Phyrox

First of all, at least try to spell. Secondly, the only thing I've ever seen or read that satisfied me were the few pages on space combat in the Aliens: Colonial Marines Technical Manual actually. And even that is basically just "submarines in space," with the addition of velocity and delta-v concerns. hold on, you talk about how realistic this show is from a strategic and tactical point of view and then THIS? You don't have to be a graduate of the Army War College to see the huge problem with this sort of battle. Major battles have never had anywhere near those levels of casualties (excepting a few stand outs) for a few good reasons: - The outcome of a battle can usually be figured out before one side is wiped out, and they usually disengage by that point. Even when the stakes have been very high. Cannae, Okinawa, ambushes and a few similar exceptions prove the rule. - No force could maintain these loses, it makes no tactical sense, no strategic sense, no financial sense, and little political sense. I've never seen LOGH, but you description sounded pretty glowing on the realism scale until you mentioned this.

I would if I could, but the local chains didn't have it. I guess we're in the same boat

My only contribution to this thread will be to comment thusly: LOTS of better people who I don't know die everyday and don't get their own thread.

Hunter, beautiful? Looks to me like the most "generic fighter" design ever. Nothing to get excited about that I can find. It's like the Honda Civic of aircraft aesthetics. I mean, to each their own, but as plain looking as the new Typhoon is I think you do it a dis-service by comparing it to a Hunter. But you raise a good point...you have to go back pretty far to find an inspired British aircraft design. British aircraft of the 20s and 30s could be gorgeous, as could some of their 1940s designs. Then what happened? The only plane that makes me look twice is the Victor (and I know I am mostly alone in that). The Hunter though? Seriously? Is that generally considered a nice looking craft over there? I guess it must be, now that I remember some of the things I've read about it in books by British authors...but I always figured it was due to a few Brits having bad taste, not the whole island. I've always had strange taste myself of course, but the Hunter (and the Eurofighter) is soooo plain.

The Ki-46 / type-100 command reconnaissance aircraft sneers at your vulgar lawn dart. Saying a eurofighter is beautiful is like saying a countach is graceful. It is many things, but beautiful is not one of them.

If building a working military aircraft were similar to building a model kit, then I'd agree that this is a "copy." But the intricacies of avionics, internal structure, weight and weight distribution, engine, exact aerodynamic properties, etc. sorta shows the lie of such claims. Sure, they used the LAVI as a departure point, but to say it is a copy, or a knock-off is to belie one's understanding of the complexity of aircraft design.

uh, where is the animation? Three possibilities: I do not understand what "stop-motion" animation means, you do not understand what "stop-motion" animation means, you are a master of the moving POV stop-motion, the likes of which have not been seen since Corpse Bride. I am thinking #2. And what kind of feedback do you want? I think that maybe, maybe that could be entertaining to someone who was really wasted. Otherwise I hate to say it, but I think you wasted your time.

I recently picked up the weissritter from HLJ and mpchi's comment is pretty much on the dot. Nice kit, with nice fit and all that jazz. the plastic seemed to require more care in trimming to avoid nasty scars than I'm used to...but that's all I can say negative about it.

I tried to watch it once, but it took 5-minutes of information and spread it over an hour. I'd rather just grab one of my books off the shelf and get the same info in a much shorter time (and without the lame narrarator). I mean, that's pretty much par for the course for the history channel...which is why I usually avoid it altogether.

I don't think this is very logical at all actually. I mean, within the "macross universe" we are to assume that this is logical, but for real world military engagments large size is not really desirable...neither is hand-to-hand combat the vast majority of the time. Huge robots that turn into fighter jets are cool as hell, don't get me wrong. But if earth was really invaded by 50' tall anatomically human aliens, the LAST thing I would want to combat them would be 50' tall robots.

Well, I'm a fan of the movie designs, but it's obvious they don't easily translate into toys. That starscream toy is unforgivable. I am surprised that Megatron looks so much better in these recent shots. I thought he looked pretty pitiful in the earlier ones. His head still looks somehow not-quite-right to me, but he looks great otherwise.

