Invader ZIM

I figured this might be a fun thread to have, if someone else can show a photo of them owning the same thing, you'll have to find something else to post up. :) I like to collect timepieces that display time in an unusual format so here's two of my clocks. Below is A Nixiechronometer that uses Russian IN-18 vacuum nixie tubes and GPS for timekeeping accuracy: A Cathode Ray Tube Clock that uses a 1.5" Russian CRT from the 60's.

That was pretty well said Kaktus, I feel your right when it comes to not wanting to show a sign of weakness that might invite unwanted attention from another country. This idea pretty much explains the Iranian photoshop stealth aircraft we've all seen the past few months. :) I'm guessing 2018 for the first operational T-50's might be a good guess as well, but perhaps by 2022 there might be enough aircraft for a few squadrons, it's amazing how long this process is with all sides in getting new operational aircraft. But again, well said and explained, I'm glad we can have civil discussions from many different countries and points of view here. Sometimes we don't always word things the right way, or there's miscommunication from not being able to see the other persons expression when they say something in text format, but for the most part, you guys are good people. :D

I understand what you mean Kaktus29, that's why I mentioned Indicating that in the 90's I know the situation was bleak for Russia, not so bleak for the U.S. at the time. But what I'm saying is you had a couple companies in the mean time come up with prototypes to answer the Russian requirement during the rough times the Su-47, Mikoyan 1.44, and in 2002 Sukhoi was chosen, so there was some development to meet the future stealthy fighter requirement set forth in the late 80's. So considering the delays and the economic troubles I agree creating the T-50 is a big achievement, but it's also a different requirement for the Russian air force versus the F-35 and the requirements it's multiple armed services and potential air forces has set for it. The helmet mounted system for the T-50 is proven, and ahead of it's time, but the one for the F-35 is not the same type of system, so it's going to have teething troubles like any new technology. I think the problem is that we get bombarded daily by naysayers on both sides of the fence in the news and reports on how something is such a failure, without looking closer into the details and seeing that things are progressing as intended and in the end a product will be created that does answer the requirements it's resepective country sets forth for it. Edit: I know what you mean Maior, thanks for the info, I saw the plans for production of the T-50 and was surprised how far ahead before T-50 production was expected versus the testing phase it's in now. It indicates that it's not an easy road for any country to make a plane that uses advanced new and unproven technologies that are reliable enough to be used by developer's military as a front line deterrent.

If you mean by decades based on when the requirement for an aircraft such as the F-35 was proposed, then perhaps it's not too far behind the T-50, which the Soviet Union outlined a requirement for in the late 80's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_PAK_FA But it's a matter of different horses for different courses. The F-35 requirement is to replace a wide range of in service legacy aircraft, from three different branches of the armed forces, each with different requrements on the airframe. So I would expect there to be more difficulties and delays for such a large program, and for that program to be very expensive. The F-22 requirement was outlined in 1981, with prototypes flying by 1991, versus the late 80's Russian requirement to prototype flights of the T-50 in 2010. Both needed an air dominance fighter, but both had different economic situations to deal with. In this thread because of the freedom of information we're able to complain about the size of the headrest in the F-35 being a possible detriment to dogfighting capablility, but with the T-50 all you can find is: "The T-50's maiden flight had been repeatedly postponed since early 2007 as the aircraft encountered unspecified technical problems. Alexander Zelin admitted as recently as August 2009 that problems with the engine and in technical research remained unsolved." Without any other details or criticism of the project's longevity to get to an unproven prototype that has only flown 16 times without it's Radar and advanced avionics, I think they have a loooong way to go yet.

