Noyhauser

hmm I guess I was wrong about the BCI inclusion. I could of sworn I had read it somewhere though... but I always thought it strange that it did have such an advanced and classified system. Maybe I mistook it for the Inclusion of the Q-Rau systems, which I guess refers to the Inertia vector control sytem.

I’ve been lurking on this thread awhile, and I think there is a bit of myopia on people’s parts. I study defence management, which talks about procurement processes and defence organization and the JSF is an interesting procurement process. #1 The US cannot cancel the JSF… ever. Because of the level of offshore involvement in the aircraft, canning the project would be hugely expensive (legal issues pertaining to offshore partner contracts), and would blow the bottom out of the US arms market. As we have discussed on here, the JSF isn’t that needed in the US, maybe the Marine Corps has the best argument in support of it. It is however absolutely vital for the UK, Spanish and Italian navies as their follow-on primary naval aircraft to the Harrier, not to mention other countries such as the Netherlands, Canada and Norway which see it as their next generation fighter. The next generation of UK carrier is built around the specifications of the JSF… and if it gets canned, the UK will have a carrier without a fighter to pilot it. I think you can imagine the political fallout from that. No other defence project in American history has had such a major international involvement at this phase. For the most part, capital equipment has been presented to foreign nations fait accompi, such as the F-16, F/A-18 ect (we have this fighter the F-16, do you want to buy one, vs. do you want to be involved in the project to build the JSF?). Over 25% of the development costs are paid for by international partners (the Three level partnership program). This is unlike the Comanche (which was canned last week) because that project was paid for by the US alone, so they bear the economic cost in full. If the JSF gets cancelled, the US will be on the hook not only for the development costs but for huge cancellation feels written into these partnership contracts. I don’t know the exact figures off hand (even if they were published, which I doubt, but an excellent contemporary example was the 1994 Canadian government decision to cancel the $4.8 billion dollar contract to purchase the EH-101, afterwards they were on the hook for $500 Million in cancellation fees. You can just imagine the costs incurred for the JSF. Moreover the credibility hole the US arms manufacturers will have if the JSF is cancelled will be huge. The most of Europe will probably never trust the US again with a major procurement project when they could ask the EU’s OCCAR to manage a common project and have EADS, a European company to do the work for them. Having OCCAR do the work for them has far more advantages because they retain more control over the development process… rather than have little input if the US cancels. Actually this is the reason why the French build all their own carriers, fighters, Tanks ect… they don’t want to be caught if the US or some other country pulls the plug on them. If the A-400M contract is successful, EADS could become a monster in the world’s arms trade, because it can legitimately say that its equipment is designed for how the world operates, rather than US equipment which is designed for the US arms market. (compare the C-17 to the A-400M… you’ll see what mean….) #2 There has been one successful single service fighter in American history that has served as the ideal for fighter procurement for US market… the F-4 Phantom. Although it was originally a Navy project, the F-4 was used by all three flying services (Marines, Airforce and Navy) and worked quite well. I’m not saying the JSF comes close to being in the same ilk as the F-4 was at its time (There was not a single plane the could touch the F-4 in western Inventories ) but many projects have attempted to follow in its footsteps. F/A-18 came close, had the Airforce accepted it as the F-17 rather than the F-16, then it was likely that it would have been chosen as the next generation Carrier fighter as well (which is was). The F-16 came close to this ideal as well, (from what I vaguely know about it ) but it was disqualified because of the Naval Aviation Penchant for dual engined fighters. That’s been the problem with the whole idea of single service equipment, nobody can decide on a rigid specification sheet for a proposal, and therefore any design has to bridge a lot of capabilities that often are equivocal. Welcome to the world of the JSF. I think the JSF is particularly hampered by one of these requirements… the STOVL (short take-off Vertical Landing) requirement which in my mind disqualifies it as a single service fighter. #3 Gunpods in the JSF (and other thoughts) I’m almost certain that the JSF doesn’t have an internal gunpod because of its STOVL quirement. If you need to take off from a very short runway, payload optimization is key. Having several thousand pounds of dead weight you “might” use (ie gunpod), than two extra bombs that you most definitely WILL use is a powerful argument against having an internal gunpod. Had it of been a normal fighter, this would not be a problem, however the weight factor that must be considered in the F-35 STOVL design makes every pound count. I think this is the very reason why the JSF program in the end has had serious problems living up to its expectations of being an advance from the previous fighter designs is the requirement of STOVL. It is just ludicrous for the Airforce who has no need for such a capability, yet has had it forced on it as a replacement. STOVL puts extremely tight tolerances on a fighter that are not easy to get around. First you need an engine that gives a pretty impressive power to weigh ratio (like the Rolls Royce Pegasus) and has some way of creating equal downward force both at the front of the plane and at the rear so that it can hover. That means you need a lot of power (lack of fuel economy) and a engine design that must accomplish both level and horizontal flight. Somehow I don’t see the JSF becoming the next Airforce F-16 when it barely beats out the F-16, and when you can get upgraded F-16 for the fraction of the cost and get a better fighter. I think the Navy will probably adopt it as a supplement to the F/A-18, and it will become the Marine Corps mainline fighter for no other reason than it can be used from the decks of Iwo Jima Class (with the inclusion of a Ski Jump… easily retrofitted), or forward air bases. #4 Bombs The US is in development next generation JDAM called the small diameter bomb to replace the current retrofit kits it uses today. This would allow the JSF to carry more bombs and employ them more effectively than the current generation of Fighters. I don't know the program specifics but apparently it is pretty advanced so far. #5 I think some of you need to take a course in international relations. The idea that the US and EU would ever get into a war is just ridiculous. The EU has been based on liberal democratic values, it was born precisely to prevent war, not just between themselves but others. Read this essay: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/sto...,680096,00.html or the first section of this one http://www.iss-eu.org/chaillot/chai55e.pdf These two articles talk about the future role of European militaries and european Security thought. If you are interested I can send you essays anyd my article about it (its my #1 area of study, in front of defence management. ) Even more ludicrous is the idea that France and Germany will ever even come to blows ever in the even remotest future imaginable. Ties have never been closer between the two states, and with the direction of the EU (especially in light of last weeks tri-power summit in Berlin) relations can only get closer.

