Thud_and_Blunder

Benu, I think you'll find the Jungle Op mission wasn't revised; when I compared the files in my MP folder that were to be updated with the new patch, I noted that there wasn't a new version of that one (ie 9 old missions replaced by 8 new ones).

While we're (patiently!) waiting... Does anyone know what this "West Target - Heavy" thing in mission 2 is? If I can find this out, then I'll know not to inadvertantly destroy it next time I play, and might actually not lose (too many) points in the debrief...

DV: I had that; I found that if I pressed the left-cursor-arrow and then enter, it took me back to my previous save point. I suspect that the normal "Load - Retry - Quit" options are still there, they're just blanked out. I bet Hellfish is enjoying his nearly-Rhodesian fix almost as much as I am! Fantastic piece of work, even on my 1 gig, 256Mb RAM Dell laptop! Thank goodness I've finished my Open University coursework...

Can someone help Sad'n'Bewildered (that'll be me, then) with the Swiss Mod AAE pack? I've installed the utility from BIS (which seemed to be over in the blink of an eye, yet with my lack of computer knowledge seemed to do, er, not much at all...). I've then tried opening the downloaded Swiss pack, only to find that I have no programme capable of reading an .msi file. Please, someone - what should I be doing? Apart from going into a home for terminally-confused computer illiterati, that is...

Yup, it worked as you said. Once I'd managed to get my brain around the Windows "how do you want to install this unrecognised filetype" ritual, it all worked fine. I note there's no mention of uninstalling previous Swissmod iterations - when I've finished my homework I must see if the setup works OK... Thanks again.

I'll give that a try. Very many thanks for your time and trouble.

Only one snag seen so far: parked an empty one on a slope facing downhill, and when after boarding I looked through the sight from the gunner's position, the top 1/3 of the sight picture was obscured by "greenery". The picture also oscillated in pitch and yaw, but not so much that you couldn't see the bottom 2/3 reasonably clearly. When I moved the vehicle onto level terrain and used the sight, the picture was normal.

The white star was used on vehicles in 1944 in the same way as Allied aircraft all had the black-and-white stripes applied (and all allied vehicles in Iraq 1991 and 2003 had the inverted black chevron) - as unmistakeable identifiers to friendly forces. Â The stars normally were placed to be clearly visible from the air, as Allied taxi-rank fighter-bombers took advantage of battlefield air supremacy to hunt for ground targets.

These days I have a lovely quiet sinecure, helping those nice police men (and women) keep a lofty overview of the West Midlands here in sunny UK. It's like getting paid to do your hobby; now, if only there was an income to be made from sitting on my BFA and playing OpFP...

Sparkvark (you probably already know that the 111 was the Aardvark, and the spark bit should be obvious...) was the user's name - Raven was the official one; think Thunderbolt 2 vs Warthog to get the general idea. As for the TV Maverick; we were co-located with an ANG A10 unit during the first unpleasantness, and used to debrief them on anything we'd seen (we'd land around 0300-0400) so they could go and visit at dawn. After we'd woken up around 2 in the afternoon (difficult to sleep beyond that in a tent in Saudi, even in Feb/March) their crews would then bring over their gun-camera films from their first-light flights for us to see during our briefing sessions. Plenty to see when the Gau-gun was being fired, but as they used to fly a break-lock manouevre immediately after firing Maverick, we only saw what the missile was being pointed at up to the launch. Nothing after that was recorded on board the aircraft. Shame, as they hit some very worthwhile targets - as we'd see from the BDR films.

An EF-111 Sparkvark was lost in W Iraq in the early days of the 1991 unpleasantness - might be a good topic for a CSAR mission with SEAL and HH60 involvement...

- You could put a folder on the desktop, give it the icon from Flashpoint and put all the shortcuts for your mod folders in there. No more space than the usual Flashpoint icon, and no time-wasting plodding through the folders on your hard drive to find the Codemasters files. Works fine for me.

It came down to a toss of the coin between the current moniker and "Rough and Toothless". Both very descriptive of the way I operate, and both owe a lot to the Reverend Spooner (a UK academic from the late 1800s who always got his mucking furds wuddled).

My vote's just gone in for Africa. Only been once (Rhodesia/ Zimbabwe, via Eritrea and Kenya), but the OFP engine seems ideally suited to what I saw there. Until BIS can model digging-in or other means of changing the terrain, I think the model is only realistic in areas where the ground is too hard for trenches, bunkers or tunnels. Anyway, plenty of scope for conflicts in that time-frame. Rhodesia itself, S Africa/ Angola, Mozambique - plus all the other ex-European colonies which were abandoned to fend for themselves. Don't remember too much overt US involvement, though... Liberia, I suppose.