Thanks for that article Maior, an interesting read. I find it pretty amusing that with most Western countries there's a certain openess and access to public information (right or wrong) about these projects that let's people nitpick for years about every possible failing of a new aircraft if they aren't in support of it. Yet I can't help but wonder what kind of logistical and technological nightmares those Sukhoi guys are having with the T-50. As in the East it's difficult to find "Leaked" "classified" memo's that point out that they aren't getting the output power of their radar as high as first anticipated, or that their IRST doesn't have the resolution and noise equivalent temperature differential that they had hoped for. But if Putin says it's faster and stealthier than an F-22, then I guess it is :lol:

This issue keeps cropping up every once in awile, I brought it up last July in this thread with some track files: http://www.ru.wiki.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=91711 Best way to play to get more realistic attrition of ground units right now when playing in the ground vehicles is to set the Russian Ground unit AI to "Average", while setting U.S. ground forces on "Highest" And giving the Russian side more units to compensate for the AI setting. Maior's suggestions also hold truth, your going to want to look at the terrain on your map and move the M1's as close as you can to within 3km to ensure good kills on the T-80's. It still drives me nuts that smoke can't be used against the AI, and we still have the limitation of the ground vehicles having a pretty generic armor model with health bars. Hopefully these will be addressed in the future, as right now I use CA to only tell my AI where and when to move the vehicles, too fustrating to pilot the vehicles yet. Only Steel Beasts would provide the more hard core armor and penetration simulator, the glaring defects of the T-80U's lack of thermal sights and relatively low magnification optics, coupled with it's line of sight laser following missile system against a Leopard 2, Challenger 2 or M1A2 become far more obvious in that sim.

I agree, having airshows, flyovers and displays is one of the ways the military generates interest and and local commerce and shows the public where some of the tax money is being spent. I really miss the ones they had out our way from our local Air Wing.

Composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto entitled "Daily Life of the 7th Platoon" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn0iVIL6V_o

The Mig-25 ASAT idea is an interesting one, do you remember the F-15's doing that in the early to mid 80's? My question is have the Chinese demonstrated such a capability, as far as I can tell it seems they are limited to the heavy launch vehicles to conduct ASAT missions. And not all launch vehicles are suitable for such missions because in one article I saw, the nuclear tipped DF-5's had such slow acceleration they weren't suitable for the ASAT role, forcing China to create a new missile for the job. Not that it will stay that way, but currently compared to Russian and U.S. capabilities they are still a small time player, but catching up.

Thanks for the tip! I'll see what I can do. :lol:

Actually, no one is even claiming it's ready for combat or training. The fact is that right now only Test and Evaluation Squadrons are handling the aircraft to get a feeling of what this aircraft will be capable of. Operational Testing will happen later this year. Mr. Winslow Wheeler knows not of what he speaks. http://www.dvidshub.net/news/103069/nellis-pilots-take-first-step-toward-f-35-operational-testing

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I have to do a #2 it sure feels like I'm growing a tail... :music_whistling:

Your right about that, they would have to reach the satellite, know when it was coming over and the 2007 ASAT test from China was a kinetic kill, but the main thing to remember is that China can only launch ASAT's from 4 possible locations. If an all out war breaks out, I would expect the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC) Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) Wenchang Satellite Launch Center (WSLC) To come under heavy attack to deny them access to space, as well as their control centers for managing their space assets. It's all about having the high ground in warfare.

The only problem with detonating nukes in space is that they found out that once in the vacuum of space that warheads don't have nearly the punch they have when used within the atmosphere, especially against EMP hardened military satellites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosion In the grand vastness of space 80km isn't very much of a destructive range when you consider it was a 3.8 Megaton weapon detonation. And if the Chinese are going to resort to Nuclear space detonations which will cause the ground based damage as described in the link above, I think all bets will be off. I was thinking a more conventional scenario without the use of nukes from all sides. The launch vehicle would have to be sufficiently powerful enough to get the nuclear payload within a few miles of the offending satellite, so at the moment the Chinese using nuclear weapons could not completely destroy the U.S. military satellite networks, as they don't have that many DN-2 missiles, and are in the testing stage at the moment, but they might be testing another one here soon. http://missilethreat.com/beijing-to-trigger-arms-race-by-testing-anti-satellite-missiles/ This is facinating stuff in my opinion, but it's also one of the most closely guarded secrets of the worlds military powers and hence is shouded by lack in info, denial of existance, or just false info. Regarding the rocks from space scenario, I give you "Rods from God" or "Thor" which were U.S. designs on a tungsten rod satellite system that does exactly what you describe, only costing more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

