JsARCLIGHT

I got mine today from Valk Exchange... It's a nice piece... a bit loose and chunky but nice. I do have two observations/questions that I'll ask the other owners: - did anyone else notice that the designation "GBP" is nowhere to be found on the package, toy, stickers or booklet? The Takatoku has GBP plastered all over the box, the toy and the stickers... I wonder what gives? - I also like how the armor seems to come apart at the seams like it does in the anime... does anyone know if the armor's attachment and breakup closely mirror the anime or does it just "look right" but not actually be right? For my money it is a nice addition to the Hikaru 1J... beefy but cute. Looks like a linebacker swallowed a hippo.

The Russian 7.62 x 39 cartridge has much better stopping power because of the hollow cavity in it's nose. This small hollow cavity makes the round expand like a flower when it hits it's target, causing the bullet to tumble and make a very wide wound channel. This makes the 7.62x39 a superior cartridge for antipersonel use but the same things that make it a good killing round ruin it's ability to penetrate hard surfaces like armor. The round tends to "splat" on armor rather than pierce it. Comparitively the NATO 5.56 is better suited to armor piercing but has no real expansion properties. The 5.56 tends to shatter and fragment on impact and create a sort of "shredding" effect.

OK, I went and grabbed my packaged Bandai and held it up to my Yamato in my display case right now and I'll be damned if they are not close in size. The Yamato is still bigger and certain parts of it have more "beef" to them than the Bandai but proportionally they are close in size. The Yamato bests it by about an inch plus on all sides but they are still very close in size.

Yep, that was my loose Bandai Swordfish set I sold to ya a while back. I still have one MOC in my collection. The Yamato kit/toy has about the same moving parts but it has more "heft" and paint detail to it. Overall it is about 8" x 8" square with the wings down and that smaller Bandai one is about 5" x 5" if memory serves... I'd have to dig out my carded one to remember for sure.

That is 100% true. The 5.56 superpenitrates like a 9mm bullet does. Sure it makes a nice hole and does a lot of tissue damage but the small size of the bullet carries no kinetic force behind it normally to add that "wham!" knockdown effect a larger, heavier caliber has. A widely spread rumor of why this is so is that back in 'Nam the government wanted a round that would kill but not kill outright... Uncle Sam wanted those Cong our boys shot to live long enough to give up intelligence and leads before they died. But for the most part, outside of wild rumor and grunt mentality, that is not true. The teeny tiny 5.56 round was intended to be a lethal device in it's rate of fire, not necessarily it's lone bullet capacity. You shoot a man with a single 5.56 and it is not a CNS hit he will be in a load of hurt but he will still be able to "function". You hit him with a good burst right in the chest and his internal organs are pretty much liquified under the shock from the several rounds hitting in such a small area.

I think the toy/model you want is the one I bought a while back. It is actually made by Yamato of all people and it is a large scale resin and plastic pre-painted model kit that takes a bit of assembly (simple really) and bam you have a nice big, detailed Swordfish II. I paid about a hundred bucks for it back then. I don't see them very often nowadays so the price might have skyrocketed.

I hear about things like that all the time, but for combat use they would not be practical yet until they get them to be as agile as a human unrestricted. That is also the big concern with Land Warrior... when you are humping 80 pounds of gear you move like a turtle. Now I know I have not had hundreds of hours of foot combat like a few other vets have had but the first thing I remember about all the training and the field ops I did was that first thing you do is ditch the weight. When you are expecting heat you dump every piece of gear you are carrying other than the things you will need right away: ammo, weapons, first aid and such. I was lucky though being assigned to a recon unit driving around in hummers and all your gear was packed into the truck and you really only needed to carry your weapon and your LBE with mags and such if you got out of the truck. I think it would be neat to have some sort of exoskeletal suit the troops could suit up in but then that would basically make the normal soldier a "vehicle", and he would require repairs, maintenance and all manner of other problems associated with mechanized infantry.

