Shore Leave

To all members of the HarpGamer forums and the greater Harpoon community, best wishes for Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Its been yet another great year for Harpoon, and with the release of the HCE demo, it should make for a great holiday season as the old timers, new players, and potential new players get some free time to try out the game. Between the smoky trails of your missile launches, make sure you spend some quality time with your loved ones over the holidays. Have a good one!

Pretty expensive, mind you...

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…

Too funny not to share ... http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-20-stupide...-vehicles-ever/

I just got some PM's that were obvious SPAM here. Anyone else get anything like that? I'm used to junk EMail, but these nitwits have never gotten to me here before. Buddha

Many of Matrix Games' titles are on sale for the holidays. HCE and H3ANW are both 30% off during this time, take advantage, buy a spare copy or two. Better yet, put one on your neighbor's front step! Matrix Holiday Sale!

081124-N-3659B-576 PACIFIC OCEAN (Nov. 24, 2008) Countermeasure wash down sprinklers are activated as the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) transits through the Pacific Ocean at the conclusion of a fly-off for Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 14. During the fly-off, the fixed-wing aircraft squadrons assigned to CVW 14 launched all of their available aircraft and flew them to their various homeports, leaving Ronald Reagan's flight deck virtually empty. Ronald Reagan is on a routine deployment in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of responsibility. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joseph M. Buliavac (Released)

This pic was taken at Camp Dodge i 1918 and contains 18000 men. Buddha

Now that the US has elected Obama, I think it is time to remind everyone that the annual vote for Pooner and Lifetime Pooner is approaching. Voting will begin December 1st. There may be some trinket awards this year for the winner, any ideas are welcome. A USNI tie or cufflinks cross my mind as potentials... For more details and to view the past winners, visit http://www.harpoonpages.com/poonervote/pooner-Intro.php

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.

Local paper article Might try and swing by there next week.

Join the fun at the "Harpoon Wargames" group on Facebook (I just whipped it up tonight, pretty basic). http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37152062266 Facebook is kinda freaky, people coming out of the woodwork and such.

From National Defense, November 2008 issue Customers Blamed for Military Aircraft Sticker Shock By Sandra I. Erwin The justification most often heard for the spiraling costs of military aircraft is that the Pentagon is ordering fewer of them, so they become more expensive to build. But that theory doesn’t hold water, says a recent government-funded study. The Rand Corp. examined cost trends for every military aircraft — patrol, cargo, trainer, bomber, attack, fighter and electronic warfare — for the past quarter century. It found that labor costs have grown only slightly faster than inflation, but the proportion of labor cost in overall aircraft price tags …

For all you UFO fans, this is pretty interesting: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_...itain_ufo_files Maybe someone should do a DB entry for ET's spaceship and design a scenario around it. Buddha

But I'd like to know what functions, as in what manned stations, are common to the CIC and what the use is of the bridge of a vessel. If possible, list the crew and officer stations for the CIC and Bridge separately. Thanks.

From Army Times Google Earth teams banned from military bases By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press Posted : Friday Mar 7, 2008 13:24:40 EST WASHINGTON — Citing security risks, the Pentagon banned Google teams from making detailed street-level video maps of U.S. military bases after images of a Texas base ended up on the popular Internet site. A message sent to all Defense Department bases and installations around the country late last week told officials not to allow the mapping Web site to take panoramic views inside the facilities. Google said taking such pictures is against its policy and that the incident was a mistake. Air Force Gen. Gene Renu…

This link came from Don Gilman, via the HULL. http://www.tom-phillips.info/images/cool.pics.military.3.htm Pretty good stuff. Buddha

I bet you thought this was another porn spambot post, shame on you! If you happened across the attack in progress against us today and weren't satisfied with the quality of naked females, we apologize. As a measure of protecting you from poor porn we've applied a one line security update to prevent a SQL injection attack that may be to blame for the antics today. Your truly dropped the ball and didn't notice it since it wasn't released as a patch by Invision, just a news announcement . Once again, please accept our apologies.

Balad warfighters unleash new weapon against insurgents "Two F-16 pilots with the 77th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron here executed the first-ever combat employment of a GBU-54 Aug. 12 against a moving enemy vehicle in Diyala province to support a combined Iraqi army and U.S. Marine operation." http://www.balad.afnews.af.mil/shared/medi...-080827-020.wmv

For any of you guys who're bored and looking for a second career, check this out: http://www.legion-recrute.com/en/ Buddha