Gollum1

Seeing as this thread used to be called military stupidity... Setting: Last November, Finnish Defence Forces conscript training. Cold, wet. My section had deployed our 81 mm mortars and was assembling mortar grenades such as these Many people don't realize that you don't fire a mortar by setting it up and cracking open some prepackaged ammo crate or tin. Due to safety and modularity, FDF 81 mm mortar rounds come in four distinct parts which all need several different operations and safety checks done on them before they can be assembled into a functioning grenade. Just one of the safety checks done on the fuse/detonator (the "head " of the grenade roughly the size and power of a small hand grenade) is to remove the safety cap and check that the nose plate hasn't been pushed in due to damage or manufacturing defect. This would mean that the fuse is ARMED and will go off at only the slightest pressure on it, as it is supposed to go off when it lands on the ground nose-first after being fired. A defective detonator is also considered very unpredictable. Scary for your hands and face, not to mention your whole platoon if you find a defect around live grenades. If it detonates while attached to a grenade, naturally the whole grenade goes off as intended. If functioning correctly, the detonator will arm only after it is already launched tens of meters into the air (similiar to the M203 40 mm grenade), to protect the mortar crew in case it hits a tree branch or other close obstacle, or is subject to heavy forces during the initial launch. Meet NCO student "X". This guy is hammering home the firing charges (look like big aluminium shotgun rounds and work much in the same way) into the butts of the grenades by hitting them on the side of an ammo crate. This means striking the ammo crate directly with the primer of the firing charge. Everyone screams at him to stop and he does. One of those going off also means bad news for your hands/face/section. Student X gets an earful about getting everyone killed from his fellow platoon mates, but acts like it's no big deal. This guy isn't known for knowing much or caring for safety regulations. Another NCO student suddenly finds a detonator with the head pushed in! Everyone almost freaks out and our CO is called, he calmly picks up the detonator, places it far out in the woods and calls EOD troops to come blow it up. Later, we fire all the grenades in a fire mission. Each assembled grenade is checked and double-checked for defects, with one last check before firing. The loader is the one in charge of the rounds. One of the mortars has student X as loader. Months later, we discuss the armed detonator that had to be blown up, and the (always) careless attitude of student X. Student X pipes up: "I don't know what the big deal is! We fired all those other grenades that had the head pushed in just fine!" If what he says is true (at least he thinks it is) several Finnish Defence Forces conscripts are lucky not to be 6 feet under this day. I wouldn't put anything past this guy.

Fixed. Your physique is no obstacle. You will probably get in worse shape in the RDF if you don't voluntarily go to the gym during your free time. 9 months same "crap" as everywhere else, last 3 months interesting international stuff. Most are very unmotivated even though they voluntarily came there, which is strange and seriously ruined my service. Bottom line: very disappointed in the service, but don't regret it since it's basically the only way to go to international missions nowadays, I would have applied to NBG but it was too late. So KFOR next year probably. PM me if you want more info, I will be happy to answer any questions.

Some pics from the Amber Hope 2007 exercise that I participated in as part of my conscript service...I am now a reservist Corporal. Higher res Not an Airsoft gun. This was from a Latvian equipment exhibition, we used RK-95s like these, here pimped out with everything we could fit on it. Thumbnails: Higher res Higher res And one from Finland: Higher res

Room entry gone wrong Norwegian conscripts learning how to throw flashbangs properly.

Is the TeKa possible to create with the Armass engine?

I have the same problem, already re-installed DX9, OpenAL and the newest ATI drivers, no luck. Radeon 9600 XT/Win XP Pro. edit: Updated DX and now it works. Very simple!

Yeah and T-72's. That would be awesome I thought all T-72s are replaced by Leopard 2A4s? FDF mod 1.4 includes almost all of the most important FDF equipment from 1939 to about 2004, which allows you to create a huge range of scenarios, not just modern and near-future settings. I would be happy if this would be the case for the new FDF mod too.

Very nice! Even nicer that my unit, the RDF, is represented. The latest rumors at the gear depot say we'll be getting m/05 stuff in April. Peacekeepers in Kosovo and Bosnia are already using it.

I hear the way to practice good science/history is to establish dogma and imprison anyone who questions it.

Looks like more generic, flashy Americans-vs-Germans-in-Normandy crap to me. Call me jaded.

Build-up of arms? Somalia doesn't have enough weapons to go around anymore? I hope this doesn't escalate further, that country has seen enough misery.

That may have been true in WW2 and in training, but nowadays a station broadcasting just about anything is going to see a hell of a lot of action from the sky if a real "international live-fire excercise" starts! Same for artillery.

Well at the entry tests, we were sitting in the 1st Jaeger (FRDF) company's classroom waiting for the interview portion of the tests, and our NCO's really chatted us up, in the end they asked who's going to apply for Jaeger first, everyone's hand went up... "As FRDF jaegers, we wait for the enemy to make a breakthrough or landing, then we cruise to the rescue in Pasis with our berets on and flag flying high...and then the enemy calls in some rocket artillery and we all die *laughs*" Ok, not so inspiring but... There was some engineer there who tried to propagandize for her branch but she just couldn't compete with 20+ jaegers. So everyone's order of preference was 1) Jaeger 2) Engineer 3) Signals. Including mine, of course. Thanks for the well-wishes, and good luck to Draco too.

I'm entering service in the FRDF July 10th.

1) I would assume that most or at least some of the men at BIS have had military training since the Czech Republic and its predecessor had a conscription system up until recently. 2) Europe is a continent, not a country. Following the same logic, does North America respect a right to 3) keep and bear arms? No. The USA does, in its Constitution. The Czech Republic doesn't, there is a firearm licencing system. What is silly? American and Canadian firearm legislation differ fundamentally.

