Donnervogel

I seriously hope I misunderstood that....

well I don't want to go into bio-geographical discussion since it would be off topic. You will find out one day that it doesn't work I guess. There are much more points I did not metion and I simplified things. Like rain. Hey we've got more rain than we need too. Only the bad ground from replanted trees/forrests isn't able to take it anymore. And different trees yes. But only trees that are commercially interesting. Those are mostly similar types which doesn't rule out the problems. And even the best chemicals leave their marks on nature. Men are not able to copy nature yet. We tried it too for something like 60 years in the late 1990's we had to admit that it was a big fuckup because one lousy storm destoryed almost 19% of our replanted trees. And we have 15% more floods than 10 years ago and we have had some landslide catastrophies which eliminated whole villages. And killed lot's of people. (Even with buffer and safezones - the extend of the catastophies just exceeded anything imaginable) Maybe your topography doesn't show the problems that fast as ours but they will appear.

Well what I heard of it is is a bit special because it has got this tactical element. You can command your squad. I'm certainly interested into that. Something different from the run and kill everything games ;)

We've been there in switzerland already until we found out that that logic is faulty ;) 1. Trees take veeery much time to grow. Solution: Plant fast growing tree monocultures. 2. Tree monocultures destroy the natural fauna. Many animals lose their existencial fundament. 3. Due to missing animals varmints spread and destoy the trees. Solution: use chemicals 4. cheicals poison the ground and sometimes drinking water. Often they affect mushrooms over long time periods too which are needed for trees to grow properly. Trees begin to die because they don't get enough water. Solution: give them more water 5. The additional water is expensive. It takes the chemicals from the ground into deeper layers where they get into drinking water reservoirs. It also takes nutrients away from the ground. It oversalts the ground. Trees don't grow properly anymore. 6. Tree monocutures are much more affected by diseases. Solution: chemicals - see point 4 and 5 7. Thos tree monocultures never are able to reproduce the same quality ground that primeval forest made. The layer of good earth is thinner. It's not able to soak as much water and it doesn't adhere to the rocky ground that good. Floods and Landslides can happen more often. 8. Those trees monocultures are young and not so strong. They can be devastated by storms easily.

Oh somebody already did it during construction: clicky

I found this quite an interesting article. It's available in german too. The votes that really count have not yet been cast Just an the last bit, I recommend to read the whole article though. When reading it I found out that I actually knew off it but I wans't aware. And there is something worring about the fact that this system could once fail...

the tree is an element of european "pagan" religion that was adopted by christianity somehow to "lure" more people to it ;) I once knew the exact story but it's a long time ago. take a look here: christmas tree

in the long term it will bring europe more snow than we can cope with ;) And I am truly fed up with christmas. wans't it just last year when we had this shit? They could come up with new ideas...

What I find amusing is that the page where these pictures are on does exactly the same kind of one sided propaganda it accuses the people on the pics of ;)

here in finland the minimum is 6 months for regular infantry (basics and specialities) - rank Pvt or Pvt 1st class. then there's 9 month program for a bit more special duties like MPs and such - same ranks. the 12 month program is for group leaders, officers and some other special stuff like transportation - group leaders Cpl or Sgt, officers 2nd Lt (I think) and the others outside of those Pvt or Pvt 1st Class. just made me wonder if there aren't so many things for them to learn 6 months is something like 25-26 weeks. So that's not so much more than swiss men have to do. And we don't have russia as a neighbour ;)

Maybe the Democrats can get him to run for prez in 4 years. Sings: "And I have 4 Purple Hearts!" americans don't like people that sacrificed something for their country. They prefer guys that go AWOL when it becomes dangerous ;)

