ewilen

1. Point taken, although missile is also going to have an energy deficit to overcome when the plane is flying backwards or sideways. 2. That's why I raised the numbers game back in this thread. How many frontline fighters does the US have vs. Russia? 2a. Add in pilot skill/training. I wonder how many Russian pilots can execute those Flanker stunts. 2b. Add in what happens before the merge, with AWACS playing a large factor. Taken in isolation, the effectiveness of the Cobra or other amazing maneuvers in WVR ACM is an interesting topic (though I'm unaware of an experienced US military pilot having anything good to say about it--stick-in-the-mud-ism? sour grapes?). In context though, I doubt it looms large.

Even if a midair 180 or a Cobra enabled an SU-27 to gain a lock & fire on an enemy, it raises the questions: 1. Why not use helmet mounted sights and missiles with off-boresight IR seekers? No need to turn the plane when you can just turn your head. 2. While you're dumping energy and focusing on one bad guy, what's his wingman up to? I agree with David, this thread is best devoted to the remarkable aerobatic capabilities of the Flanker.

Yes, and what if Brazil joined in? We can spin all kinds of scenarios, some of them bordering on the paranoid, and possibly inappropriate given forum rules against political debates. But yes, it is true that if the whole world ganged up on the US, we might be in trouble. Food for thought.

Yes, the Russians have a very small force of Blackjacks. Ukraine inherited them from the USSR, and Russia accepted them as payment in kind for some energy debts if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, this whole scenario points up how much would have to happen before Russia could even begin to think of starting an 8th Airforce-style air campaign over the US. Even if you think the Flankers would be dominant in an intercontinental bomber escort role, Russia would first have to wipe out all our Pacific rim air assets. Otherwise, we could probably just let the Flankers go by, knock out the tankers, and watch the Flankers drop in the drink on their return trip.

Huzzah, my wife actually agreed to go! Will probably just go for a day, on Sunday.

I agree that casings are probably too light (really, not dense enough) to do much damage. But a lot of the shells/bullets in a dogfight miss their target, and after that they only have one direction they can go. I wonder if there are any known injuries from dogfights over populated areas?

Thanks Hurin, you saved me some trouble. Yes, we went over the issue with a fine-toothed comb, and although we didn't completely settle everything, it might be a good idea to have a look so as to see what points have already been made and/or refuted.

I always use Normal mode, and it works for me in Netscape 7.1 (Mac OS X) and 7.02 (Mac OS 9). But I also get lazy and just paste the URL directly into the post, in which case the board automatically converts it into a link. Give that a try, but also you should let us know what your browser/OS combination is.

We got a bunch of MiG 29's from Moldova, but I don't think the US has acquired any Flankers yet. If we had, it would probably be mentioned here, since the author of that report has done a very comprehensive job, and the latest revision was only a few days ago. On the other hand, the US recently conducted exercises with India, which probably provided a good deal of (classified) information on the Flanker. You're right of course that a war with...pretty much anyone would start as a conventional conflict before conceivably escalating to nuclear weapons. But if the Russians sent bombers over the US, they wouldn't get very many sorties out of them before they had no bombers, no matter how effective the Flanker escort might be against American intercepters. (BTW, wouldn't the intercepters' job be to take out the bombers rather than getting into a furball with the escorts? And when bombers are coming in, surely you can forget restrictive ROE requiring visual ID.) So they'd be sacrificing their bombers, enraging the American population, and probably causing very little damage of military significance. Finally, the sources I've seen give the Flanker a ferry range (which I assume means one-way with minimal stores) of 4000 km. This is about the distance from Ugolny, one of the easternmost Russian airfields in Siberia, to Seattle. So Flankers would definitely need tankers to escort any bombers to the Lower 48, and unless it was a one-way mission, fuelling would have to take place well off the Russian coast both coming and going. I wonder what the American carrier groups, not to mention fighters stationed in Japan, Alaska, and Hawaii, would be doing in the meantime? The most effective tactic of Russian bombers--whether engaging in a nuclear strike or conventional--would be to fire long-range cruise missiles, turn around, and return to base. These missiles have ranges in thousands of km. The only effective defenses against such tactics would be to intercept the bombers before they reached their launch point, destroy them on the ground, or intercept the cruise missiles themselves after launch. It would be more realistic to consider how Russian fighters/interceptors (including Flankers) would affect those scenarios. Edit: P.S. I know I'm showing my age by mentioning Backfires. The Russians would use Blackjacks and Bears.

