This is a question about CMD Future Wars 1/300th scale miniatures for
DS2 etc. I recently bought a couple of the new blister packs and about 1 in 3
tanks seems what I think are gross moulding errors, in that the surface is all
bubbly and broken up in patches.
I was going to complain to the shop but in looking at their stock I see that
every pack contains them. The question is - is this done on purpose and
the rough areas are meant to represent cammo nets or something or are they
really flaws?
I would like to hear from anyone else who has these products and if they have
seen what I am talking about. Mail me direct or to the list.
Date sent: 26-JUL-1996 16:47:37
> I was going to complain to the shop but in looking at their stock I see
> I would like to hear from anyone else who has these products and if
Painted up, they look quite good, although personally I prefer the flat look.
> This is a question about CMD Future Wars 1/300th scale miniatures for
> I was going to complain to the shop but in looking at their stock I see
> that every pack contains them. The question is - is this done on
> I would like to hear from anyone else who has these products and if
> Tim Jones
Sounds to me like the ones with all the bubbly bits are the "camouflaged"
versions of the standard models. See the GZG/CMD catalogue.
> Mike Elliott, GZG wrote:
--Sounds to me like the ones with all the bubbly bits are the
"camouflaged"
--versions of the standard models. See the GZG/CMD catalogue
Thankyou for the response that makes sense and explains why these models
looked so weird.
Do you really think that net type camouflage will work in the 21st century?
Its pretty useless now with thermal imaging cameras, but of course this net
camouflage is made of a special heat absorbing polymer...
In a message dated 96-08-15 23:18:10 EDT, you write:
> << On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:33:15 BST timj@uk.gdscorp.com writes:
> You are of course assuming that EVERYONE and EVERYTHING has thermal
> PAul >>
Little known fact folks. US Battle Dress Uniforms (BDU's) are thermal
dampening. They bleed off heat in an irregular pattern that DOESN'T look like
a human silhouette. Course this is when they are fresh and not
pressed/starched (so THAT'S why they say don't starch the uniforms), but
new field issue BDU's have the ability. Extrapolate forward to the later 22nd
century and....
Like they say, for every measure there is a counter-measure. Remember,
in SGII while the tech helps, it's the men and leaders that make or break the
battles.
Morgul Sine Pari Airborne All The Way!
> On Wed, 14 Aug 1996 16:33:15 BST timj@uk.gdscorp.com writes:
You are of course assuming that EVERYONE and EVERYTHING has thermal imagery.
In the US infantry, the basic grunt still sees by the old eyeball. Paint
camoflage and Cammo netting are still VERY much an effective resource. And
like my sarge told me... no matter what the techno advances may be, when all
is said and done, warfare has ALWAYS been up to the basic infantryman.
> Paul wrote:
--My point is that 99% of the grunts on the field DON'T have access to
such
--things.
Agreed Now - but in 200 years when we have FTL drives :-) I think they
would be part of the usual combat regalia. Just look at the Future Wars 25mm
figures they have all sorts of helmet cam's and sensors depicted on the model.
If you've seen the Predator Movie thats the sort of sensors where going to
have and a cammo net ain't gonna make it.
This is one area where SF movie makers have generally screwed up. The colonial
marines in Aliens should certainly have had thermal imaging (Hey Vasquez whats
them hot spots in the roof - Let's Rock Brrrrrr - end movie) and the
Storm Troopers in Star Wars. I think The T1000 had it in T1.
If you can build a faster than light drive then you can mass produce micro
thermal imaging systems surely?
I never use the Smoke rules in Ds2 for this reason.
Date sent: 16-AUG-1996 16:19:36
> Paul wrote:
> --My point is that 99% of the grunts on the field DON'T have access to
> Agreed Now - but in 200 years when we have FTL drives :-) I think they
Cammo nets would be useful.
They are handy to block orbital survaylence, especially if they are made of
heat dissipating materials, as the battle dress is. Probably more useful on a
strategic level to hide units that are not in operation, and to reduce the
chance of casual observation.
> This is one area where SF movie makers have generally screwed up. The
The Marines in Aliens did have IR imaging. Quote "Mabee they don't show up on
infrared at all.......Gwaaaagthp!"
> If you can build a faster than light drive then you can mass produce
Could probably do it now. It's more a cost problem (and it's a bugger on
peripheral vision too).
> From: timj@uk.gdscorp.com
"I hate to rain on your parade, but..."
In the scene where the marines first go into the nest, and one of them (Hudson
?) announces that he's picking up something on his motion tracker, the rest of
the team doesn't believe him, 'cause they can't seem them in IR.
"Maybe they don't show up in infrared..."