Now that's the worst thing the US could do. Because the US went in, it caused trouble - now it has got to clean up. If the US leaves now it leaves Iraq behind in total chaos, opening the door to the terrorists they brought in. This will further disequilibrate the middle east and burying the concept of democracy for Iraq. The US smashed their "security forces". Now it can't leave them behind defenseless. In my opinion - if you want to talk about problems of the US military - it's something else. The US military is a killing machine and it does that well. But their commanders and their soldiers seems to be incompetent when it comes to enfoce and keep peace. IMHO this is because they lack the training for it. Killing everything that stands in your way doesn't make you "win hearts and minds". Peacekeeping is one of the most difficult tasks and it sometimes requires to take more risks than the US military is willing to take. And it's a very psychological matter and the attitude of the US military towards the locals isn't very well thought trough at times. Furthermore it requires knowledge of language and culture and religion. And I got the impression that most US soldiers have very poor knowledge of those topics in the areas they're deployed and therefore it's no wonder they keep upsetting the population. The most important part in todays wars is the time after the major battles have been fought. But the US military beeps perfectionising their capabillity to kill people. But the goal in that phase is make peace and bring stability. This sometimes requires force to fight insurgents. But much more important is to not let there be support for insurgency. And that requires to win the support of the population - and this is the cracking point. It's extremly difficult to do that and you can't afford to make too many errors in that phase. The military alone will never be able to succeed in this. You need many more political and economical efforts. The military is not the right "abbassador" for this. It's there to fight. But that's what you want to prevent. The military is only one tool in the toolbox of a government. And it's the one that should always be burried under all the other tools. And it should only be used when there's no other fitting tool. Everything that can be done with another tool should be done without the military - war is always the failure of reason. That's just my opinion.

it's 21 or 18 weeks now in the "army 21". It was 15 weeks in the "army 95". You can make it in one chunk or do it in one large chunk and some repetition courses. but what is strange with it? That's only basic training + special function training that every swiss man has to do. If you want to become a professional soldier you will get much more training of course.

erm... Switzerland does peacekeeping. Swisscoy in KFOR ISAF erm what has UN membership to do with it? erm neutral only means we will not join military alliances in peacetime and we will not start wars nor support any war we're not involved in. This does not mean we won't defend our country against a crazy german dictator trying to invade us (just a hypothetic scenario - no offence ;) ) Who are we supposed to fight? I hope nobody. But you can make up your own scenario. And we do peacekeeping so that is a possible scenario for conflict. @orson Well I agree with most what you say but it doesn't mean the mod is perfect. there is room for improvement and I suggested some things they might consider.

First I want to say that I'm very happy to see a mod of our army for OFP. I really like most vehicles in the mod and it's fun to play them but I found some things that I didn't like so much. 1. Soldier model Correct me if I'm wrong but it looks like it is a modified model and I'm sure that you put a lot of effort in it but I don't like how the torso looks. Espeacially the shoulders and arms are a bit weird. I don't think it's because you did it wrong but it's because of the animations in OFP. I tried to modify soldier models too and I found that OFP's animations are sometimes messing it up. I don't know if it was inteded to make the torso look like this but I liked the BIS version better. Or you could try to use the model that BAS released. 2. the assault rifle - Sound: It doesn't really remind me the real stgw90/pe90. I think you could go to a shooting range with a good microphone and try to recort the real sound. - the iron sight I made a picture of the sight of my stgw90/pe90 rifle that we used most of the time in our service. Stgw90 Sight Could you tell me why you used the night visor? And on the other hand your sight looks like the rifle is held too far away when aiming. Maybe you should "zoom in" a bit more ;) 3. the cv90 it's a great vehicle all in all but it would be nice if you could do something about this to make it look perfect 4. Mg 51 sound Maybe you could ask the guys at mmp for their mg3 sound which is really better that the one in your mod Ok this was a lot of nagging. I hope you don't get me wrong. Most of the mod is really great and I only try to give you some ideas to make it even better ;)

