Yup, back in the saddle again, this time with Call to Arms: Panzer Elite from Digitalmindsoft Publishing. I originally got into this publisher's games via their Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront. When Panzer Elite came out, I jumped on it. I mean, y'all know my love of tanks. (And juvat, I'll try and find some screenshots of aircraft blowing up tanks in one of the games I have. I know it's there, just haven't played that particular setup yet.)
This one is in early release, in other words you buy the game and provide feedback to the developers and as the game gets updated, you get the updates. Basically you're paying for a finished product and get to help test that product. I don't mind, that particular business model seems to be working for a lot of game publishers.
Anyhoo, that opening photo is the standard player's view. You're hovering behind your tank so it's perhaps a bit more "arcade-ish" than IL-2 Sturmovik - Stalingrad. But it's great fun. Once you see something you might want to shoot at, you can zoom in to this view ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite
I thought I saw movement just beyond that farm ahead to the right, so I zoomed in to the gunner's position. Moments later a Pzkw IV came rumbling into view. He blew off my left track but this was his fate ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms: Panzer Elite
I'm not sure if the crew can bail out at this stage of development, they can in Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, in that game you can bring up spare vehicle crews to repair and re-man a vehicle. Which is pretty cool.
For now, if the vehicle dies, so does the crew.
As for Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, it looks like this ...
Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
Screenshot - Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront
You can play zoomed out, with a map showing you your guys and known enemy positions, or you can zoom way in, like that last screenshot, to really see what's going on. You can order your units to advance, fight, withdraw, what have you, and they'll execute in real time. Then you can zoom in and watch the action.
It's immersive, very immersive.
I highly recommend both, if you've got at least this much oomph in your machine:
Minimum System Requirements
OS *: 64bit - Windows 7, 8, 10, 11
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: GTX 1070 / RX 5600
DIRECTX: Version 11
STORAGE: 80 GB available space
SOUND CARD: DirectX 11 compatible
ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD drive and fast internet connection needed for optimal gameplay
If you've got that, or better, you should be able to run these games. (juvat - Not sure if they'll run on a Mac, but the discussion page on Steam says "Yes" it runs on Windows and Mac.)
Sorry gotta run, Krauts are breaking through near St. Vith!
Me-410 Hornisse Screenshot - IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
I finally got around to hooking up my old Saitek X52 Flight Control System to the new desktop machine. I was somewhat worried that it wouldn't work well with the newer machine running Windows 11, but it does work and it seems (so far) to be working well.
It's been awhile since I've taken to the air in this old (but continually updated) flight sim which, to me, is the best I've ever "flown."
P-51 Mustang Screenshot - IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
What you see above is the view looking out of a P-51 over France. One thing vastly improved from the early versions of this flight sim (I hesitate to call it a "game") are the clouds. They looked pretty good back in late 2001, when the sim first came out, they look fantastic now.
The flight models in the later version of the sim are much improved as well. No flinging the old kite about the sky with wild abandon anymore, do that and guaranteed you'll stall or go into a spin. It was much harder to crash the bird in the early versions.
So while I play, I don't write, much.
I'm also working my way through the old HBO Rome series, one episode to go. I enjoy my time with Vorenus and Pullo, they're like old friends now.
Ah well, me and my fantasy worlds.
In other news ...
We're expecting more snow here, but the forecast has been bouncing all over the place, which is typical when they try to forecast ten days in the future. Right now it's raining, which was predicted. That might turn to snow after sundown.
Oh boy.
But on the bright side, the temperatures are in the high 30s during the day. Which after the last few weeks feels downright balmy!
So there you have it.
The rest of the world keeps working while the Old AF Sarge plays with his toys.
When I heard that the Reverend Jesse Jackson had passed away. I noted that he had been born in 1941, my first thought being, "Wow, he wasn't that old." Then I saw the report mentioned that he was 84 years old. So he had lived a good, long life.
I don't think of the 1940s as being all that long ago, probably because I spend a lot of time reading about World War II, which ended eight years before I was born. (VE day was exactly eight years before my birth.)
After all, I'm pushing 73, which doesn't, from my perspective, feel all that old. Though my knees and back are probably figuratively "rolling their eyes" at that statement. My brain is still pretty young-thinking, my body usually does feel its age. Especially after rough-housing with my grandsons Roberto and Finnegan.
Time flies, neh?
I had the thought that I had retired from the Air Force some 25 years ago ...
Nope, it's 27 years ago as of May. I retired from Raytheon 14 months ago, and I spent 25 years there.