> On Thu, 15 Aug 1996 23:41:07 -0400 PsyWraith@aol.com writes:
> Little known fact folks. US Battle Dress Uniforms (BDU's) are thermal
Theoretically they are supposed to dampen thermal imaging, which leaves the
ones that don't, the hands, feet, head etc. My point is that 99% of the grunts
on the field DON'T have access to such things. Only special op units, some
squad, maybe platoon, more likely COMPANY commanders will have access to them.
At Ft. Benning we tried requesitioning some for training mind you. Do you
think we could get them? Noo....
> On Fri, 16 Aug 1996 16:00:53 BST timj@uk.gdscorp.com writes:
> Agreed Now - but in 200 years when we have FTL drives :-) I think they
If you go by that line of thought, then most likely cammo nets would logically
have imaging scrambling fibers... much the same way that the B2 and stealth
fighter (f117?) has polymers that absorb radar and IR images.
> This is one area where SF movie makers have generally screwed up. The
I thing the Colonial Marines DID... at least they had infra red
> I never use the Smoke rules in Ds2 for this reason.
But isn't the smoke in DSII bi-spectral? I think that is the reason it
DOES work is that the smoke is full of metallic particles and heat so that
thermal imagery doesn't work.
On Fri, 16 Aug 1996 16:29:25 +0100 Adam Delafield
> <A.Delafield@bolton.ac.uk> writes:
> Could probably do it now. It's more a cost problem (and it's a bugger
That's no joke. I think in combat school they told us it costs liike 57,000
per unit? They let us peek through them ONCE and it was like looking through
binocs. VERY limited so weearing them has that hazard. Also, some of the 82nd
Airborne guys I talked to said that they aslo cause excessive eye strain...
wearing them for more than an hour caused migranes... Remember, a firefight
may only last a few minutes, but the recon ops can last days.
> At 10:51 AM 8/17/96 PST, you wrote:
My cousin is in the Canadian Reg Force. He told me that SOP is to wear them
for no more than 30 minutes when using them for driving, and then spell the
driver. He once wore them for three hours and had trouble standing afterwards.
It had something to do with how they buggered up his vision versus what his
inner ear was saying.
While we're on the topic, you'd probably STILL use cammo nets
(heat/light
disipating, or not) even if everyone is using IR gear. No matter what, you'll
ALWAYS have eyeballs (okay, unless you've been blinded by lasers, etc.), so
there will always be a need to camouflage yourself from regular vision and
standard photographs.
This sort of reminds me of the vehicles in Warhammer 40,000, like the Land
Raider. The human forces have all these weapons with flat sides and shot
traps. I'm sorry, I don't care how good your armour is, you simply don't give
up sloped armour techniques unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure that NOTHING can or
ever will penetrate the armour and armour weight means nothing.
On Sat, 17 Aug 1996 22:38:01 -0400 Allan Goodall <agoodall@sympatico.ca>
writes:
> This sort of reminds me of the vehicles in Warhammer 40,000, like the
> shot traps. I'm sorry, I don't care how good your armour is, you simply
> don't give up sloped armour techniques unless you are ABSOLUTELY sure
Strange thing is... Take a look at the german leopard II MBT. It looks so
TIGERish. Flat sides, flat turret...
> At 11:03 AM 8/18/96 PST, Paul wrote:
> Strange thing is ... Take a look at the german leopard II MBT. It looks
Good point. However, it DOESN'T look like a WWI tank! And I'm not sure, but
doesn't the Leopard II have a lower profile than the Tiger?
> At 11:03 AM 8/18/96 PST, Paul wrote:
One reason for the flat look of the leopard and other allied tanks is chobham
armour. THe A1 the challenger and I think the leopard all have chobham, which
can not be made into non flag shapes very easily.
> From: Darren Douglas <ddouglas@vmark.co.uk>
> >
Chobham Delta Armor that currently equips the M1A2 Abrams MBT is designed to
be attacked from that angle. It IS hard to form in anything but flat plates,
but that is due to the spacing of the heat dissipation layers in the armor as
much as anything else. Also, I was just inside the newest version, and besides
it's new weight (69.5
tons !) it has an anti-air function with it's MAIN GUN!!!! The gunner
has a lever attatched to his laser ranger labeled ground-air and
guess what? If you want to shoot at the Bad,bad helicopter skimming the
treetops 1000m downrange, you can fire a proximity fused beehive round that
kicks out a cone of foot long needles moving at rediculous velocities a few
hundred meters shy of the Helo...As I understand it, the switch causes the
laser rangefinder to pulse multiple times, calculating the bearing and
velocity of the target..
> To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
> Mike, How do you get to be so lucky? *grin* Does the A2 still have a
Well, I live in Orlando home of Lockheed Martin (where half our staff came
from) and ECC International Corp. where I am good buds with the V.P. of
Marketing... The M1A2 was in their High Bay to make a simulator mock up. The
new M1 has a more powerful gas turbine, still has a manual loader (the U.S.
