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You know, this has been bothering me for a while, and really started bothering me when I was flying one in Ace Combat a lot (shut up  )What is in the enormous  Seriously. Look at the size of that thing.
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Jan 24, 2012 01:14
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Propagandalf posted:Ejection pod. The crew crawls back, and it poops out the back of the plane. Well by that logic it could be the storage tank for the poop; Fullbacks have a toilet onboard.
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Jan 24, 2012 02:02
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Found a couple pictures from some terrible forum I'd rather never speak of again. Amusingly, they linked to Livejournal. I should've gone there first, it's the Russian source for everything. Have some sweet Sukhoi photos: http://dmitrydreamer.livejournal.com/24772.html There's something EM-transparent on the tip of the stinger and what look like vents (supposedly for the APU exhaust?) and chaff/flare dispensers on the bottom. The -34's chute pops from further up the fuselage, so what's in the stinger is clearly something else. also some extreme internet grognards claim that it's even worse: There's the standard Su-34 stinger and then a modified, different version! Too many airplane dicks. (The theory is the modified one is for a jammer/ELINT/SEAD platform, a la EF-111 that can shoot back) So apparently it does everything, indeed.
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Jan 24, 2012 20:26
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The -34 is probably the only ugly jet Sukhoi has produced since the Su-25 (which is ugly by design) and I can't think of one that is ugly (or at least, uglier than its contemporaries) beyond that, so I can cut them some slack on it.Mr. Despair posted:So sad that they pulled the canards from the production version of the -35 though. According to my extremely detailed research on "the internet" which may have consisted of five, maybe six whole clicks, canards are apparently complete poo poo for low RCS, and thus are getting ditched by everyone. Except the Chinese J-20, because I guess they just don't care. Psion fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jan 25, 2012 |
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Jan 25, 2012 02:51
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Forums Terrorist posted:Not strictly true; the Eurofighter's FLCS automatically adjusts trim so the canards can be kept in a position that minimises their signature. I'm not a Radar Master, but wouldn't this fail miserably if you had two+ sources trying to paint the Eurofighter? Plus the geometry of canards just doesn't lend itself to super-low RCS. Like anything that's a tradeoff, though - if they provide enough benefit in other areas, then they aren't inherently bad for having a downside. Everything has a downside. bring back variable geometry  e:  okay I've been making bad jokes about it looking like a dick but come on from this angle you've got the balls and everything.
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Jan 25, 2012 05:14
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Insert name here posted:I knew I liked that picture for a reason. This puts all those hours grinding in the Su-34 in AH in a new, somewhat unsettling context.
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Jan 25, 2012 05:44
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RSR is Harpoon fanfiction, let's not pretend that a published fan-written AAR normally found on stardestroyer.net is a realistic interpretation of late-80s military conflict.
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Jan 26, 2012 01:04
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LP97S posted:Does it count as a fanfic when the guy who co-wrote it created Harpoon? A fair point, but I stand by my post. It seriously has a shitload of handwaves so they could play Harpoon and write the outcome. I played a lot of Harpoon 1 back in the day and it's got all the hallmarks, including the ridiculous number of contrivances to keep the action in the North Atlantic and not in the Pacific - which Harpoon didn't model, iirc. This isn't to say RSR is therefore unreadable poo poo, but at all a realistic interpretation of a shooting war in the Atlantic? Nnnnnnnope. Speaking of which, direct all hate about that container ship/LCAC poo poo to Larry Bond, because he LOVES that gimmick. Loves it. He went and upped the ante doing some plot writing for World In Conflict where the USSR hits Seattle with a whole fleet of container ships (curiously, nothing intercepts them or anything until they've landed and unloaded armor, hmm). Of course, the main difference is, WiC is actually really good.