I'm not sure that I'm being particularly helpful here, but I'll try and clear up one or 2 bits and pieces about UK kit. Skyraider: thanks CBFASI - by the way, were you ever in Ascension? I've only ever spent about 8 days there. Some top RN Skyraider pics found via Google search at this address Hawk: single seat version (the Hawk 200) has never served in UK forces, but my favourite Air Force (Oman) replaced the Hunter with them. Malaysians and Indonesians seem pleased with theirs, too... ..Er, would that be the Chileans? They don't like being mistaken for Argentines... Plenty of ex UK Canberras there, too - including the PR9 alluded to in an earlier post. Lightnings were exported to Saudi and Kuwait, and I can remember BAC photos from that era of the beast with pop-out SNEB rocket launchers that were fitted abeam the cockpit area, either side of the fuselage - unable to find a pic. However, I have to agree that it wasn't exactly designed with mud-moving in mind. Yup, quite agree about the B57 - excellent addition to any Vietnam mod. RAAF version would fit well in the same conflict too. However, wasn't the Spitfire used by USAAF units? And going back a bit further, I think the Nieuport 28 and Spad VII did sterling service for the Cousins in the 1914-1918 (or '17-18 if you're American) Unpleasantness.... Does this mean BIS are going to produce some re-textured Camels, methinks?

Not the B57 - genuine Brit article (as were the Arg Type 42s, Sea Darts and loads of other pieces of kit). See http://www.naval-history.net/F64argaircraftlost.htm for details. There were strong pre-1982 links between the UK and Argentina - did you know, for example, *boring fact alert*that each year's highest-scoring cadet in the RAF Officer Training system up to that year was awarded the Argentine Sword? The Skyraider in RN service was the AEW version - big glasshouse canopy, large radar underneath but NO weapons. Radar was later burgled for use on the AEW Shackletons before the NimWACS farce; we finally obtained the E3 Sentry. Hawks aren't employed in the attack role, although they are used for gunnery training. However, the Mk1A was adapted for Sidewinder carriage and had a 2nd line intercept role(!). Hunters in SOAF (Oman) were equipped with AIM9L and -9M missiles, but that was after the fighting in the south finished in 1975-6.

Crippler: Noooooo!! For reassurance that this is the case, try John Cotterill's photos at 1991 Gulf War Photographs

Phoenix, Thanks for that; I took a quick look at the menu after downloading pack 2, saw that it didn't bear much relation to the real world and never actually bothered to inspect what they were wearing. Tps Hereford wearing badges? What next? Unless, of course, it's all part of maskirovka to make the opposition believe they're up against someone else...

Miles, </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Bucaneer's are now missing their cannon and they still don't have a rear seat gunner position.<span id='postcolor'> ..er, unless SAAF did some sneaky mods that we never got to hear about, the Banana never did have any cannon. And I'm not sure that the One-Winged Adjunct to the Master Race (ie the Navigators) would have appreciated being called "gunners" . Am looking forward to finding a working link so's I can try these out for myself.

You could also try downloading the HK pack Mk 2 from the Lost Brothers, although the kitlist provided in this is not very representative. Useful links can always be found on Johnny Lump's page

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">erm.... i didnt think lasers were invented till the 70's <span id='postcolor'> ..Showing my age, but even 007 had encountered lasers by then ("Goldfinger", I think, around 1964-5).

Evis, The Iraqis certainly didn't have Crotale/Shahine in 1991. However, they did have Roland, which was just as scary as SA8 Gecko - partly because we didn't have the countermeasures or famil training for French kit at the beginning of the conflict. Fortunately, neither took very long to arrive...

Eviscerator, The RAF Gazelles were primarily training a/c. However, one (ZB627 'A' was given an overall green finish (think GR7s for comparison) and allocated a recce task with the Odiham sqns - I took it to Corsica and various other places on task in the mid-90s.

Go on, Oberon - you know you want to reply - don't you?

1970s? Fantastic! If I had the modding skills I'd be sorting out a Dhofar campaign mod right now, but it'll be worth seeing if OFP2 contains the material to allow me to put the basics together. It'd get around the perennial problem of not being able to dig-in with the current engine, too (the jebel being too hard in Oman; building sangars took the place of burrowing below ground...). The ideal campaign in many ways; limited air support ops, conventional tps (including an Iranian brigade), irregulars and SF ops. Could be some problems with modelling the very steep terrain, though... Now, if only Oberon can be persuaded to finish his Ferret and Wessex, then put together a Saladin, some 25lb-ers and a 5.5" for OFP1...