Nied
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Posts posted by Nied
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I do have to say why didn't zim get picked up instead or whatever the heck 12oz mouse is supposed to be. Yeah I know most of the viewers of cartoon network at the 12-4am slot are drunk, stoned, trippin, or some combination of the three. I've been all three plus some other stuff I won't go into detail about and 12oz mouse still sucks. If I hadn't been so f@cked up I would have changed the channel
I find 12 oz mouse pretty funny if I've had a few drinks otherwise it's kind of incomprehensible.
Cartoon Network actually did try to pick up Invader Zim, however Nickelodeon blocked it. Depending on who you ask it was either to keep programming out of the hands of a hated competitor, or to spite series creator Jhonen Vasquez who isn't well liked by the Nickelodeon higher ups.
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Just to help everyone visualize this I did some quickie color schemes in photoshop of the schemes I was talking about earlier. Personally I'm starting to lean towards the first TPS scheme but that Hill scheme looks pretty good too.
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The original Low viz had a paint job that was based heavily on the USAF Compas Ghost or Mod Eagle schemes that you see F-15s in (the F-22 has a similar scheme that uses slightly different colors, this has also been applied to select F-117s).
I would love to see the new version in the Hill or the more complex Egypt One scheme worn by F-16s
The other way to go is the classic Tactical paint scheme worn up until very recently by US Navy Tomcats (and everything else in the USN too):
ANd just for variation's sake I've always had a soft spot for the Harrier version of the TPS scheme:
You can go here for more schemes.
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No. 13 looks to be an SR-71 engine on the left, an Aerospike engine in the center, I'm not sure what's on the right X-33 wing component maybe? Actually what's been giving me the hardest time is the fuselage in the background, at first I thought it was a SUD Caravelle because of the windows (which would be kind of odd to see at edwards) but the tail is all wrong.
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"Rifle" actually reafers to the fireing of an AGM like a maverick.
"Magnum" is the call for fireing a HARM missile ("shotgun" is used for all other Anti-Radiation missiles)
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Yeah but check out the bitchin' heat-shield
Awesome! That's almost exactly how I imagined a Sundowners VF-1 would look (in both fighter and Batroid mode). Nice job on the weathering too.
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I didn't know the SDB had a seeker head on it. I always thought it was a tiny JDAM with wings. What kind of seeker does it have? Laser, IIR, millimeter wave radar, or "If I told you I'd have to kill you."
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So I've been reading through the new F-22 book I got for Christmas (titled simply "Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor" by Jay Miller), and it's gotten me thinking about the possibilities for the F-22 beyond being an uber air dominance fighter. For instance the Small Diameter Bomb: current plans call for it to carry 8 in the belly bays, but looking at the pictures of them loaded in it looks like it could carry at least another two in each bay and maybe even another pallet of four, that makes it 16 SDBs (but only Sidewinders for self defense). But wait there's more: most of the plans for the FB-22 that I've seen call for it to carry two or three SDBs in the sidewinder bays, those same plans currently call for the FB-22 to use the same fuselage as the vanilla F-22, I can't imagine a reason why that same modification couldn't be rolled back in to the legacy aircraft. All of the sudden the F-22 makes a pretty good CAS platform, with 14-22 SDBs it could dump bombs out of its bays B-52 style only, only since it's carrying them internally it's completely stealthy so it can be doing this on the first day of war, and it's can get to a trouble spot at twice the speed of sound. If air threats have been cleaned up and stealth isn't a necessity any more you could hang another 16 SDBs under the wings as well. And as long as we're talking about FB-22 mods being rolled back into the F-22, does anyone know what could keep Lockheed from putting the FB-22's bulged weapons bay doors on the F-22? A lot of hay has been made about how it would give the FB-22 the ability to carry 2,000 lb bombs in the bay, but it hasn't been mentioned that the JSOW glide bomb has almost identical dimensions. A pair of those would make the DEAD mission I described above even more effective, the F-22s could release their weapons much further away and would probably need to jam the radars for a second or two to keep the S-300 from getting a lock on the JSOW (although they are stealthy as well so that might not even be necessary).