The Land Warrior system was begun a long time ago under a different name but it's current phase is somehting like this: Basically it is an individual combat infantry gear system that allows the unit (the man wearing the gear) to become interconnected with his fellows and better interpret his battlefield by various means that allow him to be a more effective soldier. At it's core, Land Warrior is a CPU system integrated into the LBE gear of the infantry soldier. The system then has a speical monicle piece that is basically a "heads up" monitor that allows the trooper to see maps, GPS data, unit movement data, locations of friendlys and marked hostiles and even allows him to communicate via "email" and vox with his fellows or commanding units in real time. The setup even uses a special camera and "mouse" (more like a touchpoint) mounted to his weapon that allow him to send visuals to his commanders or other units, see around corners without exposing himself to fire and switch between infa, infra and thermal vision modes. Basically it is like having the trooper "play an online shooter game" in that he can do a lot of stuff gamers have the ability to do like co-ordinate attacks with other units and interconnect his tactics and movements with the other units on the battlefield. To an extent it is kind of like the world of Aliens where the commander can see what his troops see in the field and advise and command them based on real-time info... but this system also allows the troops to see what their fellows see and share hard data to plan their own attacks autonomously. In a nutshell, Land Warrior is the 21st century warrior prototype. The future of Land Warrior evolution is this strange evil looking sucker on the far right: ... but the evil black trooper of tomorrow is still pure fantasy as it will supposedly have color shifting camo, mini rocket bullets that can shoot around corners and home in on targets as well as offer full body armor protection and a full open heads-up display like you see on video games. Fantasy now but perhaps possible as technology shrinks with time. The main drawback to the Land Warrior system, the current one, is that the sucker weighs 80 pounds! It literally is like carrying full field gear without carrying full field gear. As time marches on they will be able to shrink the tech, most notably the camera, CPU and that damn heavy battery, and make it more fieldable.

Being the diehard Bebop fan I am (and seeing how little merchandise there is out there for this outstanding show... just more proof that it is simple to sell geeks a robot but hard to sell figures) I will have to get these... ... the poses and sculpts are a bit off though, they appear to be more "fanservice" sculpted rather than "from the show" sculpted. After all, if they featured sculpts from the show then Faye would have to be either tied up, running away, or piloting her monopod and Juila would be... well... shot in the back and dead on the rooftop. Edit: oh and I hope that Faye is not glued to her chair, that way I can have her "sit" on the base of the stand for her monopod kit I have... either that or just sick everyone out and put her on a toy toilet... just like her first episode!

The main complaint about this platform is always going to be the caliber. 5.56mm has always had a stigma about it. Everyone thinks it is a weak caliber but up close, doing what it was intended to do it works just fine. Plus the new altered 5.56mm KE rounds add some more punch to the gun. If they could adapt the new different caliber rounds to work I think they should do that just to silence those that love to gripe on the 5.56mm round... but changing over from one caliber to another is hard to do very fast. In Vietnam the switch from .308 to 5.56 took a while to propperly take effect and there where a few ammo shortages in the early days. The other thing I have seen people complain about is the composite and "plastic" materials the weapon is made out of. The folks making those complaints tend to be the older hands that have this seeming inbread hate of the new "combat tupperware" weapons but at the same time they have no experience with them. Sort of like a predjudice of the gun world. Then again it is not what we say about them but how the military feels about them. Us exes and civvie slack-jaws could love the thing into heaven but if the brass thinks the thing is junk it will get slung faster than first gen M16.

The story I keep hearing is that the OICW "molted and changed forms" into the newer XM program... OICW created the "Tech" and the XM branch of the JSSAMP was born of it's loins. But on the flip side I keep hearing that the OICW is still being tested, most likely in reguard to the KE ammo. You never really know with the military, they keep things around just to test the stuff that "doesn't work" so they know how to make something that "does work".

As some others have said before: assuming tight control over a sales area can be misconstrued as akin to assuming responsability for it. As Blaine said, people can see things that are not there if there is a lot of implied control over the for sale section. I know a few sites that have tight controls over the for sale sections and even they still get hit with the occasional rip-off. I think the best thing that could be done is to just print the two words Caveat Emptor as big as possible on the heading for the sections. If anything this recent debacle with Mechadouche has taught us all that not only can and will people come on here and rip people off but they can and will apparently do it again and again. Let's all just remember the old saying of "Fool me once, shame on you... Fool me twice, shame on me". In other words personal responsability needs to be taken for your own deals but it should not extend to burning witches at every stake. The whole issue of people constantly "fragging" people's sale threads is basically because the seller says something that someone feels they don't agree with and they feel the need to "let them have it"... funny, that is just what they do everywhere else on the board. I say, let ye without sin cast the first rock and I shall smoketh it.