As I didn't read the Quran myself it's hard for me to comment on your claims. So my first question is. Are those strict rules really written that strictly in the Quran or are they part of a different "ruleset". Like the Sharia (spelling) or anything alike. Because here again are paralells to christianity. In christianity most people couldn't read the bible until the 16. century because it was written in Latin. So they had to trust the priests that were telling them "the rules" And the priests again were instructed by the pope and by conventions of the concillium which were manmade decissions and it remided more of politics than of religion. Later there were little books (catechism - spelling?) for the normal people to read and so they could be "educated" in religion. Again those books were full of interpretation from the church and not direct copies of the bible. So christianity had those strong rules too and there were strict rules set for most aspects of life. But you have to differ between the bible as the basis of the religion and the church as an manmade institution with a political agenda. And most of those rules were clearly made from the church. That's why so many christians are so "liberal" today. Because the church lost it's political power after the period of enlightment. I did some reading on Islam and the impression I got was very similar to christianity. It's like most of those rules are based on other writings than the Quran itself. Writings that were made later - mostly by interpreting the Quran. Or the rules are based on the specific religous authority in the region. Like there are differences with Sunnis ans Shias in their religous belief. Even in the people they worship. And therefore they all have different religous authorities and some of them are more fundamental/extreme and others are more liberal. And in some parts of the muslim world it's similar to europe that the religon doesn't have very much political power while in other parts the religous power and the political power lies in the hands of the same people. And you can see clearly that in the more secular parts it's possible to have a more "open" and "tollerant" Islam. Now if the Quran did set those strict rules it should be everywhere more or less the same. But it's not. To make a somewhat extreme example. Turkish muslims are mostly very "liberal" compared to the Taliban. Yet all of them claim to be followers of mohammed and they all respect the quran. Now I don't know what is written in the Quran but it would seem strange to me that the religous practics could be so different if most apsects of life were clearly regulated by the Quran. I rather think it's again a matter of interpretation. And some people interpreted the writings in a very extreme way and they also have other secoundary writings as religous autorities, while others interpet it in a more liberal manner - just like christians.

@Avon I didn't accuse you of saying that it was an offensive religion. This answer wans't directly related to your comment. It's more a general answer to the topic that was brought up. Maybe I shouldn't have quoted your message. I'm also not sure if you got it right what I've written. I said there are stories in the bible (i.e. I believe it's in the old testament where god kills the population of a city because they were atheists - or they followed different gods... don't remember exactly. it's a long time ago when I read it) that were quite shocking for me and that such parts of the bible were interpreted by some people do do bad things. But those stories aren't rules as the ten commandments for example. I said they are just stories and they can be interpreted. I wanted to express that anyone using such stories to tell people "it's written in the bible that christians must do this or that" (as it happened in europe's history) is infact decieving the people because he's suggesting those are "rules" and he's hiding that infact they are his own interpreteations that may be true or not. so basicly you summed up what I wanted to tell in this sentence: As for being off topic. Well I find it quite important to talk about this aspect of Iraq which is a mostly muslim country, when I hear some people saying that muslims that follow their religion are bad. Because as I explained with the example of the bible there are people interpreting special parts of it in a way that allows them to preach hatred. And I believe it's not much different with the quran. As you see in different muslim countries there are - as in christianity and judaism too - very different forms of religousness. Some are fundamentalists or extremists and some follow "sects" that have different interpretations and then there are also moderate people not really letting their life be dominated by the religion. And of course also people inbetween... it's just totally wrong to generalise and saying thinking they are all the same.

Browse back a few pages for my links and quotes regarding "offensive Jihad" from Islamic sites only. This part of your accusation against DOR is incorrect. Well interpreteation of religous writings was always a very debateable topic. This does however not mean that islam is an offensive religion. I remember when I read the bible (I'm atheist btw) I saw many shocking and cruel things there too. And I know from european history that those things were abused to preach hatred and to justify the killing of followers of another religion. But in the end those are no rules given by the bible. Those are stories in the bible that can be interpreted in different ways. And some people abused their power to follow their - rather secular - aspirations for expansion and power. Now I didn't read the Quran but I can imagine it's pretty much the same way with it. I know sevral muslims and if you look at turkey you can see that there are many muslims not preaching violence and hatred and they all have the same worries that we have and if you looked what happened in germany this weekend you saw a lot of peaceful muslims not fighting against the western culture. For those who didn't get the news. There was a huge muslim anti-terror demonstration.