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Newer Super Hornets have an AESA radar (the APG-79) that's a lower powered derivative of the APG-77 in the Raptor, so it should have similar capabilities (this is also why it should make an excellent jamming platform). AFAIK the Mirage 2000 (the latest mirage variant) has an old fashioned mechanically steered radar and thus wouldn't be able to do this. In fact, other than the F-22, the F/A-18E/F, and a handful of F-15Cs, I don't think that there are any other operational AESA radars in service (and all of those are from the US).
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is this true of the f-22 radar suite?
http://electronicaviation.com/sections/news/Military/560
F-22 and JSF Radar Can Fry Enemy Sensors
discuss | subscribe | printable version
Posted on 6-5-2005 at 06:18 PM
Posted By Michael
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The radar mounted on the F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) can be used to fry electronic parts of ground-based radars and disable airborne cruise missiles, program officials for the planes acknowledge.
U.S. Air Force officials and contractors have longed bragged about the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, citing its ability to track multiple targets, map terrain and protect planes from attack. And there have been hints of offensive capability, like a brief mention of “high power electronic attack†on one of the JSF’s glossy marketing brochures.
But contractors say they have not publicly talked about the capability — until now.
“It could cause actual physical damage to a system … providing it’s on the X-band,†a common frequency for military radars, said Wayne Wilson, the director of fighter business development for Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems.
The radars — the AN/APG-77 for the Raptor and the more advanced AN/APG-81 intended for the JSF — emit electromagnetic emissions that could be used to damage or disrupt guidance components in cruise missiles, Wilson said. Other sources said the radar also can help deflect air-to-air missiles.
It’s been a given that pilots could use the radar to track the missiles, or other aircraft, in order to attack them with their own air-to-air weapons. But, military analysts say, it’s the offensive possibilities that make the sensor-turned-weapon a much more powerful tool.
They say the Air Force could fly a “wall†of Raptors or JSFs through an area to knock out enemy radars, sweeping a battle zone clean of many threats to aircraft and ground forces.
The revelation comes as Air Force officials work to convince Pentagon officials to allow them to buy more of the stealthy, supersonic Raptors. Service officials want more than 400 of the jets, but Pentagon officials decided to cap the program at about 180.
I'd imagine a Raptor or JSF would have to get pretty close to actually do damage to another radar (earlier reports said only the Raptor would be able to do this, and only after being upgraded with extra "Cheek" antenna). I do think that AESA radars can be very effective jammers in many circumstances, especially when mounted on a stealth platform. In fact I think the combo of stealth speed and the APG-77 radar will make the F-22 one of the most deadly SEAD/DEAD platforms on the face of the planet.
Imagine if you will:
A pair of F-22As move in to the FEBA (Forward Edge of Battle Area) at mach 1.5 with four SDBs and four AMRAAMs in their bellies (plus two AIM-9X Super Sidewinders in their side bays). Their radars are in passive mode, acting as some of the most sensitive RWRs to be mounted on a fighter plane, with it they can pick up the radar of an S-300 SAM system, its enormous range held in check by a pair of F/A-18G growlers orbiting several hundred Kilometers away. The Raptors fly gentle S curves so that they can triangulate the range of the massive BILL BOARD tracking radar for the S-300, combined with the ESM sensors on board the data linked Growlers the F-22s begin to build a picture of the exact location of the radar. At this point the lead raptor sets its radar into transmit mode, going into LPI ground mode it fixes the exact position of the radar, while it's wingman remains in passive mode keeping an eye on the pair of J-10s flying CAP 300 km inside the enemy border, the two update each other using their datalinks so that both have the exact same information. The Raptors then move in for the kill, the two aircraft split up and move in from two different directions, the lead ship focuses it's radar into a tight beam completely blinding the S-300, while the second Raptor, still in passive mode goes to full afterburner. It accelerates to Mach 1.8, drops two SDBs and turns toward the now alerted J-10s. The lead ship drops two SDBs of its own and then throttles back so that it can continue jamming the S-300 so that it is unable to target shoot down the four SDBs speeding toward it at well past the speed of sound (it does have that capability). At the last minute it turns and breaks away, the S-300 can see everything now the four glide bombs and even a weak return from the lead Raptor, but its too late, the bombs are only a second away. The first two SDBs land within meters of the tracking radar assembly spraying the antenna and command station with shrapnel, instantly disabling it. One of the second pair of bombs scores a direct hit vaporising the high powered radar antenna. The lead ship then turns to join it's wingman firing off a pair of AMRAAMs at the two pursuing J-10s before speeding off behind the curtain of jamming.
