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dieseltaylor

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Everything posted by dieseltaylor

  1. I suppose special mention should be made of the Churchill as being a tank designed for First World war environment that gained its spurs because its design allowed it to do things other tanks could not do in the mountains of Tunisia. And later with 6" 150mm of frontal armour it did not suffer as badly as other western tanks from the vanilla 50mm and 75mm ATG's. The very long hull beside giving great climability also meant plenty of room for becoming a Funny.
  2. I absolutely agree it was the Russians who were the masters of tank design in WW2. In a sense they had to be as they were perpetually involved in a ground war and had been practising in Spain, in Finland, in the Far East, and Poland before the big match. For tank guns the Germans and the British probably share the honours. For ingenuity the British but there again a matter of needs must as the Dieppe raid proved that some special thinking would be needed for the invasion. Curiously the Germans though having two fine fighting tanks in the Tiger and Panther they were not strategic successes in the fiddliness to build and weight department. The Panther was a belated response to the T34 and did suffer some serious teething problems. Mind you I suspect most tanks did but not all of them started off in one of the biggest tank battles to prove it.
  3. Traverse times are a very iffy area if translated as a target acquisition measurement. AFAIR one of the problem areas can be a speedy traverse can be linked to a "sloppy" turret where over-traversing occurs. Also taking a 360degree figure is not really a battlefield measurement as hopefully you are fighting with the enemy in a known quadrant. It would be an interesting line of enquiry as to whether short barrel weapons always have an advantage in quick targeting - all other things being equal. Rather as a pistol in a room is more use than a rifle! When I get a chance I will look at some of my reference books but AFAIR early war and tank turret rotation speed rings no bells. I suppose so many things are more relevant to tank effectiveness.
  4. Me and my friends play it LAn here and at my mates. Normally three players here and up to five at my mates. His nephew has learned the game recently and become obsessed with it! Due to a pernickety member we play short games of 201 to 301 turns which are still great fun. There is an amazing learning curve and most of us play solitaire practising our strategy for the two game lengths. Settings noble level , random sea level, random climate, huge random map,and always with the AI making up the numbers to 12. Obviously some races have starting advantages either by troops or leaders, and then again a favourable starting area .... normally defined as not jungle, not the Artic! Oh and to make things less predictable the AI players have random personalities. : )
  5. A huge influence on the wargaming fraternity starting from the 1960's onwards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Featherstone_%28wargamer%29 If you want a ghoulish story and a insight in to being lucky to survive listen to this 4 minute oral history http://www.tankmuseum.org/asset_arena/audio/me/the_tank_museum_podcast_7_-_the_tank_regiment_made_me.mp3
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_boot
  7. We all have hopes otherwise we might aswell be dead or join the Darkside. I think having reflected on what you say that you are right and probably the worst result possible has been achieved for the American people. But then lets face it the people are regularly screwed over there - other than financial frauds of course. In disgust they drink sodas which seems to me a very slow and expensive way to die.
  8. Pilot Officer Edwards,1 was attacked by an enemy seaplane over the North Sea. His guns failed; the machine caught fire and crashed on the sea. The enemy pilot, keen to have confirmation of his victory, landed and picked Edwards up and he became the first British officer to be made prisoner of war.
  9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order:_UK Gives the reasons.
  10. India - worlds largest democracy - basket case economy. China - stable if undemocratic government - worlds third largest economy US - worlds 2nd largest economy - democracy - worlds largest debtor War is not going to help the US in any way other than increase debt but get some quid pro quo arms sales from interested parties. So economically speaking the public pays and shareholders come out ahead.
  11. Quality discussion! Talk of democracy and my entire argument cut down at its knees reduced by two jabs on China. In case anyone is interested: http://urbanpeek.com/2013/04/13/top-10-cities-with-the-worlds-worst-air/ or more fully http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/en/ Unfortunately I cannot see a corollary between democracy and other forms of government. As to corruption in public services the US has is 19th with 18 more honest countries - curiously eleven of them are constitutional monarchies.
