ewilen

By getting page info in my browser, I can see the page was last modified Jun 20, 2003. More recent reference to the same info: http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/...ges/387-236.asp Not about LOAL, but reading it nearly brought tears to my eyes: http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/briefs/lufbery.html (If you know what a QF-4 is, you'll understand.)

Also, this page appears to have prerelease info from last year (#226) that says that they'll come with chewing gum and sell for 300 Yen.

Nice. But you probably had a lot of people thinking you were talking about the much-hoped-for Yamato Green Q-Rau. These are small "diorama" figures. The text reads (per excite.co.jp) Note that number 3 is a Max-type 1A!

You know, even though a lot of people are leery of disposing of guns entirely, I don't think anyone regards a gun as a weapon of primary resort in within visual range aerial combat. I suspect it serves two purposes: 1) Weapon of opportunity/weapon of last resort: when missiles are expended or the range/angle more-or-less fortuitously allows a gun shot. 2) Controlling the engagement--i.e., if you don't have a gun, the enemy can do stuff that he wouldn't dare do if you have a gun; conversely, if you do, you limit his options. But I expect the vast majority of air-air kills will be via missile. Speaking of missiles, according to Aerospaceweb.org--and this may have been mentioned--the F-35 can carry Sidewinders on the outboard stations. So basically the F-35 can be armed for air superiority/interception missions, albeit at some cost to stealthiness. During daytime combat, this may not be very much of a tradeoff at all. Finally, if carrying Sidewinders while stealthy is really seen as a requirement, lock-on-after-launch appears to be a very reasonable prospect. (Look here.) Or the ASRAAM could be adopted. Although admittedly, I don't know what a stealthy air-air mission loadout would leave the F-35 with--guns, 1xAIM-120, and 1xheat-seaking missile?

If it's powered by internal combustion, then it may have big batteries/capacitors (like a diesel sub) for use underwater and for powering weapons. But I'd have to think that regardless of what you heard, the most likely engine in something like that would be either gas turbine + batteries, or hydrogen fuel cell.

Yes, that was a good post. I especially appreciate (as I hadn't before) the importance of the international constituency for the JSF. Unfortunately for F-22 fans, this makes the Raptor a likelier target for budget-cutting. (The Super Hornet might also be a candidate but it appears to be further along. I think there's also some hope of exporting it, thus lowering overall costs. I doubt the F-22 has any prospects whatsoever in that area.) Some comments/quibbles: 1) Since the Air Force will mostly be purchasing F-35A's (non-STOVL), will that not likely enable them to put the weight savings into an internal gun? Indeed, running "F35A gun" through google seems to confirm this. 2) Comparison to the F-4 doesn't strike me as especially apt. As noted, the F-4 was designed exclusively for the Navy. (IIRC, McDonnell thought up the airplane themselves and then offered it--quite different from how the JSF and ATF were developed.) The F-4 was taken into the Air Force basically because whatever compromises might have gone into making a carrier-based design were blown away by a rather large leap in performance relative to other US military aircraft. Also, while the F-4 could bomb, it often served alongside specialized attack aircraft, especially in the Navy. The JSF is being called upon to fill more roles in more services than any other aircraft. Nevertheless, I don't have a problem with compromises in air to air capability if they yield better penetration/strike ability.

No doubt about it, Robotech brought me into anime and comics. (Yes, I collected the Comico adaptations for a while.) But there's virtually nothing new that HG has done with Robotech which matches the quality of the original source material. I do think some of the Matchbox toys are better than they're given credit for--but some of them are horrible. And the Robotech stuff does worse and worse in comparison to the Japanese Macross stuff as times goes by. That includes toys, art books, and of course animated cartoons. Also, even if we limited the comparison to original material and compare the Japanese version to the Robotech version of Macross, the Robotech scripts are clearly inferior (the excessive use of voiceover narration is particularly grating) and most of the RT vocal music is horribly written and performed. I would also give the edge to the original Japanese voice actors, background music, and sound effects. In my case, much of this is unsurprising--I always prefer subtitled anime to dubs, so even if RT were a faithful dub, I'd still prefer Macross. Finally, the treatment Macross technology in Robotech is simply not as sophisticated as the original. Many dislike the way that Protoculture was turned into a fuel source. But actually, that's understandable given the need to link the three TV series. What I dislike is the handwaving/technobabble approach to technology instead of attempting to actually understand how the stuff works. Thus the infamous inflation of an animation error into official stats for "nose lasers". Nowadays, the only thing I can say I like about Robotech is the original grand arc of the series--the ideas centering on Zor/The Masters/The Invid and the way that the Earth is drawn into the struggle. Arguably, it's a more satisfying epic, with an opening, middle, and closure--albeit very uneven because of the way three unrelated anime were spliced together. But HG's efforts to fill in the gaps and extend the story are of absolutely no interest to me. Meanwhile, Studio Nue/Big West have produced several excellent anime set in the Macross universe.

Yeah, I thought of that, too. But I know it would be almost impossible to keep it in the box.

That makes sense from the American perspective, since we grew up on Robotech and love SDF Macross. But the Regult barely appears in DYRL (I don't think we see the Glaug at all--anyone know?), while the Q-Rau and N-Ger figure prominently. And DYRL seems to get the love in Japan.

