Lynx7725

Quoted for Truth. Back to topic. Is Pearl Harbour a necessary precursor to the Japanese occupation of SE Asia and Southern Pacific? Personally, I believe it is necessary. Removing the US surface fleet from the equation allowed the IJN to run amok within the area without any real threat against it. If the US surface fleet had been around to contest any Japanese operations, losses would inevitably occur and it would eventually reduce the power and hence expansion rate of the empire. That's if things go right for the Japanese in a fleet action. If things go wrong... then the Japanese ambitions would die in the cradle. Remember, there was no guarantee that the IJN training is so superior that any surface engagement would automatically go the way of the Japanese. USN concentrated heavily on daylight gunnery; had they been able to force an engagement in broad daylight, it's a good chance that the USN would sail away victorious, even with the pre-war naval asset. It has to be remembered that pre-war naval treaty had restricted the ratio of warships between the US and Japan (and other countries) prior to Japan ignoring the treaty. In other words, till Pearl Harbour, the USN might actually had a numerical advantage in hulls over IJN. No, eliminating the US fleet is an absolute necessity prior to Japanese advances in other areas. Yes, the industrial might of the US would make good such losses relatively quickly -- but the time that this replacement would need would give the Japanese some breathing space. Perhaps sufficiently to fortify its position and turn a de facto situation to a de jure situation. Yamamoto knew he couldn't win a protracted war with the US; he had been to the US and had seen the industrial capabilities. IIRC, he advised against going to war with the US, and was famously quoted as being confident of only running wild for the first 6 months of the war. So, an idealized version of Japanese War Strategy might have gone something like this: Eliminate US Pacific Fleet Advance and fortify all the land that can be grabbed Continue production and training of IJN Force engagement with the re-arming USN on terms that are beneficial to the IJN (i.e. night combat with torpedoes). Keep the attrition rates favourable to IJN Avoid other engagements as far as possible. Continue until the US sensitivity to casaulties kicks in. Remember, most of USN's (and conversely IJN's) support facilities are waaaay outside the engagement range of the opponent's vehicles; it was not until quite late in the war that the US could seriously bomb Japan's shipyards, and the only worthwhile US naval facilities that the IJN could get at was Hawaii, which would be quickly reestablished since Japan would seriously overreach itself trying to occupy Hawaii. Hence, the concept of Total War cannot be seriously implemented until one side has an overwhelming advantage, since the real support structure cannot be directly attacked. It was not until Japanese suffered many military setbacks that the US could bring military force to bear on civilian targets, thus increasing the downward slide. Had some key battles gone the other way, the USN and the IJN would be locked in an attritional war, and it's really unclear which side would have the advantage -- the USN with its greater industrial might but longer (and more vulnerable) supply lines, or the IJN with their lesser industrial might but shorter supply lines. In the greater context, IJN might have been banking on Nazi Germany to divert part of the US' industrial might. Had Operation Barbarossa, the North African and Italian campaigns, or Operation Overlord gone slightly south for the Allies, the US might not have been bogged down in Europe, and the casualty sensitivity might have kicked in even earlier.

A truly Chicken Little sign...

IIRC, there are only a handful of 300+ kills aces. And truth to be told, it's hard to believe. IIRC -- I'm working off very hazy memories here -- some of them had been around since the Kondor Legion in Spain, and had served on the Eastern Front (where the Russkies had no shortage of planes to let the Germans shoot down...), but even adjusting for all these, it's still hard to believe. I think there is some inflation in the figures here, but it's long gone history and these men did their best in a war, so I won't dispute their claims too seriously.

Some thoughts: The attack on Pearl Harbour was in a sense a strategic necessity; had the US Pacific Fleet not been neutralized one way or another, the Japanese expansion would not have been possible; US naval superiority would have rendered any amphibious operations in the Southern Pacific a moot point. At that point in time, naval aviation was really only out of its infancy then and there's really no proof that they could have a decisive impact in naval warfare -- all they had was a demonstration on obsolete German warships. Impressive, but hardly combat conditions. On both sides of the pond, traditional big-gun thinking still ruled; the USN and the IJN both prepared for a Big Battle of surface units -- the USN were concerned with daylight gunnery, believing that that was the most likely condition in which the Big Battle would be fought, whereas IJN prepared for night attacks involving torpedo runs. As can be seen in the Gundacanal series of naval spats, IJN tends to have a huge advantage at night battles and torpedo attacks in the early years while they still held on to the experience they had. Had the US Pacific Fleet not been neutralized, Japan would never had been able to spread out so fast and so far. In that sense, Pearl Harbour was a strategic success, though as pointed out the failure to attack the fuel storage and repair facilities was a major failure on the part of Nagumo. But in a sense the decision is understandable. The fleet carriers committed to the operation constitute the majority of the Japanese naval aviation assets. Losing even one of them would have been a major blow to the military power, especially if they lost one carrier to a US carrier. As I understand it, the Japanese wanted to target the US carriers... but it just turned out that they weren't in port. I think it's best to keep in mind the probable objectives for Nagumo: first, the destruction of the US surface units, including the carriers if possible. This is the primary objective. Second, the destruction of support facility. This is a secondary objective. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, to preserve as much as possible the naval assets assigned to accomplish the above two objectives. In this light, Nagumo achieved his primary objectives very successfully, but his overriding concern on the last point required him to abandon the secondary objective. From a military perspective, I find that this is an acceptable outcome for the Pearl Harbour operations (alone). Moving on, had the US surface fleet not been neutralized, naval aviation might have continued to play second fiddle to the big guns. As it is, Yamamoto gambled on naval aviation and its power was proven without a doubt by Pearl Harbour. While the strike on Pearl Harbour might have had strategic errors, the IJN had a good opportunity to make good during Midway. Had the IJN sunk the US carriers there, the Gundacanal and subsequent campaigns might have gone very differently.

