Monte Carlo

The Abrams was conceived in the 70's, but Main Battle Tanks are a bit like aircraft in that they are constantly up-graded to the point where the modern one is only marginally the same as the original. In Britain the army is still using the Spartan / Saracen CVR(T) series APCs which were about in the early 70's. Except ours aren't up-graded. I remember the infamous Iraq press conference where Don Rumsfeld is rendered speechless, and almost booed, by a load of US infantrymen asking him about up-armoured Humm-Vees. They were McGuyvering their own armour on them, the US army didn't have enough light armour. Tanks? Sure. Light armour? Hmmm. No. Bit of a smack on the FAIL button, really. The British army had the exact same problem with land-rovers. So you can be a top-flight military power and still get the procurement basics wrong. The US can deliver iced-soda and pizza hut in theatre in 48 hours, it can drop tonnes of ordnance on a precise area from a mile above the earth and it can ship an armoured bridge anywhere on earth completely independently by sea... but it can't provide adequate light armour protection. I'm not even being facetious, merely pointing out an interesting contradiction.

About EA being the driving force behind some of these decisions, well I've read lots of interviews with key Biowarians where the suggestion has been whole-heartedly re-buffed. I actually believe them. Bioware is all grown-up now, it is a heavyweight player in the industry. It is more than capable of making bottom-line business decisions all by itself, which is what I suspect has happened here.

Partially. The US quest for Full Spectrum dominance isn't predicated entirely on technology, although it's obviously a component. The US leads the way because it has consistently shown the political will to do so and sinks millions of dollars into (not necessarily high-tech) key military infrastructure like logistics and stuff like helicopters / transport aircraft and so on. For example, the American Abrams / M-1 tank programme is super-cool, but in Iraq it spent most of it's time behaving like a WW2 assault gun or crushing taxis. You don't need dozens of regiments of it. Maybe a couple of spearhead divisions, sure, but the US would never get all it's tanks to (say) China before the whole thing went tac-nuke. Iran? Seriously, I'd be looking at a medium / light armour solution there and the whole thing would be decided by US air superiority, which is high-tech and you have in abundance. One hi-tech weapons package can allow a military to adopt a lower-tech one elsewhere. If I were a combat infantryman I'd want to see the tax-dollar being poured into stuff like combat medicine, IED tech, up-graded body armour systems, digital reliable personal comms, helicopters, ground attack air assets... not super-carriers, air superiority fighters or the next generation of super-tank. But, hey, what do I know?

Clarkson is only 'anti-American' in a jokey way, because he'll always tell you about the things he loves about the States, particularly the cars. Although the car crash interview when he meets his hero, a very curmudgeonly Chuck Yeager, is a classic. "Never meet your heroes." Chuck wheels out the old "we saved your Limey asses" routine IIRC. The riposte should have been almost three years late and we're still paying back the loan.

I know it sounds odd, but there are a couple of really good pirate-themed games that fit the bill.

They won't. the Dutch, Germans, Scandies... they just won't. They think the post-WW2 peace dividend and post-Cold War world means decades of the Great Satan America providing all the strategic lift for them. They suckle at the US defence teat and resent you right back for it. German troops sit in their barracks playing token contribution while US and British grunts soak up the attrition. The problem is, the US wants all these deployments and offers blood and treasure as a carrot to get the European defence-lite nations to agree at the UN. A bit of isolationism followed by some local instability might get them to concentrate their minds a bit. But the world isn't like that now, power blocs and triple entente. We have foreign policy a la carte, a system whereby each nation chooses it's allies on a day-to-day basis. And Wals, the reason there won't be a great big war (to which you quote the Falklands, to wit an impressive feat of arms... but to call it a war is like calling my lunchtime BLT and an apple a banquet) is because no sucker in the West will fight. Even the Russians struggle with conscription. Where is the manpower going to come from? WW3 would be small-scale conflagrations, a shock and awe bout of cyber-blitzkrieg then tac-nukes. Ergo we need mobile forces, state of the art cyber defence and lots of bunkers and submarines. Tanks? Nah.