A very good idea Speed, and viable given the technology already demonstrated, I would not be surprised if what you mentioned was being practiced. The U.S. has set up it's satellite network in anticipation of a global thermonuclear war, so there's some interesting tactics that have been used in the past. If you'd like to read up on that, I'd recommend the rather dated book by Arco: "An Illustrated Guide to Space Warfare" You can get it used really cheap here: http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Space-Warfare-Guide-Hobbs/dp/0134507843 For instance, being able to thrust into a different orbit after achieving initial orbit, and making it difficult to find the satellite once it has been observed from the ground. Being set up in another orbit and looking like space junk, or otherwise non operating, only to be activated and boosted into correct orbit after origional satellites have been destroyed. Basically, it can get really complicated up there. :) However, Check out this report about China's micro sat. http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1235/1 The problem is that some of the new Chinese satellites are so small that we've had to move assets into positions where we could get a better handle of exactly what they are. But we have our own systems as well, and a lot more of them. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Small-Is-Beautiful-US-Military-Explores-Use-of-Microsatellites-06720/

Well, for me since both sides in Millenium Challenge were U.S. forces in the game, it just shows to me that there's flexibility in doctrine and thinking in the U.S. system, and that lessons were hopefully learned as well as creating doctrine for U.S. forces to be capable of fighting asymetrically with advanced weaponry. Also having all the self assessment, lessons learned, critical reviews of U.S. forces helps them to learn to adapt to new strategies and challenges, I think that's what makes them so capable and quickly able to adapt to the situation when the shooting starts. Yea, the Lockheed videos are flashy, and it shows everything going smoothly, but just the same, when things go hot they don't always go so smoothly for the enemy force either. I think the S.Koreans, Taiwan and Japan as well as the U.S. have a pretty good handle on the conventional ballistic missile threat from China/N.Korea for example. Getting an accurate number of all sides systems and their ability to handle the threat publicly would be difficult, but although China has many missiles, they don't have all that many missile launchers to launch them from. U.S. intelligence would probably help in targeting and knocking some of the less mobile sites and larger missile systems out, allowing the joint Japanese, U.S. layered missile defence systems to be able to handle what does come in. Certainly a nightmare scenario, but something the U.S. has been prepared for decades. No one seems to show in such a scenario that the U.S. would probably do a lot of ASAT against Chinese assets in space, if not directly (it's messy and dangerous for friendly assets) then by more passive means by jamming, as well as massive comms jamming from Japanese and U.S. land naval, air, and space assets. No GPS for Chinese missiles, degraded comms, confusion abounds. Thanks for the links, I see you included the millenium challenge details, always an interesting read. :D

I haven't had the chance to get all the way through the Tanks of August, but was surprised at the self criticism so far as well. Thanks for the doctrine info Maior, although it's from the Russian perspective it sort of reminds me of the old 1980's DoD books they used to put out on the current year's Soviet force structure.

Thanks for that one Namenlos Ein, my parrot started singing along when I played the video lol. He did say "That's good!!" while bobbing his head up and down, and made up his own melodic sounds to go along. I found this Russian cartoon posted by the creator that gave me a chuckle, it's called:

Yea, the question mark was in the text, I'm not really familiar with the system enough to question it to be honest.

lol, speed sniped me.

The following link may provide a clue as to how quasars work with the current GPS system. http://www.space.com/7480-deep-space-objects-guide-earths-gps-system.html

Ugh, this is terrible news..... I'm glad I got to see the JATO of Fat Albert with the Blue Angels though a few years ago, and the F-22 demonstration as well before the cutbacks. Hopefully this will all be temporary and in a few years will be back again in force.

Thanks for that EvilBivol-1, was looking but had trouble finding a free source to post.

forgot this video that helps illustrate the point as well using Aegis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms6dXiIDofE&list=FLUbMa9kEYoLP3_Zlc2nzVPA&index=221

Yea, cooperative target engagement using space based synthetic aperature radars based on arrayed sensor systems networked together. The video below explains some of that in the sense that only the most probable unit to intercept the threat is selected and the missiles fired at the optimum time to engage at maximum ranges, even if over the horizon from the firing unit using the satellites to provide target track data in real time.