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Jan 26, 2012 01:58
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iyaayas01 posted:And like 95% of that was about defending Red Storm Rising...loving kill me. Just get in the nearest Raptor, let OBOGS do it for you  Seriously though - the idea that a surprise hit on Iceland would work famously? Not unrealistic, per se, even if the delivery method is comical. The entire rest of the book, though, including all the events leading up to and after? UH. It's just so contrived! So obviously contrived. I can't sit here and try to defend a tiny fraction that's plausible when everything that was written to generate that tiny bit of plausibility is so blatantly "handwaving to set up my Harpoon scenario bro." and I like Harpoon! However, the Foch's Crusaders showing up the entirety of the Nimitz's strike group is rad. Crusaders are rad. Fact.   Psion fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jan 26, 2012 |
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Jan 26, 2012 03:53
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priznat posted:Hell yes, Crusaders and A-7 Corsair IIs are awesome. I went to the Air and Space Museum annex out at Dulles over the summer - the Udvar-Hazy center - and aside from having an enormous boner the entire time, took a couple pictures of their RF-8G. I was annoyed because most of them did not come out well, the F-8 was in an awkward to photograph place. HELLO, ONLY THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT PLANE YOU HAVE THERE, JERKS http://www.flickr.com/photos/notpsion/sets/72157627546485223/ for 'em all, alphabetical by manufacturer/model, because I hate myself ps, this place friggin owwwwwwwns. Everyone should go.
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Jan 26, 2012 05:46
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The only real rocket at Udvar-Hazy is a Redstone, and that was drat difficult to get a picture of. It's like 70 feet tall and the roof is about 72 feet tall in that hangar  I would've needed a much wider-angle lens than I went in with to even have a chance, but I went with my one-lens for travel policy, so.also the SR-71 looks impressive in photos but is about ten times as much in real life. It's incredible. The thing is goddamn enormous, looks sharp as all hell, and definitely deserves its position as the center of pretty much the entire museum. When that thing outshadows the Enola Gay you know it's something.
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Jan 26, 2012 06:10
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Flikken posted:If there was a plane that could do it, it would be the blackbird This is the best possible response. I sorta facepalmed at that post and you carried the day. e: For all Lockheed is botching the F-35, let's remember this plane:  Lockheed 1049F (C-121C) Super Constellation - 02 by notpsion, on Flickr I don't care if the fuselage pieces all had to be basically individually made because the curve of the body meant you couldn't mass produce 10 identical fuselage tube sections, rivet them all together and call it a day, this is a gorgeous airframe. Psion fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jan 27, 2012 |
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Jan 26, 2012 23:07
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While we're talking Cold War, I suppose I could mention the source of a lot of the plutonium in all the various things that went bang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Reactor  Hanford B Reactor, Exterior by notpsion, on Flickr Hanford B Reactor is open to the public for guided tours from DOE and it is their hope to have it attain full museum status - that is, drive out in the middle of loving nowhere, WA (this was a design requirement from the Manhattan Project - gently caress nowheresville, USA, oh ps need a lot of water nearby) and go see it whenever. Right now, trying to get on any part of Hanford sans official approval would be ... unwise. I've been twice and I apologize in advance for the photography - it's a bitch and a half to shoot in there. Both times I've been all at the tours not giving me enough time to set up and shoot for poo poo and there is so much in that building worth shooting photos of. I'm not going again until it's museum status so I can bring a tripod and take my time setting up something for the front reactor face; 2004 process tubes (1500 or so filled with the u-238 rods they bombarded into Pu-239) is staggering, especially the cooling system required to keep that stable - like 30,000+ gallons of water a minute shot through, front to back, in less than a second, and going from like 60F to about 200F that fast. And then dumped into a holding tank (ok so far) and then right back into the Columbia river.   Front Face 01 by notpsion, on Flickr So yeah, here's where Trinity and Fat Man's Pu-239 was created. Also, friggin' amazing engineering: They basically designed and built this sorta-kinda on the fly after the tiny test under the Chicago squash courts, in 14 months, and it worked for decades. The first time I went our tour guide was a guy who'd actually worked shifts at several of Hanford's reactors, including B. There's a lot of amateur-hour video that could use some editing up to really make the experience hammer home but when the guy talking to you in the control room where criticality was first achieved was saying "yeah, so I sat in this chair for like five years" it's  And of course, the most critical part of Hanford:  Pie Making Machine by notpsion, on Flickr I was deeply disappointed this was not saved and placed in the B Reactor facility. They do have a remote-control robot, though. Also - apparently there's an annual inspection from a bunch of Russians who take photos of the water intake pipes (which are all staked open, have been since 1968) to ensure nobody's secretly started up B Reactor - or secretly built the shitpot of support buildings which it would need to function, but ssh. Our tour guide indicated the US does this to several Russian decommissioned plants, too. Personally, I would love to see a bunch of stone-faced obviously KGB guys with Nikons or whatever snapping away at B Reactor. LOVE IT. Alas, those 'tours' don't get advertised. Psion fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jan 27, 2012 |
