Shore Leave

I know there aren't too many hockey fans around these parts, but I thought I'd plug em anyway. How about those Habs? I know Tony is rooting for the Wild, of course .. and well, I must say, I think they'll go far this year.

A trivia question for all of you out there... What 1961 movie features the F 346 Flora of the Royal Danish Navy? Hint: A line from the move is "There is no reason to be afraid. The military has everything in hand." (This, of course, pretty much guarantees that everything will go pear-shaped almost immediately.)

The way the NY Rangers played this regular season, up to the Olympic break, rejuvenated the franchise after failing to make the playoffs for more years than I care to remember. The lock-out/strike forced the Rangers to go with more of a youth movement than I believe management ever thought possible here in New York. We'll have to see how this project proceeds next season and beyond. The Rangers fate this year seems all but certain. The NJ Devils have outplayed the Rangers in every facet of the game. The 2005-2006 Devils will truely be a handful for their second round opponent and a valid contender for Lord Stanley's Cup. Thoughts,...how your team is faring?

After a few years of trying on and off, CV32 and myself finally met with success in establishing a multiplayer mission. For those of you who don't know, Fighters Anthology was one of the Janes' branded flight sims from Electronic Arts. It combined US Navy Fighters, Marine Fighters, ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighters), bug fixes, and new stuff. What that lineage means, is crappy graphics even for 1998 when it was released. But on the up side, tons of flyable planes, more missions than you can shake a stick at, and some pretty good stability. It is without a doubt my favorite flight sim since I can pick it up for a few minutes, have fun, then go on with my day. It d…

What is a Pooner? A person who gives of their time, talents, and riches to the Harpoon community. An award given yearly to recognize the efforts of the above. The yearly Pooner award recognizes extraordinary effort often within (but not restricted to) a single 12 month period. 12/15 - nominations are now closed, vote through the end of December See past winners at http://www.harpoonpages.com/pooner2010.htm If you are banned here at HarpGamer, e-mail me (tonye@harpgamer.com) your nomination and vote to have them entered. Please do take the time to vote, even if you are pretty new to the game. Bonus points if you expound upon how great your choice…

Simple question, what is depicted in this photo?

I've decided to revive the trivia questions that I used to post to the hull mailing list. I don't know how often they'll pop up here, but every now and then I'll post a trivia question for you to consider. Its pretty tough to come up with some challenging trivia for the die-hard types that frequent the Harpoon community, especially with the advent of powerful search engines like Google. But, anyway, we'll give it a go ... Here's the first: Trivia # 1: There is believed to be only one event captured in a photograph where a Medal of Honor was actually being earned. Who earned it ? Have fun.

I'm always amazed how little changes in the world of Harpoon. Most of us still want that dream version of Harpoon we wanted long long ago and feel scarcely closer to that goal. On the HC side part of it is surely that for the most part players are happy with what they have. It isn't perfect by any measure but it provides the enjoyment players are looking for and in a quantity that dilutes their chances of demanding and creating that dream Harpoon. One project undertaken by HHQ er WarefareSims looks to be the best bet yet by far and while I don't like the behavior perpetrated by them they still look to have the best up and coming effort by such a great degree it isn…

I purchased a handful of 1980's RN/Argentinians surface and aircraft a while back, and more modern US/various. While aircraft are 1/1250 (I'm pretty certain), the ships are 1/6000. I finally got around to painting some, and last nights victims were a gaggle of Type 22 FF's. Wow, these guys are tiny. I did the hulls, no problem, did the extreme tops of the superstructure...ok. Tried to put a thin black line along the "waterline". Unreal. Luckily I'm paralleling these with 1/2400 so we'll see how that goes. Anyone else have any experience with either 1/6000 or 1/2400 ships? Pete

Today my dad and I left on the great journey to Origins (http://www.originsgamefair.com/) where I'm to show the Harpoon colors, meet UncleHarpoon and Bond. We zipped 450 odd miles from Minnesota to Bloomington, Illinois. The hotel borders the airport where the Prairie Air Museum is located (http://www.prairieaviationmuseum.org/). It isn't open until tomorrow but once the heat of the day subsided I couldn't wait and walked over to the museum. It is small, but it has an F-14D as promised! I thought I had the self restraint to wait until tomorrow to see it but alas I couldn't and man is she beautiful! There is a ladder up to the cockpit too so at least I'll get to see …