It doesn't matter much to me whether the legs come off or not. To me, the 1/48's mechanism is basically just a way of "technically" achieving perfect transformation by maintaining a constant connection with the rest of the toy.

Right you are, kanata. Also, good point, Graham. A lot of "near perfect" transformations can be made perfect just by leaving some parts off. The intake covers on the 1/48's are a detail that simply doesn't appear on the 1/55's. Misc: I don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but in addition to having to move the legs by hand on the 1/60's, you also have to replace the cockpit canopy with a heatshield and attach the Gerwalk antenna.

I've been refraining from commenting on this thread since so many "which fighter is better" arguments end up sounding like the South Park Weapons episode ("I got you with my turbo-ray", "No you didn't because I have a gamma shield", "Okay, then I follow up with a boson torpedo", "My jamming device makes it turn around and attack YOU!", etc. etc.) and generally ignore soft factors (doctrine, pilot training) and not-so-soft factors (infrastructure, numbers)...but I have to ask... If the Soviet Union reconstituted itself and the Russkies were thinking of sending long-range bombers over the US, don't you think things would be bad enough that they'd use ICBMs/SLBMs/cruise missiles? Which would render the whole Flanker-escorting-Backfires (or whatever the Sovs have that could reach US soil) scenario moot. (Not to mention being a real nightmare.)

I've located a couple more pictures: http://mospeada.free.fr/images_toys/macros...-1_1-5700_3.jpg http://mospeada.free.fr/images_toys/macros...-1_1-5700_4.jpg

This is mistaken. The interrupter gear was invented by Anthony Fokker and was first installed on German aircraft. The design was partially inspired by a more primitive solution used by a French ace, Roland Garros, who had incorporated armored plates on the propellor of his airplane to deflect bullets. Once the Germans had the interrupter gear, it was the beginning of the Fokker Scourge, a period in which German fighters shot down Allied aircraft with near impunity. Eventually, the Allies responded by developing pusher fighters (where the propellor was behind the cockpit) and interrupter gear of their own. However, initial Allied interrupter gear designs were ineffective, and really good Allied fighters with such gear would have to wait until the Sopwith Pup, Spad VII, and Nieuport 17. Fortunately for the Allies, the pusher fighters were a highly effective stopgap. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWsynchronizing.htm http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/...hronizer%20gear http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites...dogfight01.html http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/fokkerscourge.htm On another point raised in this thread, bullets fired in the air have indeed killed people on many occasions. I can recall an incident in the greater Bay Area when a bullet fired in the air during a celebration came down and killed a young girl.

Yeah, you can have more than one image in a post. But they have to be in-line images rather than an attachment (which MW only allows one image per post). Basically, for more than one image, your images have to be stored somewhere on the internet, i.e. the webspace your ISP may provide to you or stored someplace that gives you free webspace (like www.photobucket.com) then link to it from your post using the "IMG" button. Of course, you could have one attachment and one or more in-line images in a post too. Verstehen Sie? Another way is to upload the images in a test thread in the test forum, then link to them from there. Also, when you upload an image in a post, you can later go back and edit the post to include a new image. I'm not sure if this will result in the previous one being deleted from the server and/or if the new one gets the same name. That would be nice in this case, since it would allow you to dynamically update the images. If it doesn't work, hosting offsite might be the best option.

Requests for refunds will be accepted via US Mail, duly considered, and discarded.

The Takatoku transforming SDF-1, which later was made by Bandai and released by Matchbox, is 1/3000. I think that's the "Big Macross" (i.e., it's a typo in the Compendium). Here's the one that got turned into a convertor: http://www.toyboxdx.com/data/takatoku2/ima...enkeisdfbox.jpg And this is another one, I'm guessing it has more diecast and is nontransformable: http://www.toyboxdx.com/data/takatoku2/ima...crosssdfbox.jpg Maybe it's the "Z Macross" referred to in the Compendium (Z for zinc?).

The one with the 1J sounds like it could be one of the VHS versions with horrible English dubbing. Like everyone else, I recommend #3. Regarding extras, at least some of the releases have extended end titles with Minmay singing "Angel Paints". #3 has this.