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Well it looks like my comment on the last page about the F120 living on as the F136 may have been premature. The DoD is trying to axe the F136 program to save costs (this despite the fact that the F136 might just become the greatest fighter engine ever). This could be another blow to the JSF program. With Rolls Royce's 40% work share in the F136 this is a real blow to the UK's involvement, and an even bigger symbolic blow considering the problems the Brits have had with technology transfer issues. This comes on top of the news that Australia is also getting cold feet on the JSF over the same technology transfer issues. They're the two biggest partners in the JSF program and they're backing away, that's very bad news indeed.
In other news it looks like the Air Force is pretty desperate to get a decent number of F-22s. They're talking about axing a number of programs to pay for the full 277 fighter that they wanted. They want to get rid of the F-117 (good idea, the F-22 carries a similar bomb load but is stealthier faster and can carry A-A missiles for self defense), half the fleet of B-52s (neutral, modern PGMs and ALCMs have been force multipliers for the B-52 fleet, but it never hurts to have more), and kill the U-2 (bad idea, the Global Hawk really isn't ready to take over for the Dragon Lady, and wont be for several years, and even then I don't think it will be a proper replacement).
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Well I gues driving a robot with a mouth on it's chest is slightly better...
Several years ago I made a VF-1A in euro-1 camo with flying tigers markings. On that one I painted the shark mouth on the head in batroid mode. I always thought that would work well.
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I thought you might like that.
I actually have a whole history of the Sundowners in UN Spacy service mapped out in my head, from the VF-1 to the VF-22. If I ever get around to doing a VF-1, I thought I'd put a shark mouth on it with a note that it was removed fairly early on because to quote one pilot "no one wants to drive a robot with a mouth on it's crotch."
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I had heard speculation that the RAF may pull the radars out of retiring Shars and plug them into the nose of the GR.9, turning it into something very similar to the AV-8B+ (only with a more powerful Blue Vixen Radar instead of the APG-65).
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Too expensive, especially when you consider that the Super Hornet is being purchased for the role originally envisioned for the NATF. Besides which the F-22 would be too expensive. If the F-35 is canceled, the only option I could think of would be to up the number of Super Hornets purchased, and rush development of Naval UCAVs. That might work out in the end but I don't like putting that much trust in unmanned aircraft this early in the game.
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I'm hella thrilled that Britain and France are finally going to have their own mammoth flat-tops (not that the DeGaulle is really small...). The problem I think is that they're going to figure out very quickly that in order to EFFECTIVELY use a ship that size, they're gonna need a diverse airwing (either different aircraft for various jobs, or at least different variants of similar aircraft for different jobs). I'm guessing a navalized variant of the EF will be involved (maybe in combination with the F-35, I dunno). I suppose they could always stick the FRS.9s on there (that are replacing the current Sea Harriers soon)
Well the French already have the Super Etendard as their current strike plane. I think the plan may be to replace them with strike optimised Rafale Ns, with the single seat Rafale Ms as the air superiority component. I suppose the Brits could do the same thing with Sea Typhoons (or some kind of combo of Sea Typhoons and Rafales).