Been meaning to post this for some time. I recently bought a CafeReo Military Aircraft Series 1 JWings 1/144 F-14A. Here are some pics: Just curious, how accurate to an F-14A is this?

I'm prepared to accept that the MPC Veritechs are more sturdy then they look -- after all I have no personal experience with them. But as personal taste goes, I find the 1/60 better in terms of overall quality, which is why I went with them. As with anything to do with personal opinions, there is room on this planet for differing opinions to exists, so I'm not overally excited by this. After all, both the MPC Veritech and the 1/60 Yamato has been left in the dust after the excellent 1/48 Yamato has been debuted, and unjustly so IMO.

Hey, I disagree strongly on this. I don't have an MPC Veritech but do own an MPC Alpha, and own 3 1/60. Overall I'll say the 1/60 has a better sculpt than the MPC and from reviews is a bit more sturdy -- there's no single part on the 1/60 that's likely to break "just because", whereas the MPC has QC issues out of box. Yes, the 1/60 does have problems with posability in Battroid but the screw covers aren't as loose as you make them out to be -- I had very few problems with them. It really boils down to whether you want a display piece or a toy, so YMMV. But my impression when the MPC Veritech is released is that the overall quality of manufacture is better for the Yamato than the MPC, and as such I did not purchase any MPC Veritechs.

You ain't kidding. He landed that airliner like he was landing a F-14 on the deck.

Given the unusual release schedule of this OAV....who knows when we'll see it. 389619[/snapback] Heh, given its name, I won't be too surprised if it has a huge telescope mounted somewhere on it... Phantom Pain sounded to much like Titans. I wish they would stop reusing plot devices, but it's kinda given. :D Not too sure. I haven't finish watching G:S yet (and to say nothing of G:SD), but G:S seems to have a sympathetic Coordinator slant. Even odds that DSSD is a "peaceful" exploration mission (with a Gundam on board, yeah right..), and that the evil and misguided Phantom Pain just trying to kill Coordinators.. kinda flat story actually. Didn't the ArcAngel have PS armour on it? And it's almost certain the Strike Noir has a nuclear reactor. It's a Phantom Pain MS, and Phantom Pain aren't bound by the treaty. It's one quick way to show how evil and deviant Phantom Pain is.

Uh no, when I saw your post it was a pic, no linkages IIRC. A hoot now though.

Looks like Gouf Customs next to a bunch of 1/144 tanks, seems to be Takara World Tank Museum series... so?

Not that the 21st Century Techniques are really turning out anything spectacular that I've heard or seen about. Maybe I'm old school but the new shtick doesn't gel with me either. I take it as "another anime-like show" disregarding all the background jazz (history and whatnot). What I can see here, I think is fairly ok. Quite good quality actually, I've seen far worse. The clevage baring is sure to get some people off and while I enjoy it, I have to admit it's a bit tasteless after getting too much exposure to it. (And if they spend the whole series/ show prancing about in that, man, those animators need to get a life!) At the end of the day, the art as seen here is acceptable, so it boils down to whether the story is good enough. Of course, some here would have written it off already, but I'll like to think I'm a little more open-minded about such things.

No reason to assume SLRs would produce the best results -- they don't, not without some investments in lens and training. I use a D70 with a variety of lens. For close work, I tend to use my 60mm Nikon Macro lens.