Lynx7725's piece is well-written but I'm afraid he has missed one of the main arguments of the critics of the F-22 and/or JSF. (Also, variously, the F-18E/F.) The critics aren't particularly concerned that the technology is risky or unproven--although many of them are worried about the management of the programs, which has resulted in delays, cost overruns, and (potentially) performance inferior to what was specified. Again, they are not worried that these aircraft are too cutting-edge. They're worried that they aren't radical enough. The F-22 and JSF (so the argument goes) represent at most incremental improvements on the F-15 and F-16--but they are extremely expensive, to the point that they threaten to crowd out elements of the military budget necessary for readiness and for maintaining a fighter force large enough to fully meet our commitments around the globe, while developing weapons that will give American forces a decisive advantage over potential dangers 10-20 years or more away. This is what many think the President was talking about (or should have been talking about) when he spoke during the 2000 election campaign of "skipping a generation" of weapons systems. As for what those potential dangers may be--I think we can agree that they aren't imminent; they are at least decades away. Therefore, we shouldn't be spending billions on airplanes that won't be needed for many years--and by the time they are, they may well be eclipsed by new technologies.

The renegade Zentradi mecha from the beginning of M+ is a Nousjadeul-Ger Kai. Nice mecha.

I was disappointed to find that, if anything, Kakizaki is more annoying in the original TV series than he is in Robotech. But you've got to acknowledge that the guy had heart. I also think he did manage to get some licks in against the enemy once or twice.

I'm a scale fanatic. I voted TV N-Ger simply because the Matchbox/Exosquad version, while not horrible, is way out scale with 1/60 Valks. While the Matchbox/Exo Regult and Glaug, although considerably inaccurate, are basically about 1/60 scale. So if they're going to do ONE more enemy mecha and then stop, that's the one I want to see. But if there's reasonable assurance they'll do several different mecha, then the one I'm really waiting for is a Regult.

Ahem. This is why the other thread got locked. Stay on topic, stay civil, and I'll bet Shawn & the mods will let you complain to your heart's content.

I suspect the name "tou salaam" doesn't come from Macross. I can't read the kanji in the title of the scan from Macross Perfect Memory, but the part in parentheses seems to say "crashed". All the "made up" words in Macross seem to be written phonetically in katakana, so I'll bet the kanji just says "Supervision Army Ship" or something like that.

Kanata very generously sent me one of the Matchbox ones with a shipment of other stuff. I think it's pretty nice, though I'd say that collecting a full set is pretty low on my priorities. One thing to do with it--buy some Dragon CanDo 1/144 armored vehicles (or Takara World Tank Museum--same scale) set them up around your destroids, and pretend its a military museum. I just got a Dragon M1A2 and although it's a little fragile (no die cast) the detail is good and it looks really nice with the Defender.

The destroyed version is from Macross Perfect Memory (as I'm sure most of you know). I've love to see a translation of the accompanying text. I wonder if the intact version is the result of some clever photoshop work.

(Never mind. I should have read the thread before commenting.)

Great picture reference, David! I haven't found much on the ability of the F-15 relative to the Eurofighter, especially with the assumption of "reasonable" upgrades to the F-15. I have found claims that the Eurofighter would win about 80% of 1-1 combats vs. the latest Russian fighters, while the Eagle's chances would be closer to 50-50. But that may have been based on advertising literature, and of course it doesn't address the training and numbers issues in a war with any conceivable EF-equipped adversary. Anyway, the link is here. I do think that, given the Eagle's size, there would be plenty of room for avionics improvements and maneuverability improvements (perhaps along the lines of the F-15 ACTIVE). Some stealth could probably be added as well--after all, they did it with the Super Hornet and it looks pretty much like a big Hornet. This Usenet thread has some interesting comments on what the USAF might do if the F-22 were cancelled. The F-16XL figures prominently. Then I have several fairly well-written articles with a critical view of the F-22 and/or JSF. First, Col. Riccioni gives his anti-F-22 rant. He thinks it's not only unneeded, but won't even perform as advertised. Michael O'Hanlon of Brookings argues for scaling back both JSF and F-22 in this piece. Here's a piece from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists with a close look at the JSF program's effect on the procurement budget. Finally, this memo (PDF format) bodes ill for the future of the F-22--mentioning it in the same paper as the Comanche isn't a good sign. Some context here.

That is absurd. The way to sell something that rare (IMO) is to use a reserve--at least people can see each other bidding on it and get a sense of the market value.

Just wondering--why isn't this a problem for the F-22? Or if the Raptor carries sidewinders externally, why doesn't that affect its stealthiness?

Hmmm. (Also, the 3" version is here.)

So that's why Shin's parents were given the gun!

Everything in GCM is smaller than the stuff in SDF Macross. Two best Mospeada sites I know: http://www.artemisgames.com/robotech/Resea...a/Mospeada.html http://members.optusnet.com.au/~cyc01/index.htm Data diverge slightly between them, but Jeff's is pretty much in line with what they have, including the Enforcer/Garm/Gamo. The Legioss itself is only 8.75 m in armo-soldier (robot) mode.

Yeah, I've looked at the pictures of the box in graham review, and the box doesn't say it's "1/60" so it might be 1/72 in the end. The humanoid should be the size of the VF-1A Max. That's really strange and nobody is pointing that out. They' re all blinded by the beauty of the toy Or maybe the QRau is in the right scale but the Milia is way too small for the toy's size. I don't know. JB0 is right.