PeterNZer

I'm really much to patriotic to let this thread drop by the wayside, so.. *bump* I now have my GeForce 2 on order, my Elsa glasses, my extra 64mb of ram.. mm it's like a wet dream =) I just can't wait! I have CM, I have Vampy: the Redemption game I wanted... Anyway PeterNZ

at least yer flatmate is lucky enough to be able to -buy- the damn gear I'm going to try ebay now, but I have to register before I can send anyone an email or anything, gah! PeterNZ

ARGGGG Why don't these shops ship outside the damn US! I just want to spend some money with them and I can't get any bloody where because they won't accept my $, crazy! And the US goods are quite a bit cheaper than the damn UK shops, this is REALLY annoying! PeterNZ *fuming*

I have decided! The Elsa GeForce 2, with Revelator glasses, (I couldn't resist really, toys, mm!) an extra 64mb of ram will be ordered today! Now all I need is my pc! It's currently departing New Zealand for London, eta, end of this week, start of next week PeterNZ

Actually, i'm surprised noone has bothered to actually -use- a game like Operational Art of War to run the big campaign and CM to run the small. I can't think of a good game example to use, (hehe axis and allies? .. but surely someone could do that fairly easy, would be rather fun PeterNZ

I have mine! woo arrived this morning now i just have to get a pc to play it on My pc should arrive in London in the next week i think. PeterNZ

While i do agree to a point.. I have some qualifications! Of course, ya zap everything, there's likely to be little opposition =) However, other forces from democratic nations were able to operate in Somalia successfully and yet the American's couldn't.. which would suggest there was more than just a 'baah to police actions' sort of thing going on. Again I don't know enough about this. I'd suggest to an ausie out there, go dig up one of the many Think Tank / Defence thinkin tank resources out there and see what ya find, there's good stuff. Anyway time for the weekend, see ya all. Peter

yeah, i agree. In fact, my mates grandad apparently also thought that Spikes memoires were the best, and easily most accurate of the war Interesting eh? I reckon when we are complaining about conscript moral type troops we should probably realise that in all armies, this would be the -standard- behaviour for -all- members of the armed forces except for a few hard-core gropos We should just thank god that our troops sit in one place when getting shot at rather than run screaming for the hills hehe PeterNZ

A side note re Somalia. I don't wan to get into a huge debate about how good or not the US is.. But I read some pretty scathing stuff from Ausie officers about how Somalia was handled by the US forces. Not by the troops on the ground, but just how in general Command gave out operational instructions and stuff. Damn it's Friday and I can't get the right words out. ok. like, what i mean is. There was consensus amongst the forces of a 'softly softly' approach.. or something like that. Of being firm but not too firm. Damn it, someone will know what i'm talking about. And the US managed to piss ALL of hte factions off or something, so while it would be nice and quiet in the Ausie sectors the Yanks had all sorts of hell going down and troops got killed ... It was really interesting reading, but I read it over a year ago. The writer bassically said that he thought the US command botched the operation. The media and therefore public view is of course, different, that the Knights went in and despite trying to be jolly nice, were spurned by the savages. I'd be keen for some more informed comment (Not hard huh?) PeterNZ ------------- There's your freak'n smilies, ok!

Ghurkins, Ghurkas, I can't spell. anyway. I love those guys! I was doing some reading for my paper on Private Military Companies and International Law, (wanna read it? Drop me a mail, ptyson@datamonitor.com). Anyway, didn't whatshisname precursor to Tony Blair suggest using them as UN troops? Bloody good idea! Something like 10,000 turn up for selection for the Ghurka troops each year but the UK can only take 100 max. And Nepalese troops in the UN, hardly going to be a political force, (unlike say using US troops, which gets people hot under the collar). And they like fighting and losses probably are tolerated well. I say lets get on with it, recruit a cpl of thousand now and more in the future and give them some shiny blue helmets and send em out there, hurah! Too much energy drink for me. www.vitalise.com ..mm they now sell it in the UK too! Mmm! PeterNZ