  12. Well the good news is that democracy has worked in the UK - this time. Shame that Blair got away with it last time. I always think we actually have a problem with democracy, and an implicit assumption that is is the best form of government. Even the phrase the "least worst form" is a convenient cop-out to explain the huge running sores in many system of "democracy". Unfortunately the two nations that shout the loudest about democracy are also two of the biggest examples of what is wrong with most democracies. In the UK a party with a majority of the votes has not existed for decades. So when Cameron claims to speak for Britain he is a man that 11 million wanted and 18million did not. What kind of legitimacy is that? As for the US the level of corruption and special interests being served is also not that clever. Now in China there is every chance a party big-wig will be executed for corruption and I suspect the vast majority of non-politicians the world over will think is a very good idea. The Chineses system also bring stabilit with a large amount of consensus and long enough terms - 10 years that pandering to short term populist goals can be avoided. ANYWAY - a group only has to start a revolt claiming to be a new democratic force and the Wests leaders leap in to encourage [misleadingly] the revolution. Of course I should add this only applies if you are not a pro-Western dictator. I think most civilians prefer health and stability to fictitious possible improvements under "democracy". My brother was in Syria on holiday around three years ago and everyone seemed happy and I have also seen a very nice series on the school system. As in most revolutions a tiny minority start the action and with sympathisers and well engineered incidents a widr conflagration can be started. Perhaps the West would have more authority if the democracy that we preach as so wonderful actually was nearer the good end of the spectrum and less the cosy sewing up of the voting system. The revitalising of democracy is required : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland http://swiss-government-politics.all-about-switzerland.info/ http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-02-26-james-en.html For power-hungry politicians this simply will not be very attractive as power is so diffused : ) A lot to recommend it then ....... and what did we offer Iraq? A bodge.
  13. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2345454/Vietnam-War-photos-reveal-moment-U-S-troops-unleashed-hell-Viet-Cong-sniper-hills-Army-camp.html# Very pretty pics.
  14. Making a game system easy to use - anticipating what players would like outside of the graphics and AI - I think is very important for the overall package. In some ways I am peeved that that it has taken outsiders to provide these added functionalities such as repositories for mods and scenarios, Hare's Spreadsheets, and player aids such as PBEMHelper and H2HHelper. Granted that Battlefront is a small company with limited resources but thinking into the future may have meant that they addressed the H2H side of playing when CMx2 first come out by perhaps outlining what was needed and offering a free copy of CMSF or whatever. It was only when CMx2 reached the WW2 stage that PBEM players such as those at the Band Of Brothers WW2 club realised that the much beloved and used PBEMHelper was not going to work and something else was needed. Hence GAJ's work was born . And of course he had already set up a Repository for CMX2 stuff. Its good when games are supported by hobbyists and some really do outstanding stuff. I am sure their are a lot of beta-testers for BF who really do not get the kudos they deserve - but then they are on the inside with a veil of secrecy drawn over what can be a very tedious process. I was considering doing an online revision of the manual and explaining what really happens at the open site mentioned in my sig but given I have not the time I decided to give it a miss. kohlenklau I am glad that you are upfront with what you have done - I being Britsh - cannot possibly be so open : )
  15. As you probably know it is almost routine that the testing of drugs is subject to a lot of shading in what gets published and how trials are managed. It has been a running sore pretty much since testing commenced. Anyway an improvement would be if all trials were published to show the "failures" aswell as the successes. http://www.alltrials.net/2013/pharmaceutical-industry-bodies-plan-to-mobilise-patient-groups/ As you can see from the above the trade bodies for the pharma industry are keen to maintain the status quo by "mobilising patient groups". If you have been following the history of the pharma industry you will know that setting up fake journals and organisations is not unknown so be prepared for startlingly new patient "bodies" to spring up. By the way Tamiflu ,which has been widely bought for epidemics with even the UK having half a billion quids worth, is an interesting example of publication bias: " .....there were substantial problems with the design, conduct and availability of information from many of the trials. Due to these concerns we decided not to proceed with a meta-analysis