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Jan 27, 2012 03:05
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Totally TWISTED posted:This post owns. I live in Tennessee and I've never been to Oak Ridge. I should turn in my TFR credentials It is seriously incredible how they went from what was practically a scale model to this thing, one try, and it worked. (I know about X-10, but look at the dates - it's not like they finished X-10 before starting B) Also for anyone concerned about the Chicago pile, CP-1 had no cooling system and a single control rod. Oh and no radiation shielding. At all. Fermi was all "I was totally confident in my calculations, really, it was fine." Find a map of the University of Chicago and go for a while. Fermi, holy poo poo man.What's worse - his math was wrong for B Reactor (didn't know about neutron poisoning) so only the insistence they Build It Bigger, God drat It meant B worked at all. The addition of 500 extra tubes, ordered by the officer in charge of the project meant they could overcome the xenon poisoning to reach stable criticality. while we're at it, B Reactor scaled up like crazy. Originally specified to produce 250mW (it was never a power reactor, only a Pu-production one) they eventually jacked it up to a couple thousand, and just shot 70,000 gallons of water a minute through the cooling tubes instead. Overbuilt like hell, which - really - was probably a very good precedent for nuclear plants of any type! e: I'm not so fond of them using Hanford as a "let's dump all our lovely nuclear waste here" site, but it is somewhat comforting to know, having been there, that nobody is gonna go anywhere near that place without a reason. You have no idea how sad and desolate and boring surrounding area is until you go. also we almost got run over on the way back by so many apple trucks when we went during apple season. Hilarious, in a way. Psion fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 27, 2012 |
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Jan 27, 2012 03:35
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That's certainly true now, that everything is "Tom Clancy's ____" or just ghostwritten/"co"written or whatever -- but back in the mid/late 90s he wrote all the stuff, but then "self edited" before it went to publishing; so there was no chance for a rational person to sit him down and say "no, Tom, the southern hemisphere is not scorchingly hot in July." (Sydney average high temp in July is 61.2F!)
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Jan 27, 2012 18:18
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Basically, F-22 pilots are stuck in their planes the way R2s are stuck in X-wings. If the force is not available, pilots are stuck until the next crane can be found at a Rebel base.
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Jan 28, 2012 03:47
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I know it got posted earlier but the Lun-class ekranoplan - all one of them - is super friggin awesome. And it's just sorta sitting around: http://g.co/maps/up3w4 http://igor113.livejournal.com/51213.html These are from 2009 - I think they've cleaned it up a bit in the intervening years? I sure hope so.  also you all know Sokol One thinks it kicks rear end, therefore, it does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WopbvjBMa3A
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Jan 28, 2012 06:34
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Sperglord Actual posted:The M113's Wikipedia talk page is one big They absolutely are, because they write the exact same way he does. Both of them, of course, demand the other person attach their real name to their comments, when he's not doing it for either of his. And of course he gets extremely mad about "unverified" claims like "nobody ever calls it by this nickname, literally ever" and seems to not understand turning around and saying "THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN SERVICEMEN CALL IT BY MY MADE UP NICKNAME" is uhhh ... the same thing. Basically, your garden variety lunatic. Not even that special, sad to say.
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Jan 28, 2012 23:54
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and I'm pretty sure at least two of its contributors are puppet accounts of Sparks himself.
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Koesj posted:whether or not Sweden deserves its own flag. Yes I'm serious - looking at how many fighters Saab has produced since 1950 vs. an entire continent's worth of aerospace industry? It's impressive.
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Jan 29, 2012 21:51
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helno posted:Really if you are going to include the F108 and F-23 you could at least add a row for Canada with the Cf-100 and Arrow. Put a Bomarc silhouette in red, white and blue on the Canadian timeline. You know you want to.