Haystacks.. Reminds me of a story my mate told me. His grandad personally ran away from a tiger tank, (well he reckoned it was a tiger hehe). He was near some HQ or something, and had been told by his superior officers to 'guard it', and was given a tommy gun. He felt pretty cool aparently. The brit soldiers obviously thought the tommy gun was pretty darn super. So he proceded to strutt around this road with his tommy run, ready to challenge anyone who should cross his path. then apparently, out of the blue this german tank appears on the road. About then he ran for it. It didn't fire at him with mg, he thought it must be out of ammo. He ran across a field and hid in a hay stack and it started shooting at him with its main gun. But apparently, was also out of HE since round just whizzed through it and there were no explossions. He decided that a haystack wasn't the best place to hide so ran for it into a barn where he hid again. The tank start shooting AP rounds through the barn. Lots of nice neat holes! After a while it got bored and drove off and he emerged a little humbled I loved the stuff my mate would tell me about his grandad. The guys bassic philosophy during WW2 was "heroism gets people killed", and saw it happen more than a few times. Eg. crazy new Lt. leads 4 or so other guys in a charge against an mg post, everyone dies while he was more than happy to wait for arty or air support. When you think about it, evolution suggests that our ancestors were infact cowards/cautious, since they are the ones most likely to survive. We could probably all trace our line back through a series of rather cautious men, (in the long term i guess). I find that thought kinda amusing. And the idea of some brave (crazy) soul is an aberation of our character It's Friday and I muse, crazy me I think Spike Milligans war memoires should be required reading. I think we would think in much the same way about these things. I figure 80% of the armed forces were people like Spike. Folks who never really saw direct combat and as a rule, arsed around. My favourite SM story was when he was driving around in his truck looking for something in Italy. It was a rough area and soon they were a bit lost. All of a sudden two germans pop out in the road infront of them and throw their hands up, surrendering! Spike skids to a halt and his CO asks him what's going on. Spike says there's some germans surrendering, and the CO goes something like "bugger taking them back to base, tell them to clear off", so spike get out of the truck and makes 'shoo' ing noises "shoo shoo, go away" and herds them off the road before taking off. Anyway, have a nice one. and don't be too brave. It's dangerous. PeterNZ

Hurah! BTS has confirmed my copy is on it's way At the moment, some posty somwhere is clutching it too his bossom in an effort to get it to me, i know. PeterNZ

A few random comments because I'm a random guy. On IDF. Yeah, cool, interesting comments, but yer mad if you intend basing your entire foreign policy on the bible! "we're right cos it says so here so stop being mean to us!" just doesn't really cut it in diplomacy does it! As for Tom Clancy. Must admit i've been a little bored with his recent offerings. I really liked Rainbow 6, but damn it, noone on the goodies side ever dies! And America saves the day, yay. Anyway, I also loved his comment in Rainbow 6 about the worlds elite special forces, "the only difference between them tends to come down to who ate what for breakfast that day". In other words, they're all pretty close in skill. I'd possibly give the SAS a slight edge because they seem to regularly end up in a fight somewhere in the world. NZ lends our SAS to the English so we don't have serving soldiers hehe NZ army would be quite good, but I think Morale is low due to a lack of money, (we're only a tiny country population wise) and generally the armed forces here have **** equipment. Although they do like to test equipment from overseas, I heard they got a HumVee to tow a huge artillery piece, but then broke the axel driving it over a hill or something. Nevermind, it was free Anyway, CM arrives in the next week or so! And then my pc, so we can finish this movie, haha! PeterNZ

Yeah but a GeForce 2 cost so much and there doesn't seem much point when its performance will outstrip my pc! I might stick to the idea of a TNT2 and plan on totally upgrading my pc sometime in the future PeterNZ

Thanks for the ideas. I just have to work out if i have an AGP slot or not. What i don't get is if a TNT 2 natively supports 3dfx type stuff in a pretty fashion. Of course, it will need to do d3d and all that, but i want good support for all platforms PeterNZ

Hi all. The big vid card conundrum continues. i was looking at a GeForce 2 or Voodoo 5500 but I think that might be just a little over the top for my c400 128mb ram. So, how does CM run on a tnt 2? Especially those ones with snazzy 3d goggles mmmm And how do all sorts of other games run with the TNT 2, like FPS, games like Ultima 9, um and so on! help my brain hurts! PeterNZ