The Pheyos valkrie also supposed to have the Same BDI/BCS sensor as the yf-21 I think in light of the other thread, on the YF-21-YF19 discussion that hte YF-21 was more effective, but waaay too expensive. I'd put my lot in with the -21 being the most effective fighter of its 2040~50 timeframe... except that it was too expensive and a one off.

Cmon, you know the hands are for max to fight Boldolza mano a mano Seriously though... I suspect the hands can serve many purposes. its possible for the Battle7 to punch, move its weapon faster, but also for ease of replacement. The whole new macross project was designed to be moduar. Ships docking on other ships, specialized colony vessels, ect ect. Lets say that there is the need for quickly changing weapons... look what happened to the SDF-1 with the meltrandi fight... they shot off its Main gun and the thing was screwed. This way the Battle-7 can quickly replace a damage weapon, or upgrade it to a new one without an extensive rebuild. Hands may have been for stylistic purposes as well (would you rather see it with a plug in its hands. Also many Capital ships in macross transform to some degree. The Algenix crusier, The Stealth ship from VFX-1. Almost all of the Crtitical Path Corporation Ships from VFX-2.. and so on.

Not to pull out the M-7 card... but when encoutering Protodevilin, zentredi go into an uncontrollable rage, while humans don't... so there are definate physiological/psychological differences between the two species. just want to throw that in there

For once I agree with Agent One....

WHOOPS I meant the Movie Version.... The OAV version sucked ass

Better than Guld's Death scene in the Plus OAV? (tricking the Ghost into thinking he has won, blowing off his limbs and then showing him who is boss?) Matter of opinion I say.

First season Japanese version opening music was ehhh... I don't see why they didn't use some of the ending songs as openers because for the most part they were catchy (in the j-rock/pop wierd sorta way)

Yes it is in M3... I think it was called the Algernix or something of the sort. I was thinking about early UN Spacy warships a few months ago and as far as I can tell, it is the only concrete example of a ship class built during the early megaroad eras. http://www.mahq.net/mecha/macross/macross.htm http://unsd.macrossrpg.com/harunacruiser.html

Just because it says stealth doesn't proclude it being built in the 2012 timeframe. Remember that the UN Spacy's manufacturing capabilities must of grown to unimaginable levels after the capture of the factory satillite compared to the SW1 time period. I'm sure a stealth design could be pumped out in a matter of months to be built from the satellite. It also looks like a Zentredi/Human hybrid ship, probably to ease its production. M3 is cannon, so its design was around at 2018 at the earliest. The "guantanamo" 'class seems pretty old compared to the newer valhalla type carriers, so my contention is that these ships may be older than first stated. The look far more like the 1st generation ARDMs than later ships. I'm still putting my vote that the lower ship in the Megaroad launch scene is a Haruna , or haruna predecessor.