@Blake some remarks altought this is pretty off topic. The germans did not divert many troops from the eastern front to the west after russia cracked down. By far most troops were kept in the region because they had to occupy the land they had won there. It was more military material that could be diverted to the western front and they didn't use as many ressources. The germans declared their last offensives as their decisive push but that's like believing what fox news tells you ;) It's just propaganda. From now disclosed documents it is known that the german HQ was in a desperate situation and wated to put up pressure and hope that they could archieve an armistice to their advantage - meaning they could keep the land they conquered. casualties of 360 000 men, while a terrible thing, are minimal compared to those of the other parties. There were many US soldiers in europe at the time but most of them never saw battle. The US refused to "fill up the trenches" of the british and french because they saw that this only led to senseless slaughter. Therefore they waited open battle but there weren't many occasions for that. But the large troop numbers as backup for the entente powers was indeed a strong psychological factor. Interesting fact: at the battle of the somme died more men than american troops in both world wars together. But as you said the financial and mateiral support was very important for the entente to win the war.

See I knew that was comming so I wrote that edit. Again. Yes of course it's not comparable. As the attack on the WTC is not compareable with falluja. When you read the previous page you'll see that I said something about that comparision topic and now I mentioned Dresden - a bad comparision overall - as kind of "side blow" on that. Later I answered again that "some pictures" reminded me of Dresden. That doesn't mean I say falluja is like dresden. It just means that some areas of falluja are in ruins. Btw. Dresden was not completly destroyed in the secound world war (if you go there you will see that there are quite some parts in dresden that weren't destoyed). Unfortunatly most of the beautiful old buildings in Dresden (It was prolly the most beautiful city in the world - at least IMHO) were destroyed and most of the old city along with the railway station and the industrial areas. Anyway. back to topic. I really doubt that the goal of the US attack on falluja was to spare as many lifes as possible. As I see it - considering their destructive tactics - it's to spare as many american lifes as possible. I don't say they target civillians. But they don't put in too much effort to spare them.

Very nice units there guys. I'm really looking forward to your stuff

Some pictures in the news did indeed remind me of Dresden. I am utterly shocked how much dammage was inflicted to the civillian infrastructure. EDIT: To clarify what I mean. Of course falluja will still be there and it will be rebuilt. But the dammage is huge nevertheless. And when I look back to the roots of falluja becoming this insurgent stronghold I must say the whole thing could have been prevented with a bit of thinking. If you remember there were protest firsts because the marines took a school in falluja as their base. Parents came to protest that their children could not go to school anymore. And then someone fired into the crowd and killed like seven civillians IIRC (it is not really clear if there was fire from the crowd first or not). Anyway, that's how it began. Now if you ask me you should fire the idiot who takes a school as a base. With a bit of thinking you can imagine that this must provocate protests. And protests and provocation in an unstable situation are the last thing you want when you want to "win the hearts and minds".

Yeah. As Dresden is standing still (or shall I say again?) ...

errr... if you want to make such a comparision you would have to compare manhatten to falluja and even that is a lacking comparision.

Yeah Denoir... My problem with this is that they only make things worse. Even when they kill all the Insurgents that were in there before the attack they will only produce thousands of new insurgents or insurgency supporters. Again there are more people that lost their loved ones and/or all their property. The US forces must understand that there is a difference between total open war and peace enforcing/keeping. You can use brutal power to smash an enemy army or if you want to devastate the enemy. But when you try to win the hearts and minds of people you must take more risks for your own troops in order to inflict the least dammage possible to civillian infrastructure and offer maximum safety to innocent civillians. I can only shake my head when I see 155mm arty firing into a city still populated with civillians. I know arty can be very precise but a 155mm shell just makes a huge boom. It doesn't matter it hit precisely. everything around it will be destroyed anyway. I fear the US tactics are too short sighted and is not recognizing iraqi lifes as equal. In the short term they can save US lifes. But in the long term they will lose more because they only lengthen the insurgency and that will claim many US lifes too.