Retracting Head Ter Ter

I just don't like the philosophy behind it. The Mc F1 kept to the basics (lightweight, no electric seats etc etc). The Veyron is just too damn big and heavy. I don't think I'll ever get a chance to drive one but with that kind of weight, it must surely detract from the driving experience.

Really? It can do 0-200 faster then an McLaren F1's 120-200?!?? But that damn thing is a porker! I am sure the F1 can beat it on the track. I don't like the philosophy behind that car. Take it to the extreme and you can just strap a RR Spey on a ladder chassis with fat tyres and it'll beat the Veyron's 220-300 with it's 0-400 time too!

Hi Dana, What are the Chinese names for the Macross Characters? Just curious. You can post them in chinese, I can read. Direct translations from the kanji?

Must........ have........

Senkan Yamato is the WW2 battleship Yamato you see at the bottom of the page. Its practically the same size as Space Cruiser Yamato so you can use that as a substitute. They NEED some LOGH ships in there. Along with the LOGH battlestations. And Spaceball 1! The Executor is my all time favourite ship too. But the side profile doesn't quite do it as much justice as the photo of the model with all the blue lights on. The SDF looks quite puny next to an ISD. Godzilla looks quite puny next to the Empire State too. And they were using the 100m Godzilla too.

I guess the answer to solving diesel's tight usable power band will come if they ever make good enough CVT gearboxes. For now, even though I am a fan of manual transmissions, when it comes to the diesel powered cars, I find auto-boxes much more drivable due to the torque-converter's ability to adapt to the power band.

If you superimpose the image of the Empire State Building against the SDF-1, it'll show how much anime magic is needed to fit the town as seen on TV into a 'mere' 1200 metre long ship.

They have the Senkan Yamato there, good enough to compare.

http://www.amenbo.com/cgi-bin/list/toys/macrross/new1-e.cgi For those of you who don't like the HLJ system of not telling you the shipping upfront, try amenbo. I always use them. Reliable and you get the 5% point back on top of the discounted retail price. 20k yen with Express shipping to stateside on top of the 5%. Can't find a better deal elsewhere on the net.

The ability to showcase a giant ape and rampaging dinosaurs is insignificant compared to the power of the force.

The local media has been going on about it being the most advanced F-15 ever. But no hard facts.

Hmmm, since they got the spare Nissan chassis and spare V8 after creating that hybrid, do we get to see a R32/33/34 with the V8 in it too? On that note, if they wanted to stir-poo, maybe the should have bolted 2 RBs into a 5.1 V12 quad turbo before stuffing it into the car. Its hollywood anyway. Wouldn't have to even be a working motor. Then some crazy fan will attempt to build his own...

In a sense. aren't armed UCAVs an extension (by a magnitude but still) of active guided missiles? You launch them in the direction of the enemy and leave the electronics to wipe em out?

I loved Mac as a kid (watched it in 86-87 IIRC) but even though the toys and kits were available enough back then I never bought one because I thought the proportions sucked (sorry chunky bandai fans!) and looked nothing like the sleek jets on screen. I stumbled onto MW _just_ 3-4 months before the 1/48 Hikaru 1A was about to be released. Got stunned by the pictures and was shocked that some toy company would produce such a detailed 'toy'. It was the 1/48 that sucked me back into macross.

Military theorists have been proven wrong before (the no-guns in fighters is an often touted example) but remember that before the technology matured sufficiently, stuff like aircraft that could sink battleships, guided missiles and jet engines were thougt to be 'in the realm of fiction' too.

Anyway, looking at the wall, doesn't seem like its a wall which Kong can't climb over. He can climb the damn Empire State using one arm anyway... Yeah, a T-Rex bite should be awesome. But a punch from the arm of a 50 foot gorilla should pack enough whallop to mush the innards of even a T-Rex..... logically.

A personal XB-70 would be the ultimate toy. All the other pilots will go green with envy. You could even showboat in front of the Concorde flyboys (back when they were still flying that is).

Its a paper plane right? They never even attempted a prototype or even a mock up? Sounds like a very anime type of weapon carrier. You know, the one where the renegade general with the eye-patch steals while kidnapping the chick and the hero has to stop him from launching while saving the chick.

Whoa wait! They had a proposal for an ICBM launching 747?!?! Link! Pic! Please!

Hey! They have a Kasumi mousepad! If it wasnt so damn expensive I'd buy one!

exactly, beating eachother in matches, not fighting an army of ninjas, why even call it doa if it has nothing to do with it other than names 347864[/snapback] Yes, it would improve the movie a bit if the girls were pounding each other instead of fighting mortal kombat/Ninja Turtle style cookie cutter goons.

Eh? I might be having a serious memory lapse but every source I read points to 16/45 at predicted engagement ranges IIRC. I thought only Montana was designed to be resistant against 16/50s.

You might be right about that, David. But it always stuck in my mind that they were designed with the carrier-support role in mind as well. I may have just overplayed HOW much. 347807[/snapback] They were designed to slug it out with BBs. It was thought that the Yamato's had weapons similar to the S. Dakota's (16/45), so the Iowa's were built with armour to resist shells up to 16/45. But once they were commisioned, they ended up being carrier escorts. As for the Imperial Japanese winning. I would disagree. Japan was too stretched for troops to take and hold Hawaii. The USN subs would strangle the supply route. Even if the ENTIRE navy was sunk at Pearl Harbour, by 1944 US industry would still have churned out a fleet which will dwarf whatever the IJN has. And of course there was still the A-Bomb by 1945. If Yamato had been there instead of Kirishima she might have taken down the South Dakota. But at under 10,000 yards, even her armour will not be immune to the 16/45 on Washington. So the IJN might have lost her too.

The 21 inch version of the Yamato would only pack 6 guns in 3 turrets and displace about the same weight though. Its not really bigger. Most people agree that 9 x 18 is still better then 6 x 21 though. Better chance of hitting and you don't pancake your exposed AAA guncrews and flatten your other exposed structures everytime you fire. For the aircraft, as F-ZeroOne said, the Japanese were fighting with quite a disadvantage due to their lack of industrial power. They did a fantastic job going from fuedal armies to Kido Butai in just 50 years but their level of industrialisation was not yet equal to Germany, UK and the US yet. Which makes the effort needed for them to create Yamato even more staggering.

I have had quite enough of VF-1s. CHOGOKIN GLAUG! 1/60 or 1/72 scale. I said it before, they'll sell a boatload to the classic BT fans on top of the Macross and Rowbowtek fans.