OK then, yes the "Wireless remote for lasers" in that diagram refers to the control switches for the laser aiming device being located in the forearm of the weapon but there not being any exposed wires running between the controls and the laser device... and also the controls are not mounted on or near the device, thus in the true webster's definition of the word they are "remote". As for land warrior, the whole program is just one part of the ever growing attempt by the military to modernize and adapt to the modern battlefield. Land Warrior, from what I have heard, was and still is in development but the trick is the darn thing is still too big, too heavy, too complex and not reliable enough yet. Land Warrior may just be the first rung on the ladder to the next program. Remember that very rarely when it comes to advanced military infantry gadgets do the first generation of something survive to the end. Remember the hassle the military went through with the AR-10 project that eventually became the M16 system... that program was fast-tracked and felt the pain of that fast-tracking. I'll bet dollars to dobermans that in the next few years Land Warrior will give way to something new like Land Master or Combat Master or Master Debator (the new Schwarzenegger movie). Edit: Me taalk baad, me yooz bad grammer... spel baad.

Always in motion is the future... whirling... spinning... changing... evolving. The OICW program started out very nice and has continued to evolve. Things to remember are that H&K was not an active part of the prime OICW program, they developed this XM-8 weapon as part of their part of the program, separate from the other "two guns in one" thing people normally associate with the OICW namesake. This is what most people think of when they hear the anacronym OICW: This dual weapon system was and still is being developed as part of the land warrior system by a company called ATD (Allied Tech Systems Intigrated Defence LLC). As far as I know this piece of hardware is still undergoing field tests and reliability tests as part of the land warrior combat system. The XM-8, not being part of the land warrior system, was thus not in this phase of the OISW program... but it is part of the greater Joint Service Small Arms Master Plan (JSSAMP). A Take down pin is a part of most military rifles that does what it sounds like it does. Takedown pins are little rods that hold together key parts of the weapon. A "Captivated" Takedown pin is one that has a spring assisted retainer pin that keeps the pin attached to the part of the weapon it connects to so it does not fall off and go missing when you are cleaning the weapon in the field. Almost all modern NATO MBRs (Main Battle Rifle) use some sort of takedown pin to hold their main components together. Weapons are not the solid bricks they appear to be and most of the time they are actually held together by sheer will. I'm not quite sure where you are reading that part but you are most likely thinking of the "wireless" touchpads to activate the laser aiming device. Back in the first days of laser aiming devices most of the time the "on/off switch" was a pad at the end of a pig-tailed wire taped or velcroed onto the forearm or pistol grip of the weapon. Soon after people did away with those "wired" systems by hiding the wiring inside the stock or body of the weapon. Most modern battle laser systems in the field today are wireless in that the on/off pressure pad is contained inside the weapon's furniture and the old school pigtail wires that could catch on things or snag are long gone. Edit to add the info on the OICW weapon.

OK, quick thought here... In the course of the movie you learn A ) why the people are "zombies", B ) What "powers" they have as zombies and C ) the "limitations" to their zombieness. Also in the course of the DVD, the alternate ending for instance, you see that the rest of the world is most likely unneffected other than Britain and that the world is re-establishing itself rather quickly (otherwise how would an RAF recon fighter be flying around?). My question is: how does the sequel work? They established in the movie that the people are not "zombies" per se, but are merely infected humans and they possess no supernatural abilities like zombies do. For instance, shoot a zombie in the head = destroyed but shoot him everywhere else and you just piss him off and impair his ability to move... but you do not destroy him. The infected people in 28 days later are proven, in the course of the movie, to be "human". They die if you shoot them enough, they die if you chop them up, they die if you do anything to them that would kill a normal person and they will also starve to death if they don't eat anything. So with the major infected areas quaranteened, as they appeared to be at the close of the first movie, you are given the impression that the epidemic is "contained" and that it will eventually go away unlike other zombie movies like the recent remake of Dawn of the Dead where anyone that dies adds to the problem. To me, the movie started and ended itself and it's "world" quickly with one short piece... the only resulting way they could make a sequel is to "resident evil" the thing (read = take the cheap and easy way out) and either have another breakout somewhere else just on a bigger scale with more guns and blood or re-write their own "lore" to continue the rampage... like having the infected people not starve to death after all and just keep going like evil energizer rabbits with a bloodlust. What do others think about this?