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And now the two blanks I promised almost three years ago (hellohikaru will be happy about this). I had to put them in a .zip file because they were too big to post otherwise. All are free to use them I just ask that you give me credit for the original blank. Here they are, the VF-11B and C with FAST packs:
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How about navalized, Typhoons and Tornadoes. *ducks flying fruit* Seriously though i could see the brits going for the F-35C, look at the diagram and it clearly shows the F-35C on deck, not the F-35B. Hmm, maybe I should submit the Razor paper to the RN and see if they are interested, of course I could never produce it at this point, lol.
I've been thinking more and more that if the F-35 survives they should just kill the A and B models and give all three US services the C model (with a few modifications like higher G loadings and maybe an internal gun). This keeps well with the whole "super-SLUF" theory of the JSF. Honestly the JSF looks like it might just go down in flames at this point. Which will be good for the F-22 but bad for just about everyone else (I guess the Marines could purchase Super Hornets, but I don't know what the heck the Navy is going to do).
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It's obvious that it's a reference to a specific aircraft and unit, as are most of the comps. However, my point is - all the other comps look as though they could fit into the Macross continuity of things to come whereas the swastika simply doesn't. It's inclusion in a series of futuristic aircraft (either real or fictional) suggests that the Third Reich would have a place in the world tomorrow.
If he were comping FW-190s or ME-109 paint schemes and unit markings, then the swastika has a historical purpose for being there. But you wouldn't see a Tornado, Alpha Jet or Eurofighter wearing one nor would it ever be considered.
And if he wanted to comp German paint schemes, WW2 schemes wouldn't be a problem and there have been plenty of other schemes the German Air Force and Navy have used since then that are just as interesting (and probably more effective): Don Color's Post-War German Air Force Colors
I'm not suggesting that he be run off the internet, but that comp's just in really bad taste.
Well I think that's just the point, you wouldn't see any of those modern fighters or a Valkyrie painted up like Japanese Zeros, USAAF P-51 mustangs, or RAF Spitfires either, but he has Valkyries painted up like every one of those on that site. I don't think that he's intending to portray "real" in service Valkyries with the UN Spacy (note that most of those schemes feature the original national insignia from those WWII fighters not the UN Spacy "fighting kite"), just a fun "this is what a Valkyrie looks like painted like a Messerschmitt" (or Zero, or Mustang, or Spitfire) sort of thing.
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Check this out.
Beat me to it. God damn now I really need to upgrade my system, first Lost Coast and now the prospect of MSFS with high resolution textures and HDR lighting? My wallet's about to get pretty thin.
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This is probably just going to get me hate, but what the hell. Have you guys ever actually watched film noir or German Expressionist films?
Blade Runner was supposed to be a callback to that. That is what the narration is about. That is why it's so dark. You can complain that Harrison Ford is mediocre, but the whole point is that his character is a loser. His LIFE is mediocre. The world's poo, and so is he.
If you read interviews with Ford about the movie he had a miserable time, partly because he hated Sean Young (who played Rachael) and largely because he was "a detective who didn't detect anything", and you know, a loser. Ford's good roles are always where he gets to have fun and be a bigger than life guy who rules and everyone loves him.
No wonder he was miserable. His character was.
Anyway, I don't think he botched the narration on purpose (also apocryphal), I think he was just miserable, and he SOUNDS miserable in the narration, which is exactly what he's supposed to be. Noir and German Expressionist film can be hard to watch for a lot of people, because it's no fun. The world blows, your main characters gets poo on, and nothing is solved in the end, or everyone's dead, or the main character is ruined, et cetera. It's intentionally bleak and miserable, and Blade Runner was just echoing that.
A big point of those old films was the art direction. A central point of Expressionist art in general is that the external world reflects the internal world. Good examples: In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with its borderline insane characters, the world is twisted and bizarre. In M, a serial killer is murdering (and possibly raping) children and the police is too incompetent to catch him, so they just hassle the "respectable" criminals (gangsters and prostitutes, etc.). The criminals catch the murderer. The world is a horrible place, and the art direction reflects this. Everything is dirty and broken down, dark and shadowy. That's what Expressionist/noir film is like. I think you guys don't like Blade Runner because you want a sci-fi action adventure like The Matrix or something. Blade Runner has zero interest in being that kind of film.