I think a much better idea would be self guiding missiles. Newton's Third Law tells us that a powerful rotary cannon would not be a great idea in space. Not a conventional one anyhow. But all this talk of anti-sat missles and Mig-35s is no fun. So I'll inject something interesting into the thread. I don't have any of my books with me, but I believe what we have here is a Chinese re-engined Tu-4 modified for AEW. How cool is that I ask you?

That show looks so inane I am leaning towards the idea that it was a spoof. I mean...even as TOYS those cars would look too over the top. And those charater descriptions? They belong on the back of a GI Joe box (and that is sort of an insult to GI Joe). I am glad my childhood was not polluted with a cheesier, live-action, MASK show.

You know, BGC goes seem like a good possibility now that I think about it. Southern Cross though...that's funny. Sad-funny, but still funny.

"Popular '80s anime," so I'd say no. Maybe I am betraying my lack of knowledge of 80s anime, but I'm leaning towards Mospeada myself. Mospeada seems to have been decently popular, and I honestly can't think of many other shows with transforming mecha that aren't Macross that fit the bill. I mean, Gundam and Transformers are excluded I imagine. What else had: - Transforming mecha - Was popular - Would make many MWers happy ? I hope not Orguss. I applaud the quirky designs, they had a lot of character...but they just don't LOOK good.

Actually no, they didn't. It's just an amusing anecdote/joke. But it isn't actually true. If my memory serves, both the Americans and the Russians use pens in space. And neither spent billions in development.

Yeah, pretty much. These guys are masters of disappointment, only a fool would expect a pleasant surprise.

Where did it say they saved it from an onboard fire before they landed? Sounds to me like they CAUSED the onboard fire with that landing.

I'm no chemist, but my BS meter is going off on that one.

I always figured that was why the "hind's" fuselage was skewed, but had never read anything confirming it. On a related note, one of my very knowledgeable grad school buddies mentioned that one of the reasons the Avia S-199 was such a bad plane was that the BF-109s tail was slightly twisted to compensate for the Daimler-Benz's P-effect, and that the propeller on the new Jumo engines spun in the opposite direction. I never bothered to confirm this, and had always figured the poor handling was due to the small airframe with the huge bomber propellers they used. Too much torque. He knew more than anyone about 1939-1960s era aircraft than anyone I've met though, so I belive him.

Someone explain this one to me. I thought the point of legos was to create something with your imagination and some simple blocks...not to build a "kit" out of a pre-selected box of blocks. What makes this doubly confusing is that for the same price, a Gundam-lover could buy a Master Grade gundam kit. Why would someone pay the same, or more, for a gundam that looks like he stepped out of an Atari game? The way I imagine it is that Lego-lovers wouldn't want to build simply a pre-arranged "kit," and Gundam-lovers would want a better looking gundam. Now obviously I must be wrong...but I don't understand why. Someone who likes these things (for either reason) please explain yourself.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the Mi-24/35 canopy is actually asymetrical as the photo shows. I don't think any of my books explained it, but I've poured over enough images of the "hind" to know it's there. Most orthographic views ignore it, but in good quality photographs you can tell the pilot's canopy is not centered. It is no trick of the lens. This image shows the alignment fairly well:

HAHA, I like "Poliotron." Besides the legs, his scope/bazooka seems far too large to me. It may be the size that it is in real life, but it looks goofy. How is he going to lift that arm? The design is ingenious, sure. But not that hot looking.

I don't have my books with me, and I don't remember the official designations... But the Nato "Hind-F" replaced the chin 12.7mm with the fixed 23mm because of the realization that the older, smaller gun was no longer sufficient. The fixed arrangement on the "-F" was always a stopgap. On later models a new turreted 23 was standard, which I believe was retrofitted to some of the earier models. I've been out of the modern aviation world for a few years though, so that's all I remember.

I think these are the best looking transformers to come down the pike in a long, long time (excepting the MPs and some of the Alternators). I don't think they thought "screw aesthetics" as much as they did "screw tradition." And that, to me, was a good move. A lot of transfans seem to think differently however. They still take a pretty convincing humanoid robot and turn him into a pretty convincing car/tank/whatever. That is the essence of a good transformer. I'll wait for the movie to see how much "magic" is required for these movie designs to go from robot to alt, but at the moment I'm liking them.