Well, when it comes to the modular nature of the XM-8 and the unified block action that it has doing a caliber change in the course of issue would not be that hard. The action of this gun is much like that of it's european cousin the G36 and the G36 supposedly can be rechambered for different calibers with the simple act of swapping barrel/breach assemblies, bolt and magazines. Any caliber in the 5.56 cartridge case size could feasibly be used. But has anyone seen the ballistics tests from the newer 5.56 KE Kinetic Energy round yet? It's taken the pea-shooter varmint round from a squirrel splaterer/man wounder into an armor piercing monster... and all just from changing the core materials and putting in a tad more powder. As Warmaker has pointed out the ballistic characteristics of the 5.56 round in shorter barrels make it a tad unstable at distance... but as he also pointed out that is the big reason for the snap-on 20" barrel. The tiny 9" pistol variation will be great for doorbreakers or special operations that require the power but not the range of the 5.56. One thing to keep in mind while weighing this new XM-8 against other exsisting/prototype weapons is it's intended use and the military doctrine it addresses. Technically this gun is still following the old doctrine of light weight/high capacity/short range assault weapon theory. Admittedly it has tweaked that doctrine a bit by adding such features as specialized optics and the interchangeability factor. Basically this thing can be considered to be a "Snap-On" M16, just without the inherent issues of the gas system and sans about two pounds. These guns are not really intended to replace the .308 M14A1 or the sniping platforms we have, it is just supposed to replace the M16/M4. As for comparable arms that you can directly look at this one and compare it to others the two that come to mind right away are this weapon's brother the G36 and the now famous/infamous(?) Steyr Army Universal Gun (AUG). While the AUG is now more than a decade old (and technically was the forefather of these guns) it still has the same features these new breed have taken to the next level. The true test of these weapons will be their fieldability and how well that polymer holds up under stress... but hell, you can back a car over a glock with no warping or breakage so these things might just be rawhide tough. The other question will be: will they be adopted? After all, it seems that lately even the best of weapons is being backburnered so other parties in power can make their money... who knows perhaps the troops will be walking around with the Cheyney Halburton 4000 next year.

From what I have read about this package from H&K it could be the answer to all the armed forces needs at a cheaper cost than the exsisting M4 they are touting as the replacement of the M16A2. It has it all, several different configurations, tons of accessories, very light weight and very few moving parts. This, if it enters service, will be the one of the simplest and possibly the most "soldier proof" weapon even used by the US. The only cons I can see right now are that some people will still gripe that it will run the ballistic standard M855 5.56mm ammo for the most part (as we have so much of that backstocked right now it is not funny) as opposed to the 5.56mm KE round it was developed with, but that will allow the changeover from M4 to XM-8 to take place with less of a supply headache until stores of the KE ammo become more common in all areas of command. Basically to the common observer, and the gun nut like me, this gun is a more simplified clone of H&K's already impressive G36 combat platform. The guns might as well be cousins as they share the same functions and features just with different bodies. As H&K also turns out civvie versions of all their weapons it will be interesting to see the civilian legal version of this guy pop up. After all, we got both the SL-8 (civvie version of the G36) and the USC (civvie version of the UMP) so we should get this guy too... maybee call it the XM-9 or something.

JsARCLIGHT runs from no man... ... now a man in a car with his foot on the gas is another question... Anyway Agent ONE knows I'm just messing with his skull. I figure the more sass and flak I put up the faster he will shove my face in it with an actual real life Arnie movie treatment ala Opus.

I aim to please... ... but I'm afraid to leave work now... Agent One is out in the parking lot crusing the street in front of my office ala Cape Fear style. JsARCLIGHT: "What are you doing here? Don't make me call the cops." Agent ONE: "It's a public street ain't it?"

