dieseltaylor

This was posted in an AAR at WeBoB which just shows how Fate, as in real war, can be the one having the most fun. But despite that it is stioll fun to play : ) You have to laugh! All that suspense about cunning enemy moves and he is waltzing around with gun damaged kitties. I have a current game myself with two minutes to go and I was thinking myself doomed to a loss when my opponent plays boldly and I end up with two Shermans to my score - from depression to elation in 60 seconds. I might just sneak a draw. : )

: ) You are quite right BD6 the holes in the case are remarkable but I assume some other presentation dealt with the "Allies". I imagine it went like this. Post Iraq and the removal of Tony Blair the US is johnny-no-mates and the war will be single handed. Taiwan will be neutralised by widespread unrest as half the nation wishes to join China rather than suffer a war. The US will of course back the wrong faction - its traditional. As for Japan, Phillipines and Australia - would they seriously go to war for a Chinese province.?

Two flat tires - the womans an eejit : )

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_11082434?nclick_check=1 Certainly made me feel better. Hell whilst we are on motoring here is more on water powered combustion http://www.wptv.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=0b228f97-a0da-42f2-9c03-b0dd76f2cebc takes away some of the feel good factor from the first story

Sgt Joch. Interesting Rand report. I am bemused that the idea of fighting over Taiwan is even considered. An unwinnable proposition given the proximity of China and assuming a non-nuclear war. However I can understand in realpolitik the need to pretend something. Given the suggested tactics of the PLAAF it would seem numerous drones would be ideal for both attracting AAMs and for confusing the enemy. It would also suggest that effort be made on anti-AAM defences for airborne units. I believe this is being addressed for civilian aircraft currently anyway. The consideration must be what are the chances of a hot war with Russia or China in the next decade - very slight I would think. If so where would the US be fighting? Europe - not a problem then for airbases. China - Taiwan! As for the efficiency of BVR systems I was rather hoping in the 17 years since 1991 that they had improved somewhat. BTW I think BVR and visual should be put into context - at a closing speed of 30miles per second we are perhaps being very precious at the differentiation. If we get rid of the MkI eyeball it becomes meaningless : ) Now with on-board anti-AAM measures given the extra room perhaps survivability would increase also. How much of a current fighter goes to the crew - ejector seat, air, comms, cockpit itself. Any one any idea weight and size wise?

http://windowssecrets.com/2008/11/20/03-Dont-be-a-victim-of-Sinowal-the-super-Trojan Just so you know! I simply will not do my banking by computer as security, as you can see from the above, is never safe as banks would have you believe.

You can delete the whole folder - it is a DOS based game so has no interconnects with the operating system AFAIK. Its never failed me when I have deleted and re-installed. However I agree with Costard that it would be a mistake to delete. I am not sure what scenarios you have been playing but it is truly a great game. However there are certainly bum scenarios and early war with Russian delay the game is rather ponderous if you are not a committed player. My advice would be to set up a 1945 Russian attack and go reasonably tank heavy and just enjoy the bangs and wallops as you lose to the Germans. This is OK as you will have fun learning all the weapons effectiveness in a fun way. Do that a few times and you will appreciate how to use them even if you do not have any WW2 knowledge. For added fun for viewing eye level 1 and Tab will get you on board your tank as it rides to glory or destruction. Played for laughs you will learn quickly. It is fatal to spend 15 minutes on a turn and then lose in a minute. Spend two minutes on orders and you will learn and have enjoyment 7 times as fast. I have played probably 200 plus games against humans and believe me it is a fun game if you don't get anal about winning. If after everything you decide to chop the game in please look around for someone who might give it a crack.

I captured pretty much two whole German squads when I was attacking from the front and shooting them in the rear. Admittedly they were heavily outnumbered so I am not quite sure how the computer calculated the effect - just fire or number of visible enemy units. Certainly as squads only face one way they become totally ineffective as they swivel one way then another - the amount of FP may or may not be siginificant. Similarly number of enemy units visible. I do have the case of the crew of a MkIV abandoning when fired with an HMG at the rear when it was aware of enemy tanks to the front. Another is the crew of a 25pdr surrendering with enemy to the front and a sniper shooting them in the back. It is curious that in most games because of hard map edges and limited fronts this area of unit reaction is not often seen.

I think it is very important that the "future fighter" UAV is not thought of as simply an upgraded drone of the current school. It well could be in the very immediate future be that. However surely in the slightly longer term one could design - or redesign a jet that would be very much smaller lighter faster nimbler than current manned planes. Expert systems must be able to manage relatively simple objects like launch [could be vertical], recognition and fire routines, and landing. All of these capabilities exist in other areas to some degree. Ramjets anyone? ILS CAT III? Apart from the MkI eyeball can all other inputs to the pilot be generated and be be ported to the pilotless plane computer? Can an expert system be logged by recording all dogfights by successful pilots? Admittedly a sighter given inherently better performance from a future UAV but even then computer combat may provide the edge for the expert system. There will be costs involved sure but if the Israeli's and the Navy have perfectly adequate current aircraft to cover the next decade ..... I blame Star Wars and Battlestar Galavtica for what I regard as a moronic future with pilots flying planes in battle routinely - totally bizarre.

Search the archives? ooh the CDV version - nasty.