O that sounds like an excellent review! And it's a real coup too, since PC Gamer is widely followed by -many- gamers i believe! go bts! PeterNZ

Bloody American postal service eh? I can't buy the game because VISA won't let BTS bill me, I have no idea why at the moment PeterNZ

Ahh, Dogg exhibits a trait that perhaps the rest of the world finds the oddest. That is that the criticism of govt = the criticism of the state. I think after my few years on the planet it's something i've noticed as the BIGGEST difference between the political discources of various nations and their peoples. Let me provide an example. New Zealand, my home country. It's ok, but it's foreign policy I believe is flawed. In recent years it has been weak in the South Pacific, not stepping up to play a leadership role the south pacific wants it to play, unhelpfull in regards to fishing and environmental efforts, and has failed to act with any balls in Fiji or the Solomon Islands recently. Now, there's some criticism! Does that mean i 'hate' New Zealand? Does it mean I am 'kiwi bashing'? Does it mean I think all New Zealanders are driveling fools, does it mean I think our political system is joke? well incase you hadn't guessed, the answer is NO. It's simply, -a criticism-. If i say, America's foreign policy has tended to be self serving, it's aid levels weak, (% GDP wise) and tied to tough conditions, its stand on IMF/World Bank issues un-visionary, does that mean I hate america? Am I america bashing? Do i think the American armed forces are a joke/not needed whateverthehell? NO! It's merely a criticism of a political policy enacted by a leader-group. Now, I don't know why, but quite a few Americans i've argued with over the years don't see how all the above works. However, most people from other democracies do? Why is that? I honestly have no idea myself. Maybe it's because the rest of us have been treated worse over the years and so are more jaded? hehe. Or maybe it's that the American education system has a different focus? I don't know, and won't presume to answer! So my point, if you're an American, and reading these threads, don't get all crazed and think it's some big plot by the rest of us to abuse america, tear down your people/achievements/military/whatever, see it as VALID criticism or otherwise of policies enacted by your governments. Hey, at the same time, feel free to hassle OUR governments, (we're likely to agree with you ). And those damn irish, you should read about the mischief they get up to with EU fishing laws, (nah, don't actually, it's pretty dull ). As a final note, I think -everyone- should read critical views of their own history. New Zealanders should read a bit of James Belich, or maybe some Maori accounts, the English.. hmm, Read some John Pilger, (although i think the majority of english would agree that Thatcher was an evil wench hehe .. and American's, read a bit of Noam Chompsky. He's pretty controversial, but you can't deny his logic or reasoning. And always remember, we don't HATE america, we don't really HATE american's, (just those tourists in matching jumpsuits), 'we' do however sometimes think that the goals of american policy are not always what the american politicians would have you believe, this is as true now as it was 100, 200 years ago, and it's true for America as it has been for EVERY country on the plannet, (except maybe Sweeden and Norway, jolly nice places hehe ) PeterNZ

