From the mouth of Aristotle

[Boron]

One Last thing back on the Nuke topic though .
Some things we normal mortals will never know .

So perhaps Israel got their first nuke like you told but Israel was almost always backed up by the USA and Israels secret service , the mossad is extremely good too .
So they say perhaps they got their nuke like you told but probably at least shortly after they got lots of new , better nukes or at least the ICBM's for that from the USA .

Israel was always amazingly inventive when getting new weapons in the past time though . They got the best from France/Soviet Union/Usa etc. etc.
They have probably the second best army of the world now . Only the Usa has a better army .


Another thing where i am quite interested but where it is hard to impossible to get good answers is how effective Stealth technology really is . The "sucky" europeans now just developed finally the eurofighter while you develop your F-22 Raptor who has stealth abilities but is an adequate all role fighter too unlike e.g. the F-117 .
So if only half of what your PR's say/claim there the F-22 is probably 20-30 years ahead of the eurofighter and every other fighter that exists at the moment in the world .

[Zen]

Boron said:
Another thing where i am quite interested but where it is hard to impossible to get good answers is how effective Stealth technology really is . The "sucky" europeans now just developed finally the eurofighter while you develop your F-22 Raptor who has stealth abilities but is an adequate all role fighter too unlike e.g. the F-117 .
So if only half of what your PR's say/claim there the F-22 is probably 20-30 years ahead of the eurofighter and every other fighter that exists at the moment in the world .

Ah, the F-22 Raptor is definitive of it's generation of Stealth Class combat aircraft. Unfortunately it costs more than you will make in 3 generations, not including it's armaments or navigation systems. I doubt there is or will be another national aircraft that will compare to it and it's subsequent Versions for another 10 years.

Though considering the outlandish contracts given to military contractors at this point (due to federal funding) by the US Government you'd be hard pressed to find another nation with that kind of budget.

[Boron]

Zen said:

Ah, the F-22 Raptor is definitive of it's generation of Stealth Class combat aircraft. Unfortunately it costs more than you will make in 3 generations, not including it's armaments or navigation systems. I doubt there is or will be another national aircraft that will compare to it and it's subsequent Versions for another 10 years.

Though considering the outlandish contracts given to military contractors at this point (due to federal funding) by the US Government you'd be hard pressed to find another nation with that kind of budget.

Unfortunately the info at www.af.mil which is the official government site Afaik is very small .
Basically thats all :

Prior to its selection as winner of what was then known as the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition, the F/A-22 team conducted a 54-month demonstration/ validation (dem/val) program. The effort involved the design, construction and flight testing of two YF-22 prototype aircraft. Two prototype engines, the Pratt & Whitney YF119 and General Electric YF120, also were developed and tested during the program. The dem/val program was completed in December 1990.

Much of that work was performed at Boeing in Seattle, Lockheed (now known as Lockheed Martin) facilities in Burbank, Calif., and at General Dynamics' Fort Worth, Texas, facilities (now known as Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems). The prototypes were assembled in Lockheed's Palmdale, Calif., facility and made their maiden flight from there. Since that time Lockheed's program management and aircraft assembly operations have moved to Marietta, Ga., for the EMD and production phases.

A $9.55 billion contract for Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) of the F/A-22 was awarded to the industry team of Boeing and Lockheed Martin in August 1991. Contract changes since then have elevated the contract value to approximately $11 billion. Under terms of the contract, the F/A-22 team will complete the design of the aircraft, produce production tooling for the program, and build and test nine flightworthy and two ground-test aircraft.

In February 1995, the Air Force customer approved the final design of the F/A-22 air vehicle and confirmed that the program was ready to proceed to fabrication and assembly. The Air Force plans to procure 339 F/A-22s, and production is scheduled to run through 2013.

A press release from 5/17/2004 :

The cost (for the F/A-22) is coming down,” he said. “In fact, a year ago Dr. Marvin R. Sambur (assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition) was able to negotiate 21 planes for the price of 20.”

Secretary Roche said that Raptors now cost less than $150 million per copy. The price tag should come down even further as the program continues to stabilize, he said.

From www.globalsecurity.org :

In mid-2002 the Defense Department was assessing the F-22 program as part of a review directed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that called for an option to reduce the quantity of program to 180 from 295. That's less than one-fourth the initial plan for 750 planes. As of 2002, DOD had spent $26 billion of the $69 billion planned for the F-22 program. All four defense committees in Congress had approved the request for $4.6 billion in fiscal 2003 to buy 23 aircraft; 10 were being purchased in FY2002.

Air Force officials announced 07 November 2002 a potential cost overrun of up to $690 million in the engineering, manufacturing and development phase of the F/A-22 program. The potential overrun appeared to be related to achieving cost and schedule in the developmental phase of the program, officials said. It is not related to its technology or performance. The aircraft remains on schedule for first aircraft delivery in 2004 and initial operational capability in 2005 as planned. The projected overrun is about 3.3 percent of the program's $20 billion development phase and about 1 percent of the program's $69.7 billion estimated total pricetag. The Pentagon approved an $876 million restructure to finance the extended development effort. The restructure sliced $763 million from the procurement profile, cutting 49 airframes from years 2004 to 2009. This decision brought the procurement profile from 325 to 276 through FY-09.