Yup, that's what I'm talking about, Anubis.

Look at the picture in this article: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...rms_earnings_dc

Box: http://www.toyboxdx.com/data/takatoku2/ima...cksystembox.jpg Toy: http://www.toyboxdx.com/data/takatoku2/ima...systeminner.jpg Is this a transformable toy? It looks like the main cannon booms are removable, but it seems to be a better quality toy than either the crappy mini transformable SDF-1 (often found as a bootleg or as a Mark/Select Convertor) or the 1/6300 non-transformable. Referred to at http://www.anime.net/macross/production/mo...united_nations/ as Has anyone ever seen this toy in person?

Drawings showing leg transformation are here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/specia...nsformation.htm Contest to develop an accurate toy version is here: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/contes...nsform_2001.htm I seem to recall that at least one master customizer has actually made a toy or model which does the leg transformation almost completely accurately, but I don't remember where the page is.

I assumed that the new head is officially considered to apply to TV as well, i.e., regardless of what we see in the animation, 1A heads are really supposed to look like the 1A's in DYRL. Anyway, I don't think the apparent lack of interest in the DYRL Max 1A would necessarily mean that a TV Max 1A wouldn't sell well. The way I see it, the DYRL Max 1A is overshadowed by the Hikaru 1A. It gets less screen time and it's really a very basic repaint. OTOH, the TV Max 1A is a different design from the Hikaru 1J, completely different paint job, and it gets lots of screen time. In fact, Max does his coolest flying in the 1A. Not that it matters much to me--I really don't think I'm going to get any more 1/48's due to space constraints.

What about the German RammKommando? German squadrons in WW2 flying heavily-armored and reinforced FW-190s who were supposed to crash into Allied bombers and then (theoretically) fly off to their base? That one's been verified as true. Hmm. A quick search on Google suggests that the Rammkommando were supposed to bail out of their planes (stripped-down Me109's) just before hitting the bombers in the tail. There was only one such operation, on April 7, 1945. I also came across references to late-war FW-190 units being instructed to ram bombers, but only when they were out of options (out of ammo, damaged, wounded, etc.). I don't think anyone expected the ramming aircraft to survive the collisions. I suspect the most recent occasion in which ramming was deliberately used in a non-suicidal fashion must have been during WWII, when destroyers rammed submarines as a standard tactic. Before that, famous modern rammings include the Dreadnought ramming U-29 in 1915--the only battleship to sink a sub, and the only time the Dreadnought saw combat--and the Battle of Lissa in 1866--a pretty ridiculous affair.

What Blaine said. But (with a few exceptions) if you want mechs other than VF's--that is, destroids and Zentradi stuff--you either need to get into modelling or you have to get toys from Takatoku and/or Matchbox/Harmony Gold/Exo-Squad. None of the Takatoku/Machbox/HG/Exo toys have been made since about 1994. Takatoku made 1/144 diecast destroids (Defender, Tomahawk, Gladiator, Phalanx), along with a 1/144 VF-1 Battroid and a 1/240 destroid Monster. Doyusha makes a line of 1/144 diecast VF's in fighter mode. (Doyusha is exception #1.) Takatoku also made some vinyl toys but I doubt they're what you're looking for. Matchbox/Exo-Squad reissued the 1/144 destroids and 1/240 Monster (but not the battroid), possibly not to the same level of quality in terms of materials, but essentially the same sculpts. Matchbox/Exo-Squad (and maybe Harmony Gold) also released the four smaller destroids (i.e., not the Monster) as 7" plastic toys (roughly 1/60 scale), as well as the Glaug (about 1/55-1/60), Regult (ditto), and Zentradi Male Power Armor (close to 1/100 scale). The bigger Matchbox stuff varies quite a bit in terms of sculpt accuracy. Also note that the Zentradi "Quadrono Battalion" power armor is totally wrong, assuming it's supposed to represent the female power armor that Millia uses. They just took the male armor and recolored it. That brings up exception #2: Yamato has currently released a 1/60 Queadluun Rau in Millia's red DYRL scheme. Exception #3 is Arii's series of 1/100 figures. I don't know if they're at all posable--they seem more like sculptures than toys. You can find them in the MW toy section referenced above.