Army has a definite bias against autoloaders stemming from some accidents
during trials in the 70s) also you may have noted that it is substantially
heavier than the M1. The main weight difference is the new version of the
Chobham Armor. They say it can deflect a 122 mm Tungsten Penetrator on the
forward turret slope! I also got to see the new Saudi MOWAG Piranha with the
25mm Bushmaster Autocannon, but that's another story.. ;-)
Date sent: 19-AUG-1996 15:03:15
> Good point. However, it DOESN'T look like a WWI tank! And I'm not
> Definately not WWI at all. I think the Loepard II is like 1-2' shorter,
Don't the German tanks have more room in the turret (The reason for not
slopeing) giving them a higher rate of fire than most other MBTs (As the crew
have more room to work)?
On Sun, 18 Aug 1996 23:12:25 -0400 Allan Goodall <agoodall@sympatico.ca>
writes:
> Good point. However, it DOESN'T look like a WWI tank! And I'm not
Definately not WWI at all. I think the Loepard II is like 1-2' shorter,
though I think just as wide. It's just strange to me (though I LOVE the look)
That the US and UK are sloped in design, the Warsaw pact has rounded edges,
but the germans still have the flat blockish design. Rumor has it that the
Leopard III has sloped sides though.
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 09:30:26 +0100 (BST) Darren Douglas
> <ddouglas@vmark.co.uk> writes:
> One reason for the flat look of the leopard and other allied tanks is
I was thinking the M1A1A has depleted uranium ceramics?
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 08:51:38 +0000 "Mike Wikan" <mww@n-space.com>
writes:
> Also, I was just inside the newest version, and besides it's new
Mike, How do you get to be so lucky? *grin* Does the A2 still have a manual
loading system, or have they gone to the automatic selectors yet?? Do they
still ahve the same look, or has that changed too? Last time I was physically
next to one was at Ft. Benning in '88... and that was an M1... Though from the
photos, the A and A1 variants aren't much different excepth the addition of
the turret rack and just a tad larger.
Hi all!
I'm back from wedding/honeymoon, etc (had a great time, thanks!) and
just
finished reading through the 185 e-mails that were waiting for me. I
thought I'd throw my $.02 in on the thermal imaging discussion.
As already mentioned, individual thermal sights do exist today; they are
expensive, but in another 10 or 20 years (R&D and procurement run on geologic
time) they should be as common as standard night vision devices are today. I
haven't used them enough to comment on the effects of prolonged use, but the
same was true of early "starlight" scopes. Presumably, that too can be
corrected in another 100 years.
But of course, for every advance there is a countermeasure. Morgul mentioned
the thermal dampening effects of BDU's (I've checked this out with a TOW
thermal sight -- it roughly halves the distance at which you can be
spotted.) The same could be done with camo nets, etc. And we already have
mulit-spectral smoke that can block thermal imaging. Of course, more
advanced, powerful sights that can see through multi-spectral smoke are
surely not far behind....
Cheers! Scott Field
"Give me 1000 words and I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the
Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution,
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and enough left over for just about all of the
Boy Scout Oath -- and I wouldn't trade them to you for any picture on
earth."
-- Dallas Williams
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 15:05:15 +0100 Adam Delafield
> <A.Delafield@bolton.ac.uk> writes:
That I don't know. I think the turret is shorter in heighth than most
MBT's, but I still theink the T-84 has the highest rate with the new
autoloader... but then again, I have been "out of the loop" for a while, so my
data may be out of date.
On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 11:18:28 +0000 "Mike Wikan" <mww@n-space.com>
writes:
> Well, I live in Orlando home of Lockheed Martin (where half our staff
All I can say is D-R-O-O-O-O-L D-R-O-O-O-O-L
> On Mon, 19 Aug 1996 13:20:23 -0400 FieldScott@aol.com writes:
First of all Scott, congratulations and welcome back!
> "Give me 1000 words and I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm,
I have never heard this before. How profound... inspiring...
> Paul Neher writes:
> First of all Scott, congratulations and welcome back!
Thanks!
> >"Give me 1000 words and I can have the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd
Glad you liked it. I wish I could tell you where I got this or who the
#@!!
Dallas Williams is, but I've been carrying this quote around for years. I
think I may have gotten it from some "how to write good" book in school.
> On Wed, 21 Aug 1996 10:03:39 -0400 FieldScott@aol.com writes:
"I never knew what to do with a paper except to put it in a side pocket or
pass it to a clerk who understood it better than I did."
-- Ulysses S. Grant.
Ahh ... my good buddy U.S. Grant .... what a poet! :)