I'm not sure if this thread is dead or not, but i've never been one to shirk from jump starting a comotose corpse! So here's something my co-worker sent to everyone here in our little group. He read this same thing somewhere else and was rather annoyed! What's more, he's an American. He avoids getting off into the wider issues, and instead quite cleverly takes the article appart point by point, worth a read. PeterNZ ************************ "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth." Actually, the US gives the LEAST to 3rd world countries in terms of aid of any industrialized Western country as a percentage of its GDP. The Irish Republic, much poorer in absolute terms, gives the highest percentage of its GDP away to poor 3rd world countries. "Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States." That's not true at all. This is a very complex issue. First of all, the US was itself facing financial ruin at the end of WW2. It emerged largely intact and with an industrial production capacity exceeded by none else. The big problem after the war was that there wasn't any country left intact in the world to BUY the things the US produced. Having no market for such a vast industrial capacity would have been disastrous for the US and would have easily plunged us into a recession along the lines of the Great Depression again. This time, because we had a more left-wing interventionist government in place at the time, they came up with a bright idea: shore up the fragile and largely destroyed European economy so they could buy our goods! This wasn't done out of 'charity' but out of self-interest and necessity, not even considering the obvious political goals of making Western Europe 'safe' from the 'evil commies'. The Marshall Plan accounted for LESS THAN 1% of US GDP for each year it was in place, and since the economy was growing in leaps and bounds at the time (thanks to the purchasing power which the Marshall Plan gave to the Europeans at the time to buy US products), it is important to view the Marshall Plan as a very clever way of spending almost nothing but getting really high returns with really good results. It is *very important* to remember that the rebuilding of the European economies after the war, and especially of the French economy, was almost completely due to the efforts of Europeans themselves. As for the German economy, much of it simply wasn't destroyed during the second world war because US companies and shareholders in German firms did not want to see their assets go up in flames. In contrast, Eastern Germany after the war was systematically de-industrialized by the Russians, who were known to dismantle entire factories, ship them in pieces to Russia, and then reassemble them in the Russian hinterland (!). "When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it." France is perpetually in danger of 'collapsing'. In 1958 (I don't know where they hell he picked out the year 1956) there were issues with crazed right-wing types from Algeria threatening to overthrow the government for deciding Algeria should be independent. The constitution of the 4th Republic (1945-1958) was crap anyway. Basically, de Gaulle was the one who 'saved France' again by coming in and being impressive and presidential (the French like those sorts of displays). I've never heard of America doing anything in particular in 1958, although perhaps the CIA was heavily involved in making sure that de Gaulle was successful. Just imagine the outrage if the French intelligence agency was involved in overthrowing or manipulating US electoral results! I've been to Paris many times, and I've never been insulted or swindled on the streets of Paris. Most French people like Americans. I think this Canadian might be transferring his anti-Quebec sentiments to France or something. "When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurried in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped." Like I said above, the US gives less of its national wealth to poor countries than every other industrialized western country. As far as I know, the EU gives more to Africa when particular disasters stike, and the US tends to give more to Latin America in particular crises. The interesting thing about these evil 'floods and famines' is that they are increasingly the result of World Trade Organization (WTO) policies forcing poor countries to 'export, export, export' and forcing them to CUT government spending on health, education and road and infrastructure building! The WTO is blindly supported by the US government and exclusively represents the interests of large multinational companies. " The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans." I already debunked the myth of the Marshall Plan's 'generosity' above. I read plenty of newspapers in France and England and, as everywhere, some newspapers write critical things about America, and some write good things about America. There's certainly plenty of pro-America stuff here in England. Anyway, it's just a fact that Americans are decadent. They drive lots of huge cars and consume 30% of the world's energy output yearly, even though the US population accounts for less than 5% of the world's population. That can't be very good, can it? As for 'warmongering' it is a fact that America has started the most wars of any other country since WW2. Just ask anyone in Latin America, the Balkans, or Southeast Asia. However, I have never seen anyone in any mainstream foreign paper accuse America of being a 'warmongering' state. And I read a lot. "I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them?" Was this article written 15 years ago? It reads like it was. What 'erosion of the US dollar?'. Anyway, the dollar is STRONG now against the Euro and the pound, but weak against the yen. A weak currency can be a very good thing, especially for exporters, and so could benefit the US immensely (as it did in the mid 1980s) by lowering our trade deficit with the rest of the world. About the planes........Europe builds great planes. There's BAe and Airbus. As far as I know, American Airlines is now an Airbus client! "Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times - and safely home again." Germans make good washing machines and refridgerators too! Yes, American put a man on the moon and that was a great thing. But maybe other countries thought it best to spend the billions of dollars that would have cost them to caring for the welfare of their own people by making sure they all have health insurance, unemployment insurance, and housing. If I had to choose between 'man on the moon' and a house and money, I know which one I would want. It's just a matter of what one society values compared to what another society values. "You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at." Since this article appears to be so anti-French, I'll give a French example to start with: - President Mitterrand had a mistress and an illegitimate daughter, and they both turned up and stood next to his wife at his funeral. - Ever hear of the Profumo Affair in England? There are plenty more scandals which I could list! But American news probably doesn't cover them in its broadcasts, because it tends not to cover lots of things that occur outside of the US, in favor of fuzzy "info-tainment" items on the health benefits of lettuce or how a recent study showed eating one egg a day might reduce your chances of dying from a heart attack by 0.6 percent. "When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. " Just not true at all! The French and Germans pay for their excellent railways through massive state subsidies and through their own income and corporate tax revenues! As for the Indians, it was the English that built that system and it is the Indians who are using their ingenuity in the midst of abject poverty to keep it running. I certainly hope people don't believe everything they read. This article is truly an unbalanced, warped rant with little factual basis on which to substantiate its very disparate and varied claims. Evan