As for the Director's Cut, bleh. I've read the original screenplay and the final shooting screenplay. Ridley Scott's unicorn scene is not in it. It sucks, too, because it removes the intentional ambiguity in the film. It's supposed to be that you're not sure if Deckard is a replicant or not. He's a loser and he's kind of inhuman. A big point of the movie is that the replicants are -still people-. Look at how tortured Roy is by his own mortality. He's a bad guy, sure, but he's still relatable. Our HERO is the empty one. More human than human, remember? Anyway, another problem is that again, Blade Runner was supposed to be noir, and a hallmark of noir is voice over narration. The movie is really slow and kind of vauge without it. Seriously, there are scenes that make no damn sense without the narration. I mean, yes, noir typically has a measured pace, but yeah, voice over narration makes it go by faster. Without it, Blade Runner is just plodding. And while I think the "happy" ending sucks, the non-ending of the Director's Cut sucks worse. What, the film just STOPS? Lame. In the screenplay isn't not like that. The original ending has Deckard and Rachael escaping together, and then he kills her so that Gaff can't do it. The final shooting screenplay isn't as bleak: it ends with Deckard and Rachael trying to escape and Gaff chasing them. That closure is nice because you know that Gaff is just playing with them, giving them time to escape to make the chase more fun. In the Director's Cut you're like, "What, Gaff just let them go? This is bullshit."
Anyway, as someone has already said, the Director's Cut isn't even really a director's cut. Some studio douchebags rushed it out the door with vauge input from Scott.
Rumor has it a new DVD set of BR will come out with the vaporware actual director's cut, original theatrical cut, and the longer original home video cut (which is like the euro cut, in that in contains more violence and swearing than either the theatrical cut or the Director's Cut we have now), but we'll see if that ever actually happens.
Trust me I am quite familiar with German Expressionist film (you left out Nosferatu BTW), and Noir. Indeed that's why I'm agnostic about Decker's narration, instead of angry at it's inclusion, It fits with the whole detective film Noir theme the movie has going, it's just Harrison Ford does such a bad job that it takes away almost as much as it adds. My problem with Blade Runner isn't that it's dark, or it's characters it's that (in the director's cut at least) it's pacing is plodding at best. A better editing job would have done that movie wonders.
As for the ending I definitely prefer the directors cut version in that regard, it fits better with the Philip K Dick tradition of ambiguous endings better (and would work even better without the Unicorn sequence). Honestly there's only one movie based on his works that really got that ambiguity right and that was Total Recall (and it over did it a bit by hitting you over the head with Arnold's "what if I'm still dreaming?" line).
Macross, Attack Of The Clones!
in Movies and TV Series
Posted
Time to pull out this old chestnut. here's the screenshot from Admiral Hayes' display in the Grand Cannon showing the areas bombarded by the Zentradi. The Grand Cannon was fired right after this and the battle with the Macross' fleet started up there wouldn't have been much time for the Bodol fleet to do follow up bombardments. It's possible that the further battles with the remnants of the Bodol fleet further ravaged the planet, nut it's likely that the final damage was largely similar to what's seen on this map.
As you can see Eurasia and Africa were the hardest hit, this includes both major population centers in India and China (which account for a sizeable portion of the Earth's population) but also sparsely populated areas like Siberia. Interestingly it apears that Japan was completely obliterated. Africa takes a pretty good hit especially in the west while the central protions and the middle East apear to have fared reletively better. Australia takes a pasting with almost half of the continent bloted out of existance. Much of the central portion of South america was blasted, but there is still enogh areas left that the rainforests seen in the reconstruction episodes could plausibly have survived. Whoever was in charge of North Americas bombardment seems to have been much more methodical, most of the heavily populated areas apear to have been struck first, leaving a good chunk of the American breadbasket, and the Yukon unscathed.