of all the oseltamivir data as we had intended. Instead we carried out analyses of effects on symptoms (shortens them by 21 hours or so) and hospitalisations (no evidence of effect) of people with influenza-like illness (’flu’)on data from all the people enrolled in treatment trials of oseltamivir. Other outcomes could not be assessed due to unavailability of data for all the people enrolled in treatment trials of oseltamivir. Our independent analysis concurs with the conservative conclusions regarding the effects of both drugs by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA only allowed claims of effectiveness of both drugs for the prevention and treatment of symptoms of influenza and not on other effects (such as interruption of person-to-person spread of the influenza virus or prevention of pneumonia). There is evidence to suggest that both drugs are associated with harms (oseltamivir: nausea, vomiting; zanamivir: probably asthma). The FDA described the overall performance of both drugs as “modest”. We expect full clinical study reports containing study protocol, reporting analysis plan, statistical analysis plan and individual patient data to clarify outstanding issues. These full clinical study reports are at present unavailable to us. B A C K G R O U N D In the midst of the A/H1N1 outbreak in June 2009, the Australianand UK governments commissioned an update of our long-standing Cochrane review on neuraminidase inhibitors (NIs) for influenza in (otherwise) healthy adults. The review had first been published in 1999 and had a major update in 2006 and a minor update in 2008. At the same time a similar review on children had also been published (Shun-Shin 2009). We initially anticipated that the update of the review would likely reflect only updated pharmacovigilance data and not the incorporation of new trial evidence. This was because NIs (especially oseltamivir, better known as Tamiflu) had become an established public health drug (see Glossary in Appendix 1). In the end, the 2009 update was inconclusive (Jefferson 2010a) as we were unable to verify the data underlying manufacturer and government claims about the effectiveness of oseltamivir . The claims were based on clinical trial evidence included in a published non-systematic meta-analysis of 10 manufacturer-funded clinical trials of oseltamivir for the treatment of influenza in people of all ages (Kaiser 2003). Eight of the 10 trials in the Kaiser et al meta-analysis have never been published (Jefferson 2009a) and their complete data sets are not available from either the authors or the manufacturers. This review reports our efforts to get to the bottom of the issue of the effects of NIs by appraising evidence from unpublished clinical study reports (see Glossary Appendix 1) and regulatory documents containing comments and reviews. We have called the body of clinical studies and regulatory comments ’regulatory information’." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008965.pub3/pdf/standard I hope you find this interesting. Their is a very well written book called "Bad Medicine" by Ben Goldacre which covers amongst other things the lies and how the media colludes. He has also spoken on TED. http://www.badscience.net/2012/09/i-did-a-talk-at-ted-about-drug-companies-and-hidden-data/
  16. WHEN their hair was chopped off—as it had to be when they joined one of the Soviet Union’s three women-only air-force regiments—some of the women looked just like boys. Add in the bulky flight jackets, the too-big trousers and the size 42 boots, all made for men, and they could have passed for male pilots, just about. Not Nadia Popova. Somehow she managed, with a cinched waist here and a few darts there, to look like a Hollywood star. Between sorties she would fluff her hair, pressed flat by her leather flying helmet, in her tortoiseshell mirror (as at the centre of the picture above). Before each flight she would pin to her uniform a beetle brooch, which also served as a lucky charm. Beside her wooden cot in whatever shed they were sleeping in—once a cowshed—she kept a white silk blouse and a long blue silk scarf, in case she had to make a really feminine impression. This was also the young woman—she was 19 or 20 then—who could turn her aircraft over and dive full-throttle through raking German searchlights, swerving and dancing, acting as a decoy for a second plane that would glide in silently behind her to drop its payload of bombs. That done, the second plane would act as decoy while she glided in to drop bombs herself. She made 852 such sorties in the second world war as a pilot in the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, later named the 46th Guards in honour of its courage. Once, over Poland in 1944, she made 18 sorties in a single night. The aircraft were old two-seater biplanes, PO-2s, originally training planes, made of canvas and plywood with open cockpits. When it rained, water ran over the instruments; when the planes were shot at, shrapnel tore the wings to shreds. There was no radio and, to save weight, she never wore a parachute. If you were hit, that was it. She was a wild spirit, easily bored; she loved to tango, foxtrot, sing along to jazz. It