There is only one other ship from this period we have definitive stats on, which is this one... http://www.mahq.net/mecha/macross/macross.htm http://unsd.macrossrpg.com/harunacruiser.html I don't know about the accurracy of the last site as I haven't seen any source material from macross M3... but if the story starts in 2018 its design would make sense. I think its possible that the ship from FB-2012 below the megaroad might be the same design (maybe from a earlier model) I have a suspiscion that this ship was developed soon after as well... http://unsd.macrossrpg.com/maizuru.html But I have no real definitive answer.

I'd say that HG was lucky to get an artist on the caliber of Takeshi Miyazawa to pencil their series. (Im a bit biased here, but what the hell). Personally I think he is BETTER than this series, and should be either doing his own comic book (like Sidekicks), or a major top of the line series. Remember that he only did the character frames in Robotech, not the Mecha. He just got back from several years in Japan and HG was lucky to nab him right off the bat to do this series. Here is his website... Its pretty impressive art. http://miyazawa_t.tripod.com/skgoodies/index.html

I was lucky.... my father is Japanese and my family in Japan sent me a constant stream of Anime taped off TV or bought from the store. My favorite tape was DYRL... along with Doraemon (hey I was 6... give me a break) and Ashita no Zyo. I couldn't understand what was going on (hell I could barely make out what they were saying half the time), but watching max kicking the crap out of Zentredis was too much. Awhile later I watched Robotech, and although I liked it (probably because I could understand it), it wasn't like DYRL. I watched the whole series, and bought the Robotech roleplaying books as well as models. I didn't really understand the difference between Robotech and DYRL until I started watching Macross II, but still that didn't make too much sense because I was 12 at the time. What really drove it home was when I was in Japan for my 14th Birthday and turned on the television to see a red valkryie... which turned out to be Macross 7, that night I bought the first Macross Plus OAV. Then I realized the difference between the two series. Since then I have never looked back. I can't wait to see how HG will try to best any of the Macross series... (if they even try to put together a movie or tv series together) I can't even imagine how they can even match the skill or bredth of Kawamori and Studio Nue.

There are a lot of different things in the timeline he could still pick up on. Like the Delta Wars which have only a passing reference but could be open avanues. And I don''t think there is any explaination of these events. And rehashing designs isn't unlikely. My guess is his next series (other than the next OAV) may be another one that focuses on character development like Macross 7 and SDF rather than fighters. IF he does the 2012~2040 period there are countless places where he could place a story. He could even do a story based upon a anti UN spoiler.

watch until episode 25... then make your decision. First 20 are introductory fillers, for some reason though they get trashed when other series do the same thing, like Ruruoni Kenshin, and people don't mind them.

... MUST.... FIND .... MORE..... MONEY... It looks ridiculous and I want one bad... unfortunately I blew all my money on books this christmas...

Damn you Panon... beat me to it Both were out of missiles and barely had any weapons, except the YF-21, since it has still had those wicked arm mounted lasers. As JBO commented, it was probably better able to take out the ghost than the YF-19... we had a whole discussion about it in this forum, and it was generally agreed that the YF-21 was a better fighter just WAAAAY too expensive... If anyone had a chance to take out the Ghost... it was Guld.

umm I meant which ones do you intend to do in the future.... do you have anymore VF-4s though?

Oh I agree with you Azrael, but sometimes stuff needs to be said at least. And there have been some enlightening things said. I now agree that M-7 is too long. I also think that how the main themes were presented could be better. Keith has also made me think about M-7 in different ways, and that post about 3 pages back about the music being important also was interesting. I just wanted to point out the really bad things about this thread. I too agree it should be pinned. That way it prevents the same old arguments from being rehashed from the start, like Exo pointed out in the "HG debate thread"

