F/A-18E Addon for Flight Simulator X, by VRS Products

I am always inspired by Jomni's stories and pictorials of simulated flight in Flight Simulator X (his site is in the blogroll), and when I saw the F/A-18E addon (AKA "Superbug") by VRS Products at my local BestBuy I just couldn't resist.

ArmA 2 - Old Dog, New Trick - Be Every Soldier in the Squad!

The dog is me and the trick is likely not new, but it's so cool I thought of sharing.

Close Air Support - Dive Bombing with the Ju-87B "Stuka"

Dropping JDAMs from the DCS A-10C in close air support missions can be challenging. But all the gadgetry of this aircraft makes WWII  close air support look archaic ... Or does not? I just needed to try the old way.

It's not a derailed train of thought ... it's exploration of warfare through the ages! Just kidding. Something is derailed, without thought or train ...

Short interruption in the other scheduled blog entries: Ju-87B (AKA "Stuka"), close air support by dive bombing.

500 Entries!

I'm not a guy driven by numbers and stats, but this given that 500 blog entries sounds like a mini-milestone I wanted to stop a little and thank you for reading this blog. You are the fuel that moves this engine and I am thankful for having such a wonderful readership.

Cheers,  

The Whole Theater of Operations at a Glance

Off topic ...

A couple of months ago something killed my good old XP computer (an aborted Windows update or a bad MSVisualC++ runtime installer part of a game package, don't know exactly). I finally resurrected this old bad boy, which happens to be connected to two monitors ...

Rise of Prussia, by AGEOD. Saxony, you will be getting it!

I didn't remember how much it helps me to have all the counters in one screen. This scenario is for a campaign waged in the north-south axis. My two monitor setup would not that good for an east-west axis.

I think I need one of those big flat screen TVs instead ...

Cheers,

DCS: A-10C Warthog - High Payoff Target at Nal'Chik - Part 1

(In case you are wondering: no, the tacky narrative is not included in the simulator.)

In the twisted power struggles between warlords, alliances shift unpredictably. Overextended over these lands of eternal conflict, the Coalition forces were walking the thin line between calculated risk and gamble. The region south of  Mozdok was under control of a handful of chiefs that more or less were aligned under the same hatred for their northern cousins, whom they considered extremists. Friendly to the Coalition forces, the southern combatants provided a comfortable buffer zone and allowed the Coalition forces to focus their counterinsurgency efforts elsewhere.

A late September incursion into this buffer zone by a hundred northern insurgents unmasked the feeble state of the loyalties.

IL-2 Cliffs of Dover - First Patch is Out

At the time of this entry Cliffs is still an untamed beast with a voracious appetite for stunning visuals who tries to chew too much at a time but ends up choking on the most basic features.

The screenshot above is taken from a low-level flight last night. The level of detail of trees, roads and towns is fantastic, but imposes a heavy toll on performance. I wonder how relevant for a combat flight simulator is to have such level of visual detail in the country side.

Please find below a few more screenshots.

Panzer Campaigns Tunisia '43 - Ignore that open flank, commander ... it's just a small scenario - Part 1

I played the Jebel el Guessa scenario today and got a draw. Victory conditions apart, I am getting too used to the many war gaming  tactical excesses I am  allowed to commit just because the battle map is a small chunk of the whole battlefield.

IL-2 Cliffs of Dover - Dogfight Turned Familiarization Flight

Yes. Not the smoothest release in the history of flight simulators. Nothing like the other problem-free flight sims that 1C Maddox had released years ago. Yet I can't stay away from it ... Gah!

The English Channel looks fantastic for a baptism of fire against a German bomber-fighter.

I soon discovered that I am still too green for a dogfight ...

Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004 - Book Review

Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004
by Dick Camp
Hardcover: 320 pages

Publisher: Zenith Press; First edition (March 28, 2011)


On the morning of July 31st 2004, the 11th US Marine Expeditionary Unit officially started a relief in place to the 1st US Army Infantry Division's Task Force Dragon. Being in command over a sector including the city of An Najaf was not expected to be an easy task, both the Army and Marines reckoned.