No, because in the 1930's there were no nuclear deterrents, cyber-attack capability, Web 2.0 global comms culture.... and so on and so forth. I'm trying to imagine the scenario where we will need armoured regiments with Challies cutting across the plains supported by shed-loads of panzergrens in warriors. I'm failing. Even so, we can mothball those and dig them out when required, even FRES envisages light mobile forces. The enemy for the next twenty-thirty years seems to be the insurgent driving about in pick-up trucks. If we start fighting the Chinese or Russia it's going to go tac-nuke very quickly, why fight the 1980's "Hold them at the Weser" three-day battle anymore? Defence is a pork barrel for civil servants and an arms industry that has become the tail that wags the dog. Time for a change.

Let's get rid of billion-pound air superiority fighters for starters, all we need is a shed-load of helis (army), tpt planes (give those to the army too) and some fast air for the crabs to... help the army. Fast air can be bought off the shelf from the spams like Apache is, under a licence. Oh, and work out how many one-four star officers you actually need and sack the surplus. Incentivize officer ranks below that with role-related pay increments and lateral development. Brigade the Royal Marines and the Para Regt. Parachute infantry battalions are now as relevant as horse-borne cavalry in 1939. Re-role half the line infantry into air-mobile light divisions, get rid of the Cold War era panzergrenadier mind-set. It's the usual, really. slay sacred cows. Cut the fat from management. Concentrate of core business. Sort of kit procurement. Doesn't matter if you are Tesco or the MoD, it's business 101.

And given that his brother is an infantry officer it was twice as vile... Yes. Well done, Clarkson.

Bioware in one sentence.

Mwuahahahhaaaaa!!! Tanks are where it's at and it's free. I am pleased to see my tunnel-fighting exploits are consistently awesome. I suspect that I will die repeatedly in the final stages of the game, though. Tigs, what armour is he wearing?

Sorry about the tardiness of the updates but work has been hectic. There will be one later in the week as our heroes try to remember their high school chemistry to figure out where 'Slime' fits into the periodic table.

Tigranes, can you post the character sheet screens please?

That's horrific news. I hope the other driver gets locked up and they throw away the key.

CoH is an exercise in perpetual motion, folks don't understand that your battered force of 3 Volks, one pio and a puma with it's arse on fire can turn the tide if they freaking well advance.

Old gamers never die, they just go to hell and re-group.

I am, ahem ::cough:: somewhere in my forties ::cough::

After Jerry Cornelius I've been on an epic military history odyssey. A Bridge too Far by Cornelius Ryan, D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose, plus assorted tracts on Arnhem, the Rhine Crossings in 1945, the Ardennes and Monte Cassino. After all that crunchy military stuff am in the mood for frivolity, so I might switch to something a bit lighter. May I recommend Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, Berlin Noir ( Amazon link ) is particularly good and the second tryptych in the saga also rocks if you dig the whole shady-nazis-meet-gangsters-in-latin-america vibe, circa. 1956. Cheers MC

Tonight I'm planning on catching Solomon Kane on pay-per view unless somebody can advise me otherwise.

I was middle-aged when I registered here in 2004. That's hardcore.

If a game looks like a FPS then folks are going to compare it to a FPS. That's just the way it is, personally I couldn't care less, it looks fine to me. As for the iron sights, sure that looked horrible but then again it was a horrible rifle. I'd rather fight with a broken nuka-cola bottle than a rifle that freaking ugly. OTOH some of the OTT hi-tech weapons look like more fun than a sack of mutated kittens.

^ I'm not young. I'm getting older every minute, but it's strangely enjoyable. And DA2 will suck.

If you know what you're doing then this early stage is frustrating as newbie players learn the ropes. Stick to 1 V 1 unless you are playing with friends. I got pwned by an airborne player who just wouldn't quit today, his base was in ruins but he ground me down. My fault for going straight to T3 and missing out on mortars and decent inf. At least I learnt a lesson.

My Alienware laptop is awesome. If I had more money I'd go for the 17 but the 15 is still groovy.

Thanks for all the Guild Wars feedback - reading the back of the gamebox, it was the solo aspect of the game that appealed to me.