Just what was it with that MP video? It is the most boring thing I've ever seen. Whoopee, let's use tactical view in the middle of a desert for 3 minutes and then reload for no reason once in a while. More to the point: It was disappointing how the reload animation still doesn't actually do anything to the weapon, and the reload animation is completely wrong for an M4 anyway. The desert didn't even have small rocks or weeds, and the muzzle flash in the iron sight view looked crap. Disappointing. edit: since someone is going to complain, yes it's work-in-progress, but this just looked like OFP. edit2: I was wondering what "fixed aim" people were talking about and watched it again, and holy shit. This could be bad.

Well, if you think about it, every game from Ghost Recon to Counter-Strike just plays the reload animation without the mag removal if you look at a character from the third person. Counter-Strike Source shows the mag removal in third person.

I don't think anyone knows yet. At some point, they had changed the animations in Armass (as much else) to match OFP:E's, but those are just a different animation, nothing happens to the weapon model. That was in an early version, so I guess they are working on it, who knows. I hope so.

1. Freedom. OFP is more than a game, it's a sandbox. This is the number one trait that has kept me playing OFP. 2. (relative) Realism. 3. All major combat arms (except indirect fire, altough the engine is capable of it) are modelled somewhat reasonably. 4. Relatively easy mission design because of ready-made maps. The editing process could be improved a lot, though. Include mods in this category. Years of playing has jaded me and made me really aware of OFP's (understandable) flaws, but nothing has topped the game yet, so I will have to continue playing it.

Hehe, I think you just need to eat a few sandwiches to get some meat on your bones. Glad to hear about a first shooting experience (?) though, keep at it, AR-15s are a lot of fun.

I think OFP has the biggest mod scene I've ever seen, and I go to the MP server browser now (showing all servers regardless of ping) and see 80% default RES, 15% different CTI "mods" and the rest a sad crew of motley addons, maybe Finmod is struggling at the top of this 5% as a mod with 2 quality (private) servers and 8 high-ping empty ones. I wonder how many servers I'll see using a @fixedcobra folder among Armass servers, well, who knows! Also, I could turn into a pumpkin.

Not going to happen, videogames were recently banned in Canada. The state will provide former OFP-addicts with the board game "Risk" to ward off the withdrawal symptoms.

Very true! I honestly didn't think of that. It would make sense that they would be using older NATO/US equipment. The M113 and AH-1 are used by many countries. But looking at the weapon and equipment inaccuracies in OFP and Resistance, I wouldn't put it past BIS.

It sounds like a nice idea, but the reality is that the vast majority of OFP missions are made with default units only. I can count on one hand the amount of mods and addons that almost everyone has and you can safely make missions for painlessly: FDF, BAS...uuh, that's it. And BAS is pushing it, since their addons all come in different little packs. Even when playing FDF MP you'll have some dumbasses who can't get it to work or haven't patched it. Include any other addon and you're in for a lot of hardcore pain when trying to play your mission with anyone else than your clan who only plays with their own Azerbadjanian Rangers addons or whatever. That's just a cold fact, one that I've had to learn several times over. Even in 2006 the vast majority of example missions that come with addons (like that ever happens...) use BIS units for OPFOR and terrain. The notion that addons solve everything is ludicrous. If you only take pics and play around in the editor addons are a great solution, of course, but not when playing the game. Having a good, neutral and accurate base of units is absolutely essential. That's why I suggested the BTR-70, it's in use around the world, just leave some markings off and it can pass for any old third-world military's vehicle. Or how about this: Notice how a huge part of OFP addons are reskinned BIS models? Even in mods, like FDF? The base units are important.

The animations and graphics are starting to shape up, Armass is starting to look good. I remember the first screens where all buildings were taken directly from OFP and Resistance. Why even bother showing stuff like that? Even the last few videos looked very disappointing, more like an exact copy of OFP:E. The soldiers moving reasonably and tightly in a CQB setting in this video warmed my heart, as did the multiple gunner positions. The lighting, models and animations look good. Although there are a few equipment/realism inccuracies, for example, why there is an M113 but not an M2 Bradley in the vehicle lineup? And the M113 is opposite the BMP-2! An M113 wouldn't stand a chance against it, and the M113 doesn't have nearly the same large role today that it had in 1985. It looks like the US Army guys will have to bring an Abrams along wherever they go if they want something bigger than .50 cal (even the Stryker is armed with a single .50 cal, making it almost identical in capability to the M113 ingame). Similiarly, the M163 Vulcan is outdated. A BTR-70 would be a much better equivalent to the M113/Stryker, and would be a very reasonable vehicle to implement overall. Just what is the Opfor going to transport its infantry with? Trucks? The BMP-2 fits very few men. Another thing, the US Army soldiers have Woodland-patterned vests in the video...not accurate, this may have been true for some units even a year ago but nowadays most do have ACU-patterned vests, the small amount of old 3-color desert and woodland-patterned gear will eventually disappear completely. This error becomes even more glaring if you want to do missions set in the future or near future with these units. And what is a Marine Cobra doing in the video? If this helicopter is included, it would be the only USMC unit in the game (at least so far). I thought Sahrani was a US Army operation? It is out of place, the Army does not use Cobras any more. There were no USMC units in OFP. And another thing about the helicopters, what is it about the Littlebirds all over the place? These are operated exclusively by the 160th SOAR and would definitely not be floating about behind every damn soldier's head. Just because they were "cool" in Black Hawk Down doesn't mean that they should be everywhere on Sahrani. Replace the Littlebirds and Cobras with Kiowas and Apaches and things would start to shape up... Just some gear queering from my part.