Agiel

The famous USAF theorist and "Godfather" of the "Fighter Mafia" John Boyd had noticed that in spite of the MiG-15 being superior in several key respects of flight performance to the F-86 Sabre, F-86 pilots were able to achieve, by conservative estimates, near 2:1 exchange ratios against the MiG-15. Boyd concluded that this was due to two factors: 1. The F-86 used hydraulic controls where the MiG-15 had manual controls. That meant that the MiG-15 pilot had to exert considerably more effort to "yank and bank" than his counterpart in the F-86, which was especially counter-productive in prolonged engagements. 2. Most pertinently to the above article, the F-86 boasted superior out of ****pit visibility. At least seven times out of ten in air combat the reason a given pilot died was because he never knew the threat was there, as was iterated in the Ault Report (AKA Project RED BARON) conducted after the Vietnam War, which is also why Antoine de Saint Exupéry, himself a pilot, remarked that air combat was not necessarily the "knightly, chivalrous combat" as some might believe so much as it was murder. The lesson: Success lay in being able to process your OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) loop faster than your opponent and using it to interfere with his.

For those of you who are waiting on this game, might I suggest trying out Steel Beasts? The "game" nominally costs $125 USD, but there is a 64bit open beta that is free to try until December 31st. To enter, first download and install the v3.011 client here: http://www.esimgames.com/?page_id=1390 Then request a beta license here: http://www.esimgames.com/?p=1714 You will have at your disposal the Leopard 2 series from the 2A4 to the 2A6 (as well as local flavours of the Danish, Swedish, and Spanish armies), the M1 from the old 105mm version to the M1A2 SEP, the Challenger 2 (albeit in a somewhat undermodeled form), and much, much more. And before you enjoy, remember: "Klotzen, nicht Kleckern."

120 degrees azimuth is far from an insignificant amount of airspace to be able to scan. Also, I can guarantee that if the rebels had one, there's at least 180 degrees bearing it isn't pointed in.

@Raithe An English friend who has emigrated here has relayed to me that he has grown the urge to stick a letter-opener into the temple of every person he sees that has a shirt with some variation of: "Keep Calm..." on it.

You'll forgive me if it seems tasteless of me to illustrate the tragedy using a computer game. Modeling the scenario using Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, which has an extremely exhaustive database. Start of the scenario. MH-17 (using a Boeing 767 as a stand-in for a 777, as for whatever odd reason the 777 isn't in the database). It is on a roughly south-west-west course overflying the SA-11 platoon. Note that the associated Snow Drift radar is completely absent. Proving that the TELAR is using just its own Fire Dome radar: SA-11 platoon detects MH-17. Without an advanced TV camera, the crew must use its Mark I Eyeballs to visually identify the target. Tough if it a track is 40 nautical miles away. MH-17 enters SA-11 missile range. The battery launches two missiles. In AAW operations, it is prudent to ripple fire two missiles to ensure maximum probability of a kill. As the missiles enter the end-game guidance phase, the SA-11 TELAR activates terminal illuminators: As it turns out, in this instance the second missile was unnecessary. The SA-11 had been designed for short-medium range engagements against maneuverable strike-craft like the F-16 and the F-15E Strike Eagle. Against a lumbering, cargo-plane sized jet, it may seem like overkill:

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Engagement-Fire-Control.html#mozTocId926428 9S35 "Fire Dome" SA-11 TELAR radar detection range 100km. Track and illumination range 95km. And I've yet to see anything that disproves the notion that the rebels had a "Snow Drift" search radar, either from Ukrainian or Russian stocks.

If the rebels for some reason decided not to use radar-guided SAMs so as not to somehow repeat the MH-17 incident or to discredit claims that they had an SA-11, and used infrared or SACLOS-guided MANPADS or other SHORAD instead, then it would be a bit difficult since anti-radiation missiles are dependent on the threat having a radiating emitter in order to guide to the target. It is possible to geolocate the launch if non-radar based systems are used using advanced IRST and targeting pods, though that does require *someone* with the balls to fly low and troll for fire (hence the old motto of the "Wild Weasels" of yore, "YGBSM." You gotta be s***ing me."

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43630_Misleading_AP_Headline_of_the_Day-_No_Link_to_Russian_Govt_in_Plane_Downing

Try dropping a non-fire based enemy in lava.

As far as "Man" films go that cause tears to well up, I found the ending of Heat far more moving and nuanced: http://youtu.be/wmpxIc1KB9I?t=57s

A Nautical Mile is also slightly above 6000ft, as opposed to 5280ft for a terrestrial mile. So take that into account for your conversions.