This article was too good to miss posting here. From Chicago Sun-Times Policy on Iran nukes seems to be off-target April 16, 2006 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Happy Easter. Happy Passover. But, if you're like the president of Iran and believe in the coming of the "Twelfth Imam," your happy holiday may be just around the corner, too. President Ahmadinejad, who is said to consider himself the designated deputy of the "hidden Imam," held a press conference this week -- against a backdrop of doves fluttering round an atom and accompanied by dancers in orange decontamination suits doing choreographed uranium-brandishing. It looked like that Bollywood finale …

Tonnage Totals as of October 1, 1944 Brains: 405,965 CV32: 398,074 TonyE: 178,080 War Total: 982,119 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: September 4, 1939 (morning) Location: Mediterranean, somewhere northwest of Tunisia Weather: Sunny, clear, calm seas U-boats: 3 x VIIB (1939) Enemy force encountered: Very large British task force (including six battleships and numerous destroyer escorts) Results: CV32: Tonnage: 42,263, Renown: 1930 Sunk: 1 x Nelson BB, 1 x C class DD, 2 x Tribal DD, 1 x V&W DD TonyE: Tonnage: Nil, Renown: Nil Sunk: Nil Brains: Tonnage: Nil, Renown: Nil Sunk: Nil F…

The truth about assault weapons

What is a Pooner? A person who gives of their time, talents, and riches to the Harpoon community. An award given yearly to recognize the efforts of the above. The yearly Pooner award recognizes extraordinary effort often within (but not restricted to) a single 12 month period. Vote for Pooner of the Year! See past winners at http://www.harpoonpages.com/pooner2011.htm If you are banned here at HarpGamer, e-mail me (tonye@harpgamer.com) your nomination and vote to have them entered. Please do take the time to vote, even if you are pretty new to the game. Bonus points if you expound upon how great your choice for the 2012 Pooner is and why!

From what I have so far come to understand about this missile, it was superior to the Tomahawk in speed and, in later variants, range. I know it was abandoned for use in the role of nuclear deterent by the Polaris BM, but why weren't the plans dusted off when time came to made a cruise missile that can either sink a ship at 2,000 or more miles out at supersonic speed or hit inland targets, nuclear ordnance optional.

I'm kinda surprised - especially given our European members and the American success thus far - that no one has mentioned the World Cup. In any event, in recognition of Sunday's UK vs Germany game, I thought I would bring up ...

Since this subject always seems to get pulses racing, I thought I would throw out a hypothetical for your consideration. This is sort of a "Second War Between the States" scenario, Midway fashion. What USN air wing would fare better when pitted against the other ? Air Wing A: the typical 1980s era air wing, with two squadrons each of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets, another of A-6E Intruders, and a handful of KA-6D tankers (four was usual, iirc). or Air Wing B: the early 21st century air wing, with say, a squadron of F/A-18E, one of F/A-18F, and a couple of F/A-18C. Suppose the support aircraft (E-2C, EA-6B, helos, etc) and the ship platforms (CVN,…

HarpGamer was founded early in 2005 by four of us Harpooners on $4/month hosting using commercial forum software. The hosting and software costs were split between the four of us equally. Labor costs for backups have been shouldered by my company and in the last few years in part by those of us still contributing financially. The number of financial contributors has decreased to two since 2005. Our current service costs are US $265 per year and we expect that to increase as our forum continues to grow and require more processing power and more sophisticated backup schemes. That number does not include reasonable renumeration for the labor to execute backups and si…

10 December 1941: Had been assigned command of the Porpoise class USS Permit (SS-178) in the Asiatic Fleet, stationed in the Philippines. Departed this morning enroute to patrol in the Sulu Sea. Weather fair. Early in evening received radio message that Japanese had sunk the British battleships HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales in the South China Sea, but morale aboard the boat was still high. Later that evening COMSUBPAC advised that we were to engage enemy merchant shipping in the vicinity of the Philippines. USS Permit underway on 10 Dec 41 11 December 1941: Arrived in patrol area before dawn. At midday came under attack from a Japanese H6K search p…

Picked up Angles Of Attack, An A-6 Intruder Pilot's War by Peter Hunt last night through inter-library loan. It apparently details the authors view of Desert Storm operating off of USS Ranger in the Persian Gulf. I'm trying to gleen some loadout and strike tactics gouge from the book so taking some geek-notes on my bookmark. Anyone else read this?