Robert Duvall, one of my favorite actors, passed away this week as well. That one hit close to home as he was younger than my mother! I'd like to say that Mom is still going strong as she heads towards 96, but she's not. Not really. She's forgetful as hell, can't hear to save her life and is far too stubborn to consent to having us get her hearing aids. She gets by, day to day.
Getting old ain't for sissies.
Brad Arnold of Three Doors Down died back on the 7th of February. While not a huge fan of their music (I only own one album, and that's a greatest hits album) I did enjoy their music, and their energy.
I love that band for the simple fact of this video ...
I need to get more of their music.
Life comes at you fast, enjoy it while you can.
Peace.
¹ F/A-18F clock given to me by LUSH. Time, in this case, does seem to fly literally.
That's Your Humble Scribe on the left in the photo, striking some odd pose as is my wont. Behind me is my oldest kid brother The Olde Vermonter, he's the one who posted this old (circa mid-60s) photo on the Book of Faces. Moving further to the right there is my maternal grandfather (technically step-grandfather but we didn't view it that way, then my Dad. In front of him are milk cans which Gramp used to collect maple sap, which was then boiled down to make maple syrup. Behind the grown-ups is the sugar house, where all the boiling of sap took place.
Scurrying about in their usual excited frenzy at having us boys visit can be seen Bimmy, part beagle, part bird (more on that in a bit) and traveling out of the picture is Tippy, just his hindquarters and tail made the photo. Tippy was mostly collie, probably other breeds mixed in there, but he looked mostly collie.
It's been over fifty years since I've seen those dogs and I miss them still. They were loyal, affectionate, and terrors to the local woodchuck population. Gramp didn't like woodchucks for the damage they'd cause to Gram's garden so he was an active participant in culling the woodchuck population.
That aside, those two dogs would go crazy when our car would pull up to the farmhouse. They would dash back and forth barely standing still long enough to get petted, yipping in excitement, their happiness showing plainly on the canine faces. Eventually my Mom would tell us to separate ourselves from Tippy and Bimmy and go say hello to our grandparents.
Now I refer to Bimmy as being "part bird" for the simple fact that when he ran, his ears flapped up and down. Pretty standard for a floppy eared dog, I know. But when we'd ride the tractor up to the pasture, Tippy and Bimmy would run behind, Bimmy's ears going up and down for all the world like he was trying to get airborne. So "part beagle, part bird."
Those dogs were devoted to my grandparents and to my Uncle Hank, gram's brother, who also lived on the farm. But one day Gramp told us that the dogs loved us kids above all others. To demonstrate he took us all outside.
He pretended to start coming after us, as if to hit us, and quick as you like, Tippy and Bimmy placed themselves between us and him, snarling, prepared to attack if anyone dared to lay hands on us, including the man they spent a lot of their lives with, day in, day out.
As I get older, I remember times like those more and more. I can remember the smell of the smoke from the sap being boiled, the wood waiting to go into the fire, the mud, the snow. The spring sunshine just starting to make the days a little more pleasant after a long winter.
I remember my grandfather, not a man to express his feelings with words, more by deeds. My Dad, always trying to teach us boys not to be idiots, he had his work cut out for him with me! Mom and Gram in the kitchen cooking and/or baking something.
I remember those two dogs every day. The love they had for us, their excellent companionship and especially their energy. I miss them.
OK, I don't think I've written about this subject before. I don't know if what I'm going to talk about is still being done. I don't think it is, but it had a lot of good results in it's day.
The program was called "Incentive Rides". Members of the non-rated Air Force (AKA not Pilots or WSO's*) who had impressed their chain of command could be selected for an Incentive Ride in one of the Base's jets.
Yes, Beans, in a two seater.
They would get some basic training on emergency equipment just in case things went south. Then they would be put on the flying schedule with a very experienced pilot. They would be briefed on what was going to happen on the ride, and how to deal with it.
Basically, this was pulling G's. When a fighter turns, the pilot rolls the jet into an appropriate angle of bank. Airliners do the same, but it's usually no more that 10 degrees of bank. Fighters generally turn using 70+ degrees of bank.
Oh, did I mention that when a fighter goes into a high bank angle, the G-Load gets pretty high pretty fast. Which can include, if not prepared, the possibility of losing consciousness. That could ruin the mission of the incentive ride because the rules state if someone loses consciousness, whether a person on an incentive ride, or a experienced fighter pilot/WSO, returning to base and landing is mandatory.
Oh yeah, a visit to the Flight Surgeon is also required.
I always enjoyed giving them that ride so I went to great extremes to keep them happy (and avoid them having to visit the Flight Surgeon). It was a reward for excellent effort on their part in getting their job done. As such, in the brief, I would ask what kind of ride they would like. The options were anything from a fantastic view of the local area in complete comfort (OK relative comfort, they WERE strapped in to an ejection seat) up to a ride that would make the best Disneyland E-ticket ride feel like a walk in the park.