Shouldn't at all be that surprising: http://20committee.com/2014/04/07/putinism-and-the-anti-weird-coalition/ https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-kremlin-builds-an-unholy-alliance-with-americas-christian-right-5de35250066b

Real-time Apollo 11 on this 45th anniversary of the mission, if you're reading this just now: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.U8yLkrFZCME Replica of the lunar plaque from the Apollo 11 mission. Humanity has yet to live up to its words, and we may not for a very long time, but it doesn't make it any less worthy to aspire to.

John Schindler, aka 20committee on Twitter: https://twitter.com/20committee/status/490876305488224258

I actually am quite partial to Al Jazeera America. It may have its slant against Israel (though in spite of it, I think they're at least more on target than most US media is), but that's why I also read tons of other sources: Reuters, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Le Monde, Stratfor, and so forth. As long as the writing staff isn't filled with total kooks, then at the very least they serve as good sources to triangulate a reasoned point of view. Oh, and before anyone says anything, Fox News and Free Republic are about as worthy of my contempt as RT is.

Let's be real honest here, the Soviet Union and its successor state has also been given to bouts of gross negligence: http://youtu.be/_glEQuvurFQ?t=1m44s Then there was the West German pilot who penetrated the Soviet Union's layered air defense network to land in Red Square... in a Cessna: Postscript: The Alexandar Zuyev video also describes what is possibly the best defection plan in the history of mankind.

I couldn't help but think that every other line in Max Payne 3, whether in monologue or no, was "Class struggle! Class struggle! Class struggle! Substance abuse!" It's not necessarily and\ inaccurate assessment on the state of affairs in Brazil (far from it), but the whole game stunk of the writers imposing their own, Flanderised narrative onto another franchise (like people on this forum or No Mutants Allowed don't know what that's like).

I found it entertaining up to GTA IV. However it was when Rockstar's brand of satire began to infect Max Payne that it got tiresome, fast, for me.

Of course the end goal is to improve automation of unmanned vehicles so as to remove the possibility of the enemy gaining control of hacking into them, as embodied by the US Navy's efforts with the X-47B UCAV, which would be able to autonomously detect, track, and engage hostiles with the only input from human operators being the "Master Arm" switch. Also, as the greatest strength of un-piloted combat craft is the lack of putting a human operator at risk, a great deal of effort has been put into reducing their costs as well as producing them with off-the-shelf technologies so no truly sensitive materials are compromised as a result of a shootdown. A fellow armchair military enthusiast even relayed to me an idea based somewhat on the ALARM anti-radiation missile of autonomous airborne anti-aircraft missiles with a turbofan first stage so that it can loiter a given airspace for a time, then once it detects a hostile aircraft, uses a second-stage rocket booster to guide to the target. We're closer to this concept than you might think with two-way data-link weapons like the TACTOM Tomahawk, JSOW-C1, Naval Strike Missile, and the LRASM: http://youtu.be/LvHlW1h_0XQ Ultimately, whether for better or for worse, I think Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander were on the money with their idea on what the warfighter of the far-flung future is: A single man in the field with a legion of networked robotic warfighters at his fingertips.

Up to the Immaculate initiation now... Jesus Christ, can we have a moratorium on Myst-like puzzles in games? I thought PC gaming finally got Roberta Williams and and Jane Jensen out of its system.

Happy 45th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Why not celebrate with the best feature-length film made about it... that was made, and set, in Australia:

Funny you should say that. On the recommendation of a fellow Harpoon enthusiast and C:MANO developer, I picked up War Games by Thomas B. Allen. One of the most interesting things I picked up from it was in spite of the myth that the notional World War III would very quickly escalate into tactical and strategic nuclear exchanges, in simulated war games players showed a great deal of hesitation in using the nuclear option, such that they made sub-optimal decisions to avoid that scenario and continued to refuse to use nukes even when the situation screamed for it. In fact, the situation got so bad that eventually the moderators replaced human players with computers who were more than willing to press the big red button. This suddenly puts Ogarkov's theories on the automation of the C2 and reconnaissance-strike complexes in his "Revolution in Military Affairs" in harsher light.

At the moment I'm seriously miffed that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an enemy that will either a.) Poison, burn, or electrocute you if you hit it with melee or b.) kills you because it explodes when it dies. Current combat seems massively favoured towards mages and ranged since they can have expendable summons that can tank the enemies while the damage output of melee characters are simply not worth the resurrect scrolls.