Again, flight sim experiences only, bear that in mind. The P-38 in the pacific was a good plane. Can't turn worth dip but it actually is a very stable and sweet platform, and in B&Z it's actually quite good. It's contra-rotating props actually makes the plane very stable in sims, no noticable pull either way. This contrasts very sharply with the Corsair, which I recall torquing me into the water once (or nearly did) after a cat launch. Nasty nasty stuff (The "Ensign Eliminator" at work...). If I were to fly in European Sims though, I would probably go for Tempest/ Typhoon (for the firepower and the general handling) and the Dora-9 (same). I don't really have much love for the USAF fighters in Europe, as most of them seems to be prima donna planes designed for high-altitude work and not mucking in the mud as I tend to do. (The Jug does that but it's a huge tub.. doesn't work for me either.) I would actually avoid the ME-262. It has a great speed advantage but it handled like a pig; at altitude and with the R4M it makes a big mess of bomber boxes, but it turns like a truck and has difficulties coming up and down at low altitudes. Talking about busting bomber boxes, I recall the Bf-109 was able to fit mortars on them. Those things are difficult to aim and difficult to hit with, but damn, they are really fun to use, and if you score a hit on one B-17 you end up taking out a couple in the blast radius.

Bear in mind I've only flown some of these in commerical PC simulators, so my experience is only from these.. In general, I dislike European fighters. A lot of them are speed demons but hellishly difficult to pull around. I prefer fast planes that are fairly agile, and a lot of the late war fighters in Europe are just bricks with rockets as far as agility is concerned. The BF-109 -- if memory serves they retain the BF designation -- is a tricky bird to fly, and more importantly, to land. Its armament was extremely limited, and as such had a hard time in the late war. Load it with external gun packs and it becomes as bad as the bombers it's trying to shoot down. The Dora-9 was a lot more forgiving and fun to fly. The P-51, good speed, fair agility. Ok as things goes but as noted, somewhat fragile. The P-47: the flying brick. Fall out of the sky like one, so-so as dogfighting goes. It's definitely nice to have that much firepower, but still... The Spitfire, quite ok, but I prefer the Typhoon or Tempest though. Again, the emphasis on European designs is speed not agility, so I had some issues with the Spit. Can't recall if I flew the Hellcat, but I love the Corsair. It's a sweet bird, Torque's a killer on take-off (especially the later versions) but once in the air it is quite powerful and actually fairly agile. It can't turn with a Zero in low speed, but it can dive and zoom away well enough to turn and re-engage. It's a fairly deadly fighter with good armament.

FWIW, I'm good to go with what you have. The only thing I would like changed is more distinction between "You have posts in here" and "You did not post in here" -- but I think I somehow would be able to live with what is already here. BTW, thanks for the effort!

Ok, my two cents.. Firstly, I'm not overly bothered by the Minmay Wraith. It does throw the table sizes off a bit, but IPB is IPB; unless you mess terribly with the backend, the icons are all going to be in the same places, so I'm not terribly perturbed by the minor differences. However, I DO support using the Minmay Wraith as a Locked Topic icon. Couldn't stand her. Sorts of makes sense. Now, onto JsARCHLIGHT's work.. excellent and they do look good, just a couple of comments. I'm good with using Blue for new, Red for hot and Green for polls. However, the common problem I find with IPB icons is that it's difficult to differentiate between threads that I did not post in and threads I did post in, and the current set of icons makes it difficult to see (as it's a difference in rim only -- I kinda find it easy to miss). If I may suggest, can we have add a diagonal slash, maybe white/ grey, behind the kite to highlight threads in which the user had posted in? That should be pretty obvious. Also, I think the "Go to Last Post" icon should be a "Beware of Blast" arrow in the appropriate direction (i.e. left to right). It seems to stand out better than the current "Rescue" arrow.

Ha! I scored the following for the test: Plinker You are 58% of a gun nut! You're probably either a seasonal hunter or someone with a decent head knowledge of guns. Keep working at it, and you could really be a force to be reckoned with! Thing is, the only firearm I've shot in my life was, oddly, the M203 40mm grenade launcher. I handled the M-16, SAW and GPMG back in my conscript days, but because of a broken collarbone in training was never able to fire one on the range.

I was trying to get into the Open Beta, but they never threw me that bone, so I'm not involved... But from what research I did I'm not too sure it'll fly well. First, it's like the whole game revolve around group/ race PvP, with some mining and PvE on the side. I'm not sure that would hold my interest for long, especially since the play area seems to be rather small (you're always fighting over some darn mine...). Other than that strictly meh material for me. Without the chance to look at in in Open Beta, I won't put down money for it. Not to mention I don't quite like the space-fantasy aspect of it.. strictly speaking I'm interested only in Accretians or the Mechdrivers (forgot what they were called), but they really only have two styles and that's really restrictive. I play L2 (note the present tense), and that's another massive PvP game (and I don't even like to PvP). And it's a massive grind fest. But at least, L2 has a huge area for you to explore and hundreds of nooks and crannies for you to look at (and the graphics are gorgeous). Even as rigid and structured L2 is, I think it's still better in terms of options than RFO -- in L2, you can opt not to fight in castle siege and STILL have things to do (even in the Open Beta). In RFO, if you don't mine/ fight for mine control, it seems that you have nothing much to do. EDIT: Personally, what I hope to see one day in a MMORPG (and it has to be graphically awesome! ) is a hard sci-fi game. Either a Btech-style mechanized MMO (or even Power Dolls style mecha) or a fleet-based -- massive fleets! -- space MMORPG. Something like Leviathans, but only with hundreds of RL ship captains participating in massive battles to control entire star systems and galatical economy.