But is not the modern manned fighter highly reliant on those same communication channels? Granted thee are avionics on board but the UAV would still have these so provided its expert programming is sufficient to get it to be reasonably effective AND able to land I do not see a huge difference in levels of degraded performance. Losing the room devoted to crew and the need to accomodate human fraility at G's plus intepretatives displays means the that the fighter should be streets ahead in flying ability. A decade should be sufficient to get a package together. At its very simplest it would be a launch and return missile platform. I do not believe that humans will be needed to interface with the fighter once it is launched - though I am sure that many would argue it is highly necessary - for preserving jobs possibly, or giving the semblance of control. There will be a need for the the primitive fighter for escorting hi-jacked passenger liners and other things were dogfighting ability is irrelevant.

BD6 - you ought to apply to the "Economist" for a job : )

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/24/opinion/main4630039.shtml

Wiki Raised libido - I like that : ) The 'taches are not a necessary byproduct than goodness : )

Just useful to know so start saving: http://www.maserati.us/maserati/us/en/index/passion/Downloads.html all the files though are identical in content.

Having the latest and brightest toy is great particularly if you are the industry that makes them and you make great profits. Hell you might even talk up the product and the necessity of it given the two enemy countries are getting more powerful economically. If you live in the world of finite budgets, and you think a planted dirty bomb is the greater danger, where would you put your resource? In terms of conventional war it has always been my belief that nuclear weapons would be deployed at some stage - and certainly if one side had lost the air war - or was convinced it would lose. How far away do you think unmanned air superiority fighters are? I think for the US to go for manned now is daft as they will be obsolete within a decade. More sense to go hell for leather for the unmanned now.

All good stuff - very interesting to read about CMSF - and how it has improved from the initial release. Thanks guys.

I had not realised what a long game it was for a small map and forces! Personally I would have thought 28minutes max and as an Meeting engagement a variable ending is acceptable.

Good stuff SJ Seems an unanswerable case. It does however ignore pork barrel politics. In any event unmanned fighters must surely be in the air within the next decade and if given a limited brief such as kill enemy flying objects the AI + human interface would be very simple. Grafting CAS etc would be going too far in a decade but would be a further decade or so. However for air superiority unmanned must be the way to go.

CMBB also does not have an order that allows tanks to spray likely infantry hiding places with MG fire - can we fix that also? BtW you are very definite in your views on how close infantry can be to tanks and undetected - do you have a source for your view? I am not saying it is wrong simply that what applied in 1940 is different to 1945 is different to now. I can attest to killing 4 Churchills inside a minute with one shrek in a game against a human so it is obviously not impossible to play the game even currently. But that was CMAK.

I almost smell a presumption that "creative and industrious" as in the Anglo idea is considered the only correct possibility. : )

No cars are pure now. All buy in bits from other companies. They also share development and Peugeot and BMW have a co-developed engine and factory to build them. Honeywell pretty much make all the camshaft sensors. Turbo chargers are primarily from Garrett [Honeywell] or Borg-Warner sourced from two companies Mercedes announced in September they are taking back turbocharger production from IHI. The 200000 units produced will make them the 3rd largest producer in Europe. Garrett turbochargers are in 35 different makes including BMW and Mercedes. The future big boys will be Toyota, VW-Audi - no doubt shortly to be called Porsche, and Renault-Nissan. And Ford , and possibly GM will make five.

Nice article. I agree. : ) I am available for GM BTW. The myth that there are only so many good CEO's is cack. The problem is that people tend to only look at a small pool of talent for CEO's and that pool is made up of CEO's in other companies who have not dropped a clanger. It is interesting when looking for CEO's for even small listed companies as what the "City" thinks of him is a consideration. Whether he has the right credibility to impress the shareholders AND the "City". And finally does he know the industry , does he have the right contacts if we need to carry the company forward. So the pool is reduced not so much as by availabilty but trying to please external people that they have the right guy. Ford got my approval for bringing in Mulally - a bold move and a successful one.

Thanks for the link UDC

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/11/20/ap5722359.html Yep rewarding failure seems to be it. Strangely when you consider that Ford and GM have large European operations, and for that matter interests in Far East companies, the decision to use the existing fuel efficient designs has only occurred in the last year. The normal line from the D3 is that the US consumer would not buy anything other than big gas guzzlers etc. I think it was really an exercise in keeping the status quo at HQ. It was Mulally arriving at Ford who looked at the Ford portfolio of cars and got on the case of using Fords world resources/designs rather than believing that only US designs would work. GM belatedly turned to Opel/Vauxhall to see what they had in the armoury. In GM's case 61% of its sales are overseas derived. However in both cases the decline of the dollar and the European costings made it a tricky situation. The thing that amazes me is that with peak oil perhaps a decade away the D3 had not already thought through the option to have factories able to buld in the US fuel economic cars. The current flurry of activity on hybrids etc sounds great but the lead time to economically affordable technologies is normally a decade when dealing with autos. The major blessing is I suppose that the electronics industry is involved an they work somewhat faster. Honestly none of this is important compared to the D3's ability to make meagre profits other than in boom times. I think this is because of the hammering the share price by Wall St. every quarter if the company failed to pay sufficient dividend. Another words US "group think" fails to pay sufficient attention to funding the business for the future and more to current image on Wall St. Bonuses anyone? The culture where bonuses come due in a year is a major problem as short-termism is rewarded heavily and anyone taking a long view is a maverick, or more dangerously, a threat to your current bonus and should be got rid of or sidelined. And just to show what pisses potential US car buyers off and raises doubts as to business values.