Man, these are too easy... here are some more Bizzaro Schwarzenegger Movies! Working Title: Sousa Phones Synopsys: In his most controversial role to date, Schwarzenegger plays Dennis Sousa the grandson of great pompous band music composer John Phillip Sousa. Dennis (Schwarzenegger) has a great job as the most listened to morning zoo drivetime radio DJ on the coast (Don't be a Looza, Listen to Sousa!), making his hallmark crank calls that entertain as well as humiliate. Then one day the evil FCC kicks him off the airwaves due to his raunchy humor and downright unamerican vile language. Not willing to take this lying down, Dennis and his friends the station manager Morty Wiezenheimer (played by Jerry Sienfeld), the ghost of his granddad John Phillip (played by George Carlin, constantly cussing and muttering) and in another hilarious team-up with Rob Schnider as his radio show sidekick Llama boy take to the streets in a raunchy, punchy marching band of fun! Watch in stiches as they crank call the FCC into oblivion! Laugh till it hurts as they Toobah the ultra conservatives! It's the Jerky Boys meets Airheads with a tiny piece of Howard Stern's Private Parts thrown in for texture... because what american does not love filthy, vile crank phone calls? Featuring enough bouncy marching songs to make you want it to stop! Working Title: Frizbee Golfing for Anahiem Synopsys: An enfuriating, motivating and ego masturbating expose of Arnold Schwarzenegger by everyone's favorite man they love to hate... Michael Moore! In this latest controversial masterpiece, the true horror and evil, vile, monstrous danger that is Schwarzenegger is brought out into the light for all to see. Featuring the standard heavily edited interviews, slanted to make the point better! Featuring dubious facts pulled from the butt of the deep, dank recesses of the "insane" partisan website "GetOverIt.ORG"! Unabashed attacks on the film by talk show hosts have already started! In his daily radio vomit, Rush Limbaugh states "... this new film by Moore is sure to make americans everywhere die from sonic diharea, even just by thinking of seeing it... now where are my pills, daddy needs his fix...". Political pundit and boorish asswipe Sean Hannity says "... what the hell? Get that microphone out of my face you bastards! Guards, kill them! What? Oh, you want a sound bite on that new movie..." Watch the true story of how Schwarzenegger groped everyone, even your mom! Gasp at his inability to not grope his wife... or himself! Suffer from his awesome might! (note: film may not be released because the parent company Mom's Friendly Happy Puppy Kitten Baby Factory does not want to be held responsable for their artists having an opinon) ... and lastly... again.... Working Title: Wizzahd! Synopsys: Cashing in on both the Harry Potter sensation and the seeming box office gold of computer animated movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the voice of Timmy the Magic Wizzard in this wonderfully enchanting children's movie. Timmy must attend Buttnugget's School of Tax Evasion and Sorcery while attempting to solve the riddle of his missing drunk folks and doding attacks by his fellow students Hymeny (voiced every so slurmily by Sharon Stone), Don Measley (also voiced ever so slurmily by Don Johnson) and his arch nemisis Flako Malpractice (voiced by urban humorist Chris Rock). Magical Mayhem and other child friendly things happen in this huge, mega-million dollar adventure based on the bestselling books for children and immature adults with a 4th grade reading level! Soon to be followed by umpteen sequels and spinoffs as a cash cow this plump and ripe for the milking is just too good a thing to pass up! Don't forget to buy your Wizzahd! brand toothpaste, underoos, coffee table, Ford Tarus and left handed smoke shifters, kids!