I gave up about a page and a half back. #1 Nobody listens to whatever anybody has to say For example abombz, you are about the 6th person to say," I hate how the battles repeat", would you care to read the earlier posts that explain why it occurrs ? #2 People are completely inflexible in their opinions. I know Keith that macross 7 isn't that bad, but seriously it has several faults, including the fact its waaay too long. People have legitimate greviences with it but you gotta give an inch. Some people did change their views which was this posts intended affect. #3 other people just act completely disrespectful A-1 you contributed nothing to the conversation except think that Macross 7 is for sissies, and if that is the case quit watching Anime, because last I saw, watching cartoons from Japan in any case doesn't classify as something that gets into Vanity Fair as being the hottest thing in 2003. Oh and get off yourself, I think you would be suprised what kind of lives some people on here live. They are just a bit more humble than yourself, so get off yourself and discuss about the issues, if you even have something to say that is relevant other than such pointless quotes as "I love doorknobs" and "You are right! I am cool. Really cool" Edited to piss A-1 off and for a poorly worded sentence, Edited line is in italics

Which kits...? I'm tempted to buy another one of these (Ialready have one) , but I'm a bit short of $$, and if you are making some kits I don't have then I would rather buy some of those instead of the Full armor.

I hear what you are saying Mechleader... but. It takes real skill to REALLY make a model, even if it is a bandai Gundam. like sure Bandai has made it uber simple to put one together... but if you really want to make it amazing, you need to paint it or mod it, and there the men get separated from the boys. Its the same with the hasegawa models. I don't use the decals for the colors because I'd rather mask out and paint it. But I'm sure that some people probably just build it and slap on the decals with only a coat of white all over it and call it done. Its pretty easy to make most high quality models (not talking about resin), like Haseg, but its the skill of the modeler to make it as lifelike as possible. The same goes for gundam kits, even though it is a bit easier to do so.

Ah but you forget that there are more than 6 new designs in Macross 7 that are completely new. I think you could say for the most part it had all of its own designs. The only true predecsor you could say was the VF-11, but even the VF-19 was changed, looking nothing like the previous yf-19 and vf-19A predecessors. Most people don't think of the Vartua stuff as new but they are and they were direct decendants of the advanced valkryie series he wanted to do in the late 1980s. Macross 7 for the most part was completely its own designs. I'm pretty sure that Kawamori knew that they weren't all going to be marketable, but did it anyways because he wanted to showcase these fighters. again its because Plus's emphasis was on combat and amazing visuals, while 7 was on the story and characters, which was supposed to read like visual manga Completely agree with you here Duke... it does run way too long and could of been done with I would say 15 episodes left. The first 15 or so could be reduced to 5, and ther ecould be 5 less episodes like right before operation stargazer occurred. I think the movie when the galaxy is calling me could be included as well. Some of the fillers are amuzing though, like the E! true Story type episode I could live with. Wow A-1 you actually had constructive criticism... The sense that I am getting is that a lot of the people who say they don't like it didn't get past the first 15 episodes... which you could consider fillers. REmove those and I think a lot of people actually like the series. Therefore your argument about fillers not affecting attitudes towards the series is very contestable. Oh and please don't make ignorant comments about things you have no idea about like who I am or what I do outside of this board. If the best you can do is post up 1990s era SNL photos about what your conception about who you think I am , it erases any respect I have of you as a person of intelligence that is worthy of discussion.

Care to respond? You can argue it two ways, from a creator's standpoint or a actual design standpoint. You could argue that there was major failings with the First Megaroad design. The flagship of the fleet is fairly weak, and made the colony captains lives difficult to handle situations. (should I use the Megaroad in combat knowing it will tip the balance of power? THe new Macross series made sure that there was a strict separation between warfighting ships and civillian ships, so that civillian ships were separated, and that the flagship was a heavier warship. The second way of looking at it is through Kwamori's Eyes. Its kinda funny how macross 7 is treated, since gundam Seed is getting the same rap. The original creator of gundams is doing Gundam Seed, which has some whacked out designs for Gundams. Kinda like on here some people like them some people hate them. I think Kawamori wanted to branch out a bit and make some new designs that weren't completely based on older ones. He could use the designs from Advanced Valkrie as well, which he had never been able to include anywhere else, like the Vartua mecha and the VF-14. I thought the new Macross Battle cruiser was so-so but when I played and watched the movie from digital mission VFX-2 I was blown away... its actually a pretty sweet design. The rest of the fighters were basicaly similar to older ones, except for the sound force ones. However it wasn't like they were common fighters, rather they served the purpose of pushing spirtitia warfare. (one off) At this point though I think its better to drop it, I think we both give a good argument for both sides and anyobody who is going to change their minds either way will change, and those who aren't are beyond the sake of arguments from both sides.