI simply because a "thinking AI" does not exist. A computer has the "intelligence" of a toaster, it only does what it is pre-programmed to do. What you see in a game which looks like "thinking" is the program following its programming, i.e. if player does A, do plan A, if player does B, do plan B. Sometimes, you will get a random variation, such as if player does A, do plan A or B. etc. Obviously the smaller the amount of variables, for example a small number of pre-made maps, a limited number of options for the player, the easier it is to program the responses so the program looks more "intelligent". That is what first person shooters and flight sims do. In the end though, it is all smoke and mirrors. Now, players always like to bring up the example of Chess programs, but Chess is actually a very simple game: 64 squares and 32 units. Even then, programmers have spent $ millions to program every possible response to what a player might do. Now compare that to CM where even a 800x800 meter map will have 10,000 "squares", each with a hundred variation of elevation or terrain; and that does not even count the different number and types of units. The CM scenario editor allows the scenario author to program the AI response in a manner which is a complex and variable as the AI in any comparable game. Is there room for improvement? Of course!, but CM has always been a work in progress. Now you want to play against a "thinking" opponent?, easy, play PBEM.

"Wolfenstein: the New Order" is also Open gl. I am getting 60+ FPS on maximum graphics in that one on my R9 290, but then it is a first person shooter.

The Luftwaffe had the best training program up to 1941, but they started to take shortcuts in 1942 when losses started outpacing supply. What helped them until early 1944 was the pool of "experten" pilots who accounted for most of the kills. However, most of those aces were gone by early 1944. By summer 1944 and after, the average German fighter pilot was a lot less experienced than the average USAAF/RAF fighter pilot.