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Jan 30, 2012 04:56
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Smiling Jack posted:Blue Thunder had the best helicopter fight. Having watched Blue Thunder and now that clip from Firebirds, I agree. Also Roy Scheider and fuckin' Malcom McDowell are about infinity times better than Nic Cage.
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Feb 1, 2012 03:56
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LP97S posted:From what my friend has told me, you realize that they just use the same 6 shots every episode. Also, best plane movie is The Starfighters because it's an unabashed ad for Lockheed and is boring as hell, like the real Air Force. “You know, it’s all kind of dull until you remember how sharp those wings are.”
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Feb 1, 2012 04:02
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Watch it: http://www.hulu.com/watch/112299/mystery-science-theater-3000-the-starfighters hulu is the biggest bitch about adblock, ever. I whitelisted your site, stop giving me that message, chumps. e: god, all the aerial refueling. so much aerial refueling iyaayas01, I dare you to defend this Psion fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Feb 1, 2012 |
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Feb 1, 2012 04:09
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daskrolator posted:For those that follow the saga of the F-35 you will find Stephen Trimble's recent blog post about Top Gun 2 to be especially delightful. The last line works for me. No Top Gun movie is a Top Gun movie without Kenny Loggins. In unrelated news I was looking up C-130s to make fun of Treyarch for Black Ops, but figured these are nice pictures. Go herky bird. I'd forgotten several were retrofitted into airborne tankers:   And this one is clearly USAF if they care about making it look good as opposed to making it function (ho ho ho):  (actually this airframe has a lot of hours over the Gulf of Mexico and salt corrosion is bad.)
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Mar 1, 2012 23:31
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Groda posted:Did someone say CH-53 and C-130? Well I can chalk "seeing a helicopter give itself a circumcision" off my bucket list. Good lord. mikerock posted:I think he means screaming with excitement Then they'd be high fiving each other with their dicks.
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Mar 2, 2012 00:46
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It also looks stupid. This is important I still hold a grudge over the YF-23.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:44
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Flanker posted:Looking cool is the other half of the battle. Hence your dream of domestic PAK-FA manufacturing. I like your thoughts.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:50
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Udvar-Hazy owns. I think I posted my gallery from this summer earlier. Well worth the trip. I might have to sacrifice something to the blood gods and hit the USAF museum out at Wright-Patterson but that would also require voluntarily going to Ohio. 
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Mar 28, 2012 06:56
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Go back and dust off the prototype sketches for the F6D Missileer, reactivate the AIM-54, and make it A2G capable. The best option.  (seriously, right tool for the right job. Sidewinder's job is not plinking jeeps.) e: for Flanker, reactivate BOMARC too, use it as surface-to-surface. 
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Apr 5, 2012 21:50
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Flanker posted:I hate you. You have to admit it'd be a better option than the F-35! e: then again so would resurrecting the Avro Arrow, and that'd be badass. .... you know, that's not such a bad plan...
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Apr 6, 2012 02:21
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Delivery McGee posted:There is only one ground-attack C-130. The Griffin apparently has a 13-pound warhead? Piffle. These guys are loading a 33-pounder field gun in back of a C-130: I actually read some stuff circa 2005? about a proposed change of the 105 in the back of the Spooky to a 120mm mortar. At first it made no sense to me, because I was thinking "mortars? What?" but then I actually read more about it and someone did some mapping of the recoil forces (the 105 is obscene) whereas the 120 would give PGM capability and more bang per shot for less recoil. No idea how practical it is, but it had some pretty neat pictures, therefore, is probably awesome. That's how it works, right? I might be missing something but as I understand it: -mortars have more explosive for a given shot than artillery shells of the same size -a field artillery gun designed to fire a shell seven miles is probably a little bit ridiculous in an AC-130, where the firing profile is basically "down." I also read far more than I ever wanted to about what amounts to musical chairs with various 20, 25, 30, and 40mm mounts. Pick one already (on the other hand, 105s out of an aircraft is also bad rear end. This is key.)