I distinctly remember one of the incentive rides I gave. I was scheduled to fly a ride with a Senior Airman (E-3) Crew Chief who'd had a very good record in keeping "his" F-4 mission ready.
In the briefing, I mentioned those briefed options This Airman was from the deep south. He answered. "Sir, I don't wanna do any "Loop-de-Loops".
OK.
We take off and are in the local practice area, driving around like a Cadillac. I'm bored to tears. I hear him ask "Sir, can we do a little faster turn?"
"Why, yes I can". I roll into bank and pull 2 G turn. He says, "That was great, can you turn faster?"
"Why, yes I can". I roll into about 70 degrees of bank and pull on the stick to 6 G's (our g-loading limit). I hear this loud yell over the intercom, so immediately roll wings level and ease off the stick to 1 G.
"Airman, are you ok?"
"Sir, that was Sheet Hot!"
I immediately went into demonstrating high speed, 2 or 3 G maneuvering. After a bit, he asks "Sir, can we do a Loop Dee Loop?"
A loop is a 4 or more G maneuver.
I start the maneuver.
At the top of the loop, I look in the mirror, he's got his head back looking at the ground above him. He lets out a "Yeee HAWWWW!' over the intercom.
Brought a smile to my face, yes it did.
Suffice it to say, whenever I got assigned his aircraft, I got treated quite well.
Based on that ride, I volunteered to fly any incentive ride I could. The people that were going for the ride were the cream of the crop, so this was a reward for both of us.
This was another ride I knew about. Somebody I'm deeply proud of, even now, got selected for an incentive ride in the F-4E. The pilot is on the left, next to him is the Wing Executive officer, next is his assistant executive officer, next is my Weapons System Office (WSO AKA Back Seater), Me, then my Flight Commander.
The young lady in the middle is also my wife. One of the traditions of flying a fighter in the USAF is soaking one down on their final flight at that assignment. When she landed the tradition was carried out.
I asked the Pilot how she did. No problems and a lot of fun. Excellent!
We received orders shortly thereafter. She and I were going to Holloman AFB to fly AT-38s.
That would be Captain/Mrs. Juvat in the back seat
Fast forward 3 years. We're now at Holloman and about to leave, Mrs J (AKA Capt/Mrs J) gets scheduled for another incentive ride. There is one obstacle, she is pregnant with our son. The flight surgeon said "No" to the flight. So, they do a high speed taxi ride.
Shortly thereafter, it's my turn, the squadron members (who weren't flying, briefing or debriefing met me at the jet with fire extinguishers to wet me down and present me with a cheap bottle of Champagne. I had enjoyed the time, but had bigger, better, faster things ahead of me.
The guy to the left in the picture? Yeah, I took some gun camera film of him
Yep, that's me after my last ride in the Eagle, also the last airplane I was at the controls of. Mrs J (at the time Major J) only got a taxi ride in the Eagle because of a medical condition which is obvious in this picture. MBD was born a month or so later.
I really enjoyed taking folks on incentive rides, they were satisfying to both parties.
So..a little music about the subject, just because it seems right!
*WSO -Weapons System Officer. Basically the non-pilot on board a fighter responsible for a lot of different jobs in some fighters (F-4 and F-111, back in the day, F-15E nowadays)
Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the Panther IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
Contrast the German Panther commander's position above with that of the Soviet KV-1 commander's position below ...
Screenshot of the Commander's Position in the KV-1 IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad
Note the game play aids along the bottom of the screen along with the mini-map in the lower right hand corner.
I've had this game for a long time, couple of years at least. When I got it my machine didn't really have the cojones to run the game, it IS a resource hog, comparatively speaking. My Razer laptop could run it but that poor beast died before I could really get to this game. Okay, I have a LOT of games for the computer.
My current laptop has the cojones to run the game but, and this is a big but, the laptop heats up quickly when playing games of this sort and I don't really want to burn up another laptop. Laptops are deuced useful when traveling dontcha know? But the smell of hot electronics bothers me. A lot. Can't imagine why. (Bit of snark there, I used to work avionics and the smell of hot electronics meant there was something we had to fix ... Which is exactly why I don't like that smell.)
My current desktop machine has lots of power and lots of cooling fans, seven to be precise, and the CPU is liquid cooled, not quite like a Maxim machine gun but you get the idea.
I'm still getting to know this new machine (so far I love it) and I do that by playing games on it. It's who I am, it's what I do. Can't command armies in the field but I certainly can on my computer. Best of all, no one gets hurt for real.
A game I am anxiously awaiting is Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). The following screenshot might tell you why ...