WTF? I don't even watch Star Trek. You scored as Enterprise D (Star Trek). Enterprise D (Star Trek) 75% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 63% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 63% SG-1 (Stargate) 63% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Moya (Farscape) 56% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 56% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 56% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 50% Serenity (Firefly) 50% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 50%

The problem with 2nd Ed is that it is the Uber-character edition. Lots of tooled up characters wiping out whole armies. I mean, yeah, but WHOLE ARMIES? And of course the Vortex Grenade Delivery System, or the Exarch Delivery System, or the IG favourite (not!) Virus Grenade....

Ahh.. I love these threads. All the skulking 40K nuts come pouring out. I skimmed through but didn't read every thread -- too much words. So some info is doubtlessly repeated. Space Marines Black Carapace is a second skin implanted specifically for them to interface more closely with their power armour. The implant is part of a ritual that elevate a man into a Space Marine, and all these implants are closely guarded by the Adeptus Astartes. The Adepta Sororitas, being an arm of the Ecclesiarchy (the Church of the Emperor), do not have access to the geneseeds. Also, the relationship between the Ecclesiarchy and the Adeptus Astartes, as well as the veneration of the Emperor as a divine being, precludes the Ecclesiarchy even thinking about asking for the implants. There is no specific given reason why geneseed implants cannot work on a female anatomy, the religious fervour which the Adeptus Astartes preserves their tradition (and the general anti-progress outlook of the Imperium) AND the powers-that-be within the Ecclesiarchy prevent such experimentation from being carried out. Not to mention, the Adepta Sororitas are fanatics. Not too sure if they would want such an implant anyway. No specific reason why Space Marines cannot bred -- there are no specific mention of castration or impotency involved -- but the genetic manipulation required to create a Space Marines may cause that (or inability to bred with humans, or inability to pass the genetic makeup to the next generation, etc.) Also, the Adeptus Astartes are chiefly monastic orders... so are the Adepta Sororitas. You can have that kind of background, but it pretty much guarantees one of two things. One, the resultant offsprings are working for the Imperium but hunted by them, or Two, they are working for Chaos. Well.. Genetic manipulation of boys to become Space Marines start before puberty; generally the men you are thinking of is too old -- there are mentions that the implants would not take and may kill them. However, there is an option. In one of the White Dwarf magazine, there is talk of genetic manipulation of Imperial Guardsmen to create super-soldiers not on the scale of Space Marines (with drawbacks -- everybody hates them. ). What you can do is to write it up as a secret experiment by the High Lords of Terra, to create a brand new chapter from distinguishied Imperial Guardsmen. Perhaps this is to create a breed of Space Marines that are more controllable than normal Marines. In game terms, you just use the basic Space Marine Codex, plus pull an Inqusitor HQ ally either from the Daemonhunters or Witchhunters codex. Witchhunters seems more appropriate. Ok, this is tricky. The Codex Astartes specificed very standardized colouring to indicate chapter and company markings, but I cannot recall the BA markings offhand (and they may not be following the standard to begin with..). Generally, the shoulder pad trim would indicate which company the Marine belongs to. The the left shoulder usually carries the Chapter markings, while the right shoulder generally carries the squad markings (or specialist markings). I never got that far. Generally, Dark Green is Dark Angels, but this could be Salamanders as well. Without a screencap it's difficult to tell. He's dying, but kept alive in a stasis field and by feeding on soul energy (hence the Carrion God reference). The Golden Throne is the stasis machine keeping him alive. No, and unlikely; GW hasn't touch that in decades, and is unlikely to touch it. Typically executed after the Horus Heresy. Someone else gave a detailed writeup on this, so I won't bother repeating this.

IIRC, no, it's plated/ chromed plastic, but I'll check again when I'm at home. Surprisingly, the shotgun is the weapon with the least (if not none) diecast. The pics only show the shotgun, the 90mm and the 175mm. It doesn't show the three (!) variety of 120mm cannons that the kit comes with -- if I got time later tonight I'll take more pics. Also, the weapons doesn't come with any attachment points. I got the shotgun to hang on the back of the leader Zaku by using the bazooka attachment part, but that's very loose and prone to falling out.

Ok, not much time tonight, just some very rough shots. Please ignore the cluttered background as much as you can.

Sorry folks, no photos tonight. It's been a tough night for me and I still got some ways to go. And yes, parts of the weapons are diecast; normally the magazines.