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Apr 6, 2012 18:16
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Captain Novolin posted:Wouldn't switching to a larger gun also increase weight? I'm talking mostly out of my rear end, but it seems to me like anything that could bump up the weight of the aircraft and make it carry less ammo and/or have a shorter loiter time could be bad. Normally yes but mortar vs artillery isn't a 1:1 for shell weight. I actually cannot find a weight in a quick google for the HE version of the 105 shell used in the AC-130 (I assume most fired are HE, no idea for sure) but the M934 mortar rounds are ~30lbs each. I can't see 105 artillery rounds being THAT much lighter.
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Apr 6, 2012 20:52
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mlmp08 posted:I could see using a 120mm mortar, if only because a 120mm can gently caress up light vehicles, light armor, and a 105mm isn't doing poo poo to a heavy armor type target like an MBT. As I understand it they don't even carry sabot or any other antitank round but if they did, a round right through the TC hatch would probably work.
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Apr 7, 2012 04:03
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Throatwarbler posted:What is more or less true? That they only ever fired down? Armies haven't replaced all their field guns with mortars, why would it be any different for a plane? I think what you're missing here is that the 105's range on the ground involves a significant ballistic arc. Spookys, so far as I know, fire in direct LOS. Basically straight shots from the plane down to the ground. In order for your range comparison to work, they'd have to bank the plane 45 degrees up to loft the shell out. They don't. That's what I mean: The AC-130 is a direct fire support aircraft, so it shoots "down" -- from plane to ground, clear line of sight. Hence the whole potential upgrades for stand-off capability (Viper Strike, et al) because right now the AC-130 doesn't have it.
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Apr 8, 2012 02:54
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Throatwarbler posted:That's no different for a mortar though. The gun is still going to have more range and be able to cover a wider area. "Range" isn't really relevant when you're starting four miles up. The only range you need is "gravity." For any "range" beyond direct LOS this is why there have been multiple proposed PGM stand-off munitions for the AC-130, including guided mortar shells. The 105 doesn't provide it.
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Apr 8, 2012 04:46
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You know, I had 10,000 feet written in that post, decided to reword it, and then I changed it to miles and somehow forgot miles are not in fact 2500 feet. Anyway, my failure at mathematics aside, the point is: that 105 in the AC-130 is covering no more "ground." IIRC it's close to a fixed mount, among other reasons. Want to hit something over there? You just move the plane
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Apr 8, 2012 05:40
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NosmoKing posted:I don't know poo poo about ac130's other than they are really neato and there's a cool free iPhone game where you get to waste the undead from an orbiting gun platform. what's the iphone game called? And yeah, I'm sure iyaayas could come in here and school us all but as I understand it they're 100% direct fire platforms and indirect/standoff PGM capability is high up on the want list. http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2006psa_apr/borden.pdf - re: AC-130 and Viper Strike, but it's from 2006 so there may have been some changes. There's one constant about .mil Powerpoints: they are awful. This violates close to every possible rule about Powerpoint design. I mean that. seriously, solve the powerpoint, solve the war? More like solve powerpoint design. Pimpmust posted:I'll crop and translate the rest later if there's any interest. There's some Draken in here, together with one of the most hilarious piloting suits I've seen. Yes. Psion fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Apr 8, 2012 |
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Apr 8, 2012 17:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:rock out with your 125 mm 2A46M out Cyrano, we need to talk. NosmoKing posted:You quickly figure out the 40mm is your bread and butter weapon. This is true in every video game that features the AC-130, near as I can tell. Definitely true in every COD and the newest Ace Combat.
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Apr 9, 2012 18:31
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Mr. Despair posted:Pretty sure every campaign in F-22 Lightning 3 ended with you nuking something. This is true. I played that game and I did an idiot's loop with one it, um, didn't end well e: also it had exactly one background music track which you heard all the time and it wasn't very good, so it quickly got Extremely Annoying http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5QtePUQ9aU e: in trying to find that video I found one where someone redubbed Linkin Park into his nuclear strike mission video. Psion fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 01:12
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Just play Harpoon again. Game still owns. I use missile boats toting Penguins to sink Russian ships all the time.
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Apr 13, 2012 22:09
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