made her feel free, which was also why at 15 she had joined a flying club without telling her parents. A pilot had landed his aircraft one day outside their town, Donetsk in Ukraine, astonishing as a god fallen to earth, in his leather jacket. From that moment she too wanted to soar like a bird. Walking towards a plane, every time, she would get a knot in her stomach; every time she took off, she was thrilled all over again. Often she flew in pitch dark and freezing air. In an aircraft so frail, the wind could toss her over. Its swishing glide sounded, to the sleepless Germans, like a witch’s broomstick passing: so to them she was one of the Nachthexen, or Night Witches. To the Russian marines trapped on the beach at Malaya Zemlya, to whom she dropped food and medicine late in 1942, she sounded more like an angel. She had to fly so low that she heard their cheers. Later, she found 42 bullet holes in her plane. Loving life as she did—running barefoot in the grass, exulting in the cherry trees that flowered outside her bedroom window—it was odd that she had suddenly wanted “the freedom to die”. It took no time, though. The moment the German invasion was announced, in June 1941, she abandoned the dance-dress she was ironing and ran to the airfield. She was one of the first to enlist in her regiment, demanding to be a fighter pilot. Soon enough, too, she had personal reasons to hate Germans. They killed her brother Leonid in the first month of the war. In August 1942, having crash-landed her plane in the North Caucasus, she saw Stukas bombing the desperate columns of refugees on the road. Her family home was commandeered by the Gestapo, the windows smashed and the cherry trees cut down. The worst, though, was to lose friends. Eight died in a single sortie once when she was lead pilot, as hulking Messerschmitts attacked them in the dazzle of the searchlights. To right and left each tiny PO-2 went down like a falling torch. She never cried as much as when she returned to base and saw the girls’ bunks, still strewn with letters they had never finished writing. She was tough (“No time for fear”) and surprised at her increasing toughness as the war went on. But she was a woman, too. The military men never let them forget it, mocking “the skirt regiment” even when its members had become heroines in the press. The women expected it, and did just fine without them. It was fun, though, to organise dances with the men; many of them fell in love; and so did Nadia Popova, with a blue-eyed heavily bandaged pilot she spotted under a tree, another god fallen to earth. He warned her not to make him laugh, as she clearly wanted to, because his wounds hurt. She read him poetry instead, and when she found her Semyon again for good it was at the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945, where they wrote their names in victorious pencil on the walls. Instead of her beetle brooch she eventually wore on her smart dark suit the medal of a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Friendship, the Order of Lenin and three Orders of the Patriotic War. With enormous pride she sported them, a beaming blonde among the men. She admitted she stood gazing at the night sky sometimes, wondering how she had ever managed to perform such feats up there. Well, came her down-to-earth answer, because you had to; and so you did. Economist Obituary
  17. I could barely believe the disfunctionality related here: http://www.propublica.org/article/using-outdated-data-fema-is-wrongly-placing-homeowners-in-flood-zones I am sure someone once wrote here on the US leading the world in management skills and we eventually agreed this golden age was gone - and how!
  18. Deer Trail, Colorado (population 600 or so) is to vote on a local ordinance that would allow drone hunting licenses and bounties for shooting down UAVs, according to ABC affiliate KMGH-TV. Those with a valid drone hunting license will be rewarded US$100 if they present "identifiable parts" of UAVs "known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government," the draft ordinance states. "We do not want drones in town," local Phillip Steel, who came up with the draft, tells KMGH-TV. "They fly in town, they get shot down." If passed, the ordinance would see one-year drone hunting licenses sell for $25, and there's talk of a novelty drone-hunting festival to boost tourism. To Steel it's a serious issue, however. "This is a very symbolic ordinance. Basically, I do not believe in the idea of a surveillance society, and I believe we are heading that way." The town board is set to vote on the ordinance on Aug. 6. See KMGH-TV's report for the full story. Source: KMGH-TV
  19. I was quite bemused in V1.0 and still probably in V2 to see a panicked men running around carrying the HMG. I just felt he might drop it.
  20. BTW how many turns too long was the battle length do you think?
  21. Bill - you use of the word right seems to suggest that lack of postings here was in some way important. I was quite happy to post, as others did, on GAJ's thread though I could have just as easily posted here. Perhaps I should have so that an errant conclusion was not drawn.
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