Code:

---

          DOD's Projected Unit

                 Prices Before and After Restructuring

                                    Production

                            --------------------------

                              Low-rate     Full-rate

                            ------------  ------------

                            Units   Unit  Units   Unit

Estimates                           cost          cost  

--------------------------  ----  ------  ----  ------  

Before restructuring          76  $142.6   362  $102.8

Restructured without          70  $200.3   368  $128.2

 initiatives

Restructured with             70  $200.8   368  $ 92.4

 initiatives

------------------------------------------------------



  

---

It is costy but don't you think it is worth it ?
The only Fighter which could perhaps beat a F-22 Raptor would have been the Mig 1.44 but unless they get financial aid from e.g. China they won't probably develop it further .

And what is your opinion about the Joint Strike Fighter ?

[Boron]

Battlefront , the publisher of your mentioned combat mission series has a game called Strategic command too and now develops a sucessor .
Did you play this game too Stormbinder or anyone else ?

[Arryn]

Boron said:
Battlefront , the publisher of your mentioned combat mission series has a game called Strategic command too and now develops a sucessor .
Did you play this game too Stormbinder or anyone else ?

I have. It's a simplistic beer&pretzels clone of an AH Third Reich-style game. Play HoI instead.

[Stormbinder]

Boron said:
Battlefront , the publisher of your mentioned combat mission series has a game called Strategic command too and now develops a sucessor .
Did you play this game too Stormbinder or anyone else ?

Nope, I didn't Boron. I've read reviews of it though, and lurked on thier forums a little bit when it came out. From what I've heard and read it seem to be a decent game but it didn't strike me as something that I have to buy.

And btw Battlefront is just a publisher for the Strategic Command, the guy who had developed it (and who is developing SC2) had nothing to do with Comabat Missions seria.

[Boron]

Who is the developer from Combat Mission series ?
And do you know if there is any difference between the german Version and the us Version ( censorship ? ) .
Strangely in germany CDV sells it but there is no info who the developer of Combat mission is on their homepage .


I am intending to buy first combat mission 2 because it is lowprice already .
I don't know if i should buy combat mission 1 but i will buy combat mission 3 sooner or later too .
Probably combat mission 2 fits my taste most though because i like the russian + german tanks most

[Stormbinder]

Boron said:
Who is the developer from Combat Mission series ?
And do you know if there is any difference between the german Version and the us Version ( censorship ? ) .
Strangely in germany CDV sells it but there is no info who the developer of Combat mission is on their homepage .


I am intending to buy first combat mission 2 because it is lowprice already .
I don't know if i should buy combat mission 1 but i will buy combat mission 3 sooner or later too .
Probably combat mission 2 fits my taste most though because i like the russian + german tanks most

Yes, I think there is. Something to do with Nazi symbolic being illigal in Germany. IIRC I've heard something along these lines on the Battlefront's forums, but I don't remember any details.

As to which game to buy - I would suggest buying just buying CM2 and it's expansion - African Korps, and not spending your time and money on CM1, at least for now. Don't get me wrong, CM1 was a great game, but CM2 is very similar in terms of gameplay and have nothing but hundreds of sbtle and not so subtle improvements over CM1. A lot of scenarios from CM1 were adopted for CM2 as well by fans. With AK expansion it also gives you access to wide range of nations in addition to russians and germans in "Barabarossa to Berlin".

Have fun!


P.S. And yes, german and russian tanks were undoubtfully the best in WW2.

[Zen]

Boron said:
It is costy but don't you think it is worth it ?

That doesn't include the actual costs, which are bloated to about 150-200% of that number due to the longstanding contracts with Lockheed/Boeing. For maintaining world superiority in aircraft? It's worth it IMO, but having pilots who cannot get enough flight time to maintain their flight status because of the decripitude of Naval and AFC aircraft is more concerning to me as a 'worth' factor.

The only Fighter which could perhaps beat a F-22 Raptor would have been the Mig 1.44 but unless they get financial aid from e.g. China they won't probably develop it further .

I highly doubt it, even during the engineering phase of the Mig 1.44 it had too many stress fractures in it's engines during upper G's which while not indicitive of anything (these things can be worked out) it put the publicity setbacks show that that particular development team doesn't have the funding/talent/history to produce an aircraft of the same caliber. Though wars are not won by high tech aircraft alone.

And what is your opinion about the Joint Strike Fighter ?

Functional, bugetable, maintainable and for it's purpose, everything it should be.

[Arryn]

Boron said:
So they say perhaps they got their nuke like you told but probably at least shortly after they got lots of new , better nukes or at least the ICBM's for that from the USA .

The US does not give nuclear technology to Israel. (Which is one reason why Israel spies on the US.) But if you want to continue believing in fantasies, Boron, without bothering to check out the facts, you're welcome to do so. Just, please, don't waste our time with it. It's getting very old and tiresome.

Boron said:
Israel was always amazingly inventive when getting new weapons in the past time though . They got the best from France/Soviet Union/Usa etc. etc.

Israel has never used Soviet-made weapons (except what they might capture on the battlefield from the Arabs for later study). You really do need to do a better job of studying history.

Boron said:
They have probably the second best army of the world now . Only the Usa has a better army .

The UK would dispute that, and with good reason.

Boron said:
So if only half of what your PR's say/claim there the F-22 is probably 20-30 years ahead of the eurofighter and every other fighter that exists at the moment in the world .

No comment. If I told you I'd then have to fly to Germany, hunt you down, and kill you.