Grand Tactician: Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815)
I have the American Civil War version of this, Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865) and enjoy it though the graphics aren't quite as good as what is shown above. As can be seen below ...
Grand Tactician: The Civil War (1861-1865)
The units seemed to be scaled better in the former, by which I mean the number of men represented on the display matches what the actual unit would have. If a battalion has 500 men, you'll see 500 men. The latter game seems to have fewer soldiers on the display than would be present in real life. Then again, that might be a setting the user can fiddle with. More items to display takes longer and on lower end machines could really bog down the game play. We shall see.
So that's what I'm up to, as for material for blog posts the well does seem to be running dry. Maybe it's me being lazy (or tired, I stay up way too late playing these damned games) or perhaps I need a break.
Might take a couple of weeks away from the hurla burla of the internet, I'm starting to need it. Failbook is driving me nuts (too much political shit) so I'm cutting back on my time spent over there. I'll read friend and family posts about their families and vacations but not much more. It's getting out of hand. (And don't get me started on the number of bloody ads Failbook inundates us with.)
Anyhoo, enjoy your Sunday. See you ...
Uh, scratch that, be back on Tuesday with something, I dunno ...
Thursday, the first of the so-called “crazy days” leading up to Lent, is known as Weiberfastnacht or the Women's Carnival, where women cut off men's ties as a symbol of power reversal. The women sometimes reward obliging men with a bützchen, or friendly peck on the cheek, a less common tradition today.Source(You can also read about it in more detail here.)
So yes, Thursday, Lincoln's Birthday, was Altweiberfastnacht. (I think the "Alt" part of the name was lost to political correctness some time ago, as it means "old," just like no one says "Fräulein" any more. Modern times, yuck.) I saw mention of this on the internet on Friday, brought back a memory it did. Of the old days. (Hhmm, mentioning the "old days" and Germany in the same context is problematic, innit?)
Anyhoo.
There I Was ...
Sitting at my desk at Geilenkirchen AB, Germany, compiling a bunch of C++ code as I recall. It was a large-ish program and compiling and linking all of it took some semi-lengthy amount of time. Perhaps 30 minutes or so. Then if something is amiss, you fix it and start over again.
Normally (normalerweise, auf Deutsch) I would occupy my time during a long compile by playing cards (FreeCell to be precise) on the computer while monitoring progress. One Altweiberfastnacht (I believe it was 1999, some three months prior to retiring from the Air Force) I was doing just that. While doing so, a band of celebrants of the female variety entered my office on a mission to cut the ties off of any man they encountered.
As I normally wore my BDUs¹ to work, having occasion to sometimes crawl about the lab and other places where computer equipment was in use to check on cables (which the cleaning staff would sometimes inadvertently unhook or otherwise cause to lose connectivity) and having once destroyed a rather pricey pair of uniform pants doing that, I felt justified in doing so. (My colonel once chided me for that, after explaining myself, he relented, in fact he started wearing his BDUs to work as well. Now it seems to be all the rage.)
Long story short, one does not wear a tie with BDUs, now on Altweiberfastnacht the ladies, especially the European ones, get annoyed if one does not wear a tie so that they can destroy it, so I adopted the expedient of fashioning a false tie out of cardboard and affixing that to my attire in lieu of wearing an actual tie, which would get destroyed. Not being made of money, as the saying goes, I did not wish to lose a tie once a year. So ...
Anyhoo, long story short ...
I'm sitting at my desk, monitoring my compile job and having a game of FreeCell when I hear the clamor of a group of females approaching my position. When they entered I presented my fake tie for destruction which some of the ladies (the Europeans) chuckled at, as they knew me well by this point, this being my 8th Altweiberfastnacht. They snipped it and prepared to move on to find their next victim when one paused, looked at my computer screen, then looked at me. I should note that this lady was an American captain (O-3 Air Force type, not O-6 Navy type).
"Playing games on Air Force time?" she asked in a semi-serious tone.
"I'm compiling ma'am, while I'm compiling I play FreeCell. And yes, I'm compiling on Air Force time, as well as playing a game."
"Hhmm, that seems less than professional."
I realized at that point that she might be serious after all, it seems to be a habit of our non-rated officers to be somewhat, shall we say, pretentious. As a senior noncommissioned officer, I felt it was my duty to respond in a corrective manner.
"Perhaps ma'am, but maybe just as professional as running around the building cutting off ties."
At which the European ladies all had a good laugh and our young captain blushed mightily, realizing the absurdity of her position. The ladies left without further ado.
When the compile was done, I went and picked up The Missus Herself and went to join the festivities at the club on base. Fun times were had, no ties were harmed on my part.