Even more new Arnie movies: Working Title: Austrian Pie Synopsys: Everyone loves a good summer teen sex comedy... except for Arnold Schwarzenegger! In this rollicking fart-joke come to life Arnold plays Hans Toyerselv, Dean of a small midwestern college... yes that same small midwestern college you always hear about in the Penthouse forums. Hilarity and sexual inuendo insue as Hans (Schwarzenegger) tries to keep a lid on the raucus fraternaty "Tango House" as their lustful parties and drinking binges threaten to turn the campus into an all out orgy! Frat brothers Treekle (played by Micullay Culkin), Doober (played by Anthony Michael Hall), The Gort (played by Screetch from Saved by the Bell) and Beevage (played by a drunk off her ass Nichole Ritchie) try their hardest to get laid without the dean calling their parents. In their wackiest stunt to date, Tango House starts their own home improvement themed strip club/sports bar on campus called "The Toolbox" and try to get away with the profits... and the cheerleader's panties! So hear him now because there will be a test later, Dean Schwarzenegger will not let this raucus grope-fest of a fraternity pass! Working Title: The Postman Always Shoots Twice Synopsys: The Third World War has been fought! The world is in ruin and only the tough, the heavily armed and the mobile can survive! Arnold stars as "Screwy" Louie Rockatanski, the lone highway cop they pushed too far. Just wanting to live out the apocalypse in his own little quiet corner of hell, Louie retires from the force to be with his wife and kids and try to rebuild society with a nice dairy farm. But then, suddenly without warning, a nomadic force of ex-postal employees thunder in from out of the wasteland! His family killed! His home destroyed! His pies that he left cooling on the windowsill... gone! He can take no more! Louie then dons his leather and football pads to take back the world from the evil hordes of ransacking lettercarriers. Driving a hopped-up El Camino police interceptor, Schwarzenegger stamps their letters and meters their post in this post-apocalyptic blood and steel epic! The Highways ablaze with action! The mailboxes ablaze with suspense! The auto repair bill alone will make you want to run out to see this movie! ... and once again, lastly... Working Title: Thursday the 12th Synopsys: Horror, screams and really, really bad things happen in this gore-fest from beyond the grave! Schwarzenegger plays B.M. Night, ex-truck driver turned kid's camp counselor and the cast of Nickelodeon's Salute Your Shorts go away for a nice summer of crafts, canoeing and cold blooded murder at Camp Crystal Meth back in the deep, dank woods of the Florida Everglades. Soon the fun of camp fades to the fun of mass murder as campers and counselors alike turn up mauled in grisly fashion at the hands of Mason, a one-time camper himself who long ago was horribly mangled by Arts and Crafts hour... and playing Mason is none other than the king of pop, Michael Jackson! Decked out in a pastel taffeta suit and a phantom of the opera mask, Mason snatches the campers one by one and subjects them to horrible interpretive dance numbers and crotch grabbing as B.M. (Schwarzenegger) tries to save them! Culminating in a one-on-one stand-up sit-down fight, fight, fight B.M. and Mason duke it out in the final battlefield, the camper's nightmares! Blood! Guts! Screams! That one guy in the audience constantly yelling "oh HELL no, don't choo go in there, nuh-uuuh! No you di-int!"

OK, here are my movie ideas for the next Arnold Films: Working Title: Master Debater Synopsys: Taking place in modern day, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Benjamin Dover, hardcore cop and lone wolf type that doesn't play by the rules who is only understood by his woman. He is after the international drug tzar Largo Keylargo (featuring Elton John in his breakout role)... but he just can't get any evidence or witnesses that he does not blow up during a shootout. The police captain Michael "Hunt" Hunter (skillfully acted by Dick Butkis, frothing at the mouth) tells him he better bust Keylargo and make it stick... and his only course of action is to go undercover as an English Language Speach Therapist at the Califournia Institute of Talking Right so he can keep an eye on Keylargo's prime stoolie Dillon "Spillon" Dabeanz (played by everyone's favorite cut-up Rob Schnider) who does not speak a word of english but is willing to turn tail on his former boss. Ben (Schwarzenegger) must single handedly keep Dillon (Schnider) safe from Keylargo's henchmen the "Pinkboys" but keep him away from his dumb as a sack of hammers girlfriend (played by a nice and toasted Paris Hilton), teach him to speak proper english so he can testify at the trial and tollerate his infuriating blather. It's Eraser meets the Letter People in this rockem sockem romp filled with shootouts, stupid blonde heiresses you want to beat with a lead pipe, explosions and above all else... proper dictation! Working Title: Pumping Iran Synopsys: In this razzle-dazzle nutsorama true life biopic Arnold Schwarsenegger plays himself in the true story of how he single-handedly challenges the top Iranian miniature golf champion to an all-out, no holds barred putt-putt slam-o-ramma. Starring the WWF's Iron Shiek as Aziz Puttemindeholen, Iran's "Little Green Golf Ball of Steel" and Maria Shriver as Arnold's personal ball washer. Tempers flair and tiny little girly-man golf clubs clash in this battle of the titans... miniture golf windmil hole style. Then in the amazing twist of coincidence, the Tuetels from American Chopper show up at the last second to build our hero Arnold a "pumped up" mega custom chopper putter to win the match, while at the same time yelling at each other for doing nothing as the Iyatolah steals Mikey's sammich... once again proving that if nothing else, americans at least always win in the movies... even if all they do is bicker with each other and break stuff. ... and lastly... Working Title: From Russia with Lead Synopsys: Once again, playing the best character type he can, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an secret KGB agent who comes to america to recover all the pieces of the Berlin Wall sold on eBay so his evil masters can clone it from the wall's DNA and flood the world with a new army of giant radioactive Berlin Wall monsters... which look remarkably like Godzilla, just wearing one of those Russian Fur hats with a little red star on it. With the action and suspense of the Terminator and the comedy and quirky "he's not an american" humor of Red Heat, Arnold successfully recovers the pieces from the eBay buyers... by force... and his evil masters clone the wall into the super radioactive wall beast... only to discover the time in america has made the wall DNA kind and compassionate and the newly born Gozilla in a bushkin hat wall beast defies his masters and stomps the Kremlin instead. Arnold is then irradiated and grows hundreds of times his normal size and fights the Godzilla bushkin wall monster to the death! Thrills! Spills! A Giant Russian fur hat the size of an office building! Arnold's fists shoot of like Voltron! Guaranteed boffo bux at the box baybee.