Miss B S is a idol of 18yr olds, and guess how old Prince Billy is ?? 18 of course! England is just fine really, somethings make me laugh tho I can't complain really, i mean, otherwise might as well go home! o, and as for Combat Vision, well i get my PC in about 10 days now, and then i'll start working on it! Of course, CM should arrive about the same time... PeterNZ [This message has been edited by PeterNZer (edited 07-17-2000).]

Well London is prooving pleasant, but one thing that annoys me is so many english are so damn arrogant about their contribution to just about anything! For example, my flatmate is convinced that "the english invented the bomb first, but chose not to use it/gave it to the US". Now as far as I know, that's totally wrong! You see stuff like this all the time, "the brits are great at war", "the british are great footballers" etc etc etc So what's the story with the A-Bomb, would like to inform my flatmate more correctly in other news, watched "the Patriot" last night. It stole 3 hours of my life! GRR! I went with the little woman, (who loves action and sci-fi films!), and we get in at 11pm figuring we'll go clubbing after.. Well three hours later and we're both totally drained and stagger home. It was kinda an annoying film really. I mean, maybe if you're an American it's ok, but i felt like someone had smothered me in star-spangled honey and invited the founding fathers to lick it off. blea! And what's more, three hours! I tell you! and really only two major battles, but.. THREE HOURS and much of it more like a soap than an action film. Mind you, it was a little more representative of the brutality of both sides than I expected from other reviews, but even so, all the expected people on the 'goodies' side died at the right times to get Mel Gibson to raise the flag, hurah. In the end I wasn't quite sure if I enjoyed this film or not. It was just too long, the fight scenes too expected, ("saw that in braveheart, that in Last of the Mohicans, a much better film") etc etc. I kinda expected mel to paint himself blue, get confused and charge someone wearing a kilt. i think it would have made the film more interesting I feel more sorry for the Yanks than i do the Poms, must kinda be annoying to see your own people butcher your history anyway, polemic mode off PeterNZ

I just ordered, and I'm in the UK But i am a NZ'er still awww. should be good fun Not sure when mine will arrive, still no pc for at least 10 days, (it's in the post)! Have a nice day. PeterNZ

Look! A smiley in the Subject! Mwuahah anyway. I was thinking. BTS and Battlefront have shown their mettle and that they can handle releasing a 'big' game, (by that I mean, a game that is probably one of the biggest independent releases I've heard of). Now, is anyone else going to rally to the Battlefront flag. At the moment there's TacOps, AoA, and CM here, well, I reckon some more wargamey types should pop up. But first, I have to be honest, redesign the web pages! They need some big work. Frankly, BTS, I bet you could get some one to do lots of design and updates for free with the simple offer of being involved with the beta 2+. And we're not talking getting punk kids messing around, I bet there's some web designers/builders out there who would be happy too see a great page done. I mean, you guys have done so well so far, and I understand web pages are the last on your mind, but they're the first thing on any visitors mind, that's what they see! So, hmm well, I just wanna see Battlefront become the place I go to for all sorts of exciting indepdent products presented well with lots of info! I guess, a Portal, (yay! buzzword!), or even, a Vortal! (buzzier buzz word!) Anyway. Bla, open for discussion. To much coffee for me, mmmmm PeterNZ

I think his mum is more concerned about Ye Olde Credit Card fraud. the kind you always hear about on the news, (hackers getting Credit Card numbers etc). I think my reply in the other thread explains the situation well, tell her not to fear mate! PeterNZ