Wargaming the Urban Fight

I was watching "The Fight for Fallujah" (Military Channel stuff included in this DVD) and after seeing the real footage of the combat during Operation Phantom Fury (screenshot at the left) I am once again floored at the complexity of the urban terrain. Not that I didn't know it was complex, ...

Awesome F-16 3D cockpit

Since the old Falcon 4 days, I've always wondered how the real F-16 would fly. Falcon 4, despite all its accurate avionics and weapon systems delivery always felt like I was flying "on rails". Browsing other stuff at a store yesterday I stomped into "F-16 Fighting Falcon", an add-on for Flight Simulator X made by Aerosoft. The box claimed "Accurate Fly-by-Wire flight model", so I couldn't resist.

I was really surprised by the quality of this add-on. The 3D cockpit is just fantastic and I made the video above to show it to you. Even the multi-function displays (MFDs) work! Off course the stuff shown in these is not exactly what you can see in Falcon 4, but these guys made an effort to model even some sort of radar capability in there. Very nice ...

Gah! I'm becoming an eye candy guy ...

I'll explore the flight model at a later time. :)

Cheers,

A US Marines "Infantry" Squad, Part 2

This entry is a continuation from a previous one.

As you may remember, I wanted to find out what all the buzz about "infantry" squads was about by experimenting with ArmA 2.

So, I assembled a US Marine "infantry" squad as described by Capt. Sprincin in the Marine Corps Gazette article and lined them up under my command ...

"Red Pill", First Screenshots!

"Red Pill" is a naval-air war game currently in development by a team of very talented enthusiasts. The details of the game are scarce but think "Harpoon on steroids". Today they made public the first screenshots of the game. Read the full story and see all the screenshots at Warfaresims.com.  Looking good!
Cheers,
EDIT: Image above courtesy of Warfaresims.com.

Book and Game: "Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge" and "Kampfgruppe Peiper at the Battle of the Bulge"

If you are seeing this post through dial-up, I apologize beforehand for the sheer size of the images in this entry (yet I encourage you to click them for a better view). I just wanted to show  you the quality of the work you will enjoy when this war game comes out (very soon!). The screenshot is from the "Peiper's Race to the Meuse" scenario ...

Now watching: "Dogfights", the complete series on DVD

Got this DVD collection from the wife for Christmas. Great show. I just saw "MIG Alley", the first episode. I linked you to the first part of this episode in Youtube. If you go there, you will find the whole episode.

Cheers,

A US Marines "Infantry" Squad, Part 1

 "Every Marine a rifleman", they say. However the lack of organic crew served weapons at the platoon and squad levels has not escaped many savvy Marines who are pushing for adding more organic firepower into the US Marines Squads and Platoons.

In this entry, a US Marine "infantry" squad as seen through ArmA 2 ...

Do You Have What It Takes to Command a Whole Corps?

Although I never declared myself a fan of this simulation, I keep coming back to it at least twice a month.So many things to learn from it ...

Suppressive Fire in ArmA 2 v1.05

It works!
Messing around with a US Marines fire team (FT) yesterday, I was trying to take out a single MG nest. I ordered my automatic rifleman (AR, #2) to stay back and lay some fire into the enemy position while the rest of the team and me close with it. When I got there the enemy machine gunner was already eliminated so just for fun I ordered my AR to lay suppressive fire into the MG nest. Do you see the dust kicked out of the sandbags (arrow in the right)? It's my AR's suppressive fire coming from the right of the screenshot.

For using suppressive fire, it's important to keep in mind ...

Gah ! I've joined the Angle of Attack Church!

A time ago I posted an entry about how lousy of a virtual pilot I am.

I've lost count of how many virtual skies I've flown. Smolensk, Moscow, Okinawa, the Coral Sea, Korea, Great Britain, France ... I've chatted with fellow air combat simmers about energy and angles dogfights. I've been such a pedantic idiot that a couple of years ago I thought that I was done with combat flight simulators.  The truth is that after 10 years of on and off combat flight simming, I was not able to fly an airplane straight and level without continuously moving the stick back and forth.

(Click here or "read more" below for the full story)