That and some people take sarcasm the wrong way. This whole "Sub issue" is a hot topic for me and I will admit to jumping into it with both boots rather than just shutting up. I'm not trying to pick fights or piss people off here... But I know I piss people off whenI start getting IM's about things I post but hey, that is who I am. I am a joker nine times out of ten but every now and then someone will flip one of my switches unbeknownst to them and change me from joker to serious. I usually do my best to push myself away from the keyboard and chew on a coaster or something but I guess it is just this thread and the memories I remember when posting in it and my own personal feelings on things. I apologize if people take me for a old meanie at times but hey, everyone has their personal button presser topics that put a quarter in the pony if you know what I mean. Back to the thread, ignore the crazy vet! Halucinating the cong again he is!

Not to derail the thread or anything but I still stick to my guns about leaving the military to the military and not the taxpayers... after all, the vast majority of taxpayers are neither "educated" in what they might be voting on or aware of what things do and how well they work. We are talking about people who 90% of the time vote their checkbook... the same people who vote down raises for teachers, funds for parks and other such things. Ask them if they want to give the army new clothes and tell them how much it will cost and it will be voted down faster than a medicare law change. But I digress... As for the knee pad thing the reasons the army pads use buckes are obvious. Ever try to get one of those stretchy pads off? Especially over boots? Now just imagine the guy wearing that pad just took an AK round to the leg... they would have to cut the pad off, thus "destroying" a nice piece of military gear. The buckles are uncomfortable and ungangly but they go on fast and come off fast. Also back on the beret issue, they are not really meant for combat or field deployment. I myself was partial to a good old boonie hat (when away from the brass as if they caught you in action without your helmet on you would catch hell)... the only folks I remember wearing their berets everywhere where the original Green Berets. Those guys would even go back into a hot area just to recover their cover if it fell off!

Oooooh, hey. That is actually pretty neat. Those darn knee pads would move around on you given time and a lot of movement but having them built into your pants might solve that. ... oh and if the american taxpayers were allowed to have any input on military gear we most likely would not have a military and be speaking german or chinese right now. I trust the folks designing and making the equipment for the most part... they have dropped the occasional turd on the troops before but just imagine what would happen if congress, or worse yet, a popular vote chose equipment designs? You'd get GAP combat capris, DKNY web gear, a retro '70s thin sider shirt, topped off with a custom painted BELL motorcycle helmet with a less-than-leathal Old Navy brand whiffle ball bat at your side. Still over budget, still not the best but at least those denim boot cut PHRs will look so stylish as they come back from the combat zone. Now that sure strikes fear into me.