Virdea

They did this to the M4 as well. Had the radiator horizontally mounted across the top of the engine. The current M41 still has some wacky "radiator".
 
More howlers in that M3 image are the locations of the fuel cell, and the munitions racks.  It's like they just threw parts in the hull and gave it a brisk shake.
 
The really stupid part is- They implemented the vehicles this way.
 
It was as if the people they paid to make test and approve the models could not be bothered to crack a book, of any kind, to proofcheck their work before introducing some ridiculous modelling such as that.
 
Eventually after many many bug reports they -kind of- fixed some of the really glaring bugs, but it's as if they literally have nobody checking the finished work before rubber-stamping it out the door.
 
The M-18, the model looks okay, but because of the 'cat's performance it quickly became a source for complaint because of how Gaijin cobbled it's ground forces terrain modelling (and their ridiculous maps/missions, and laughable damage modelling. All that aside-).
 
A vehicle that could do 50 MPH over flat terrain is going to win a countdown based capture the flag map far more effectively than a Tiger I or IS..
That's not the fault of the vehicle, that's crappy implementation and map design.
SO how does Gaijin address this?
 
Nerf the M-18. In numerous ways.
Brilliant!
 
No, let's not take a step back and try to fix the numerous glaring faults this vehicle presented with our game mechanics, instead let's ignore historical data and make the machine fit those ridiculous parameters. It's not as if anyone will notice! (Five + threads and hundreds of pages of posts, and still climbing..)
 
This is a company who's sole difference from Wargaming's offerings is this facade of "historical accuracy" , when in practice they are more than willing to claim "secret test documents" when beaten over the head with a copy of "Armored Thunderbolt" or "Sherman".  (Or actual A/C flight manuals.. Their flight model justifications for many soviet aircraft consist of a two sentence paragraph, usually "The aircraft displayed superb climb and performance tendencies", while doing things like introducing the P-38J with the flight parameters of the non turbo-supercharged Mod 322 then basically ignoring the bug reports for over a year).
 
Wargaming at least took the road of "Hey, it's a game, we'll keep em close but expect "balance".
 
Gaijin on the other hand made a huge deal of "historical accuracy" then fails to even crack a book to proof their models.   

Look through the Combat Mission game forums, one of the first big forums for gamers on line, from the late 1990s and you will discover that the US tank suffers from a PR problem originating from model designers in the 1950s and made worse by the American tank hating designers of Squad Leader.  The result was a lot of bad press on the US tanks that was made up.  
 
There are dozens of threads in the Combat Mission forum about how US soldiers derived no benefit from the gyrostabilizer in their tanks and often disconnected them.  The comments will say that crews were not even trained in their use.  All of which is bollocks.
 
The tank gyro was invented by a guy named Clinton Hanna and was installed on every US tank.  It could not be removed without changing the mount, although it could be operated in a neutral mode where it would not affect tank barrel position.  The gyro required no training as it was only on, or off.  If it was on then it kept the current cradle location of the canon no matter how the tank moved on the vertical axis.  The gyro was mentioned numerous times by German staff as a significant quality issue that the faced with German armor.
 
The main advantage that they gave was in quicker first round firing times when a tanks came to a halt, and the ability to fire one or two rounds accurate when they tried to escape.  This advantage meant that US tank guns were nearly twice as accurate in its first shots before and after a move than German.    To counteract that argument you need to get rid of the historical gyro, so you have to make the crews too stupid to use it, or make it, or such good armorers that they disconnect it.  There is on evidence this ever happened in any number of events.
 
At the same time you have to give German tanks every advantage.  German optics were between 1 and 3% sharper at 500meters that US, so you make up a German optics advantage and give German tanks a +10% to hit, or else the MkIV is at a disadvantage to the M4.

I included a section on 6.8mm superiority when used against flaming M4 tanks.

When is the dead tree edition? Nothing against E-books, but I prefer something on a shelf.

That cat is out of the bag.  My bayonets book is live.  
 
All writers learn that the Internet is a place where haters hate and everyone else remains silent, so on open forums I will, like my previous works, remain silent.  But in a closed forum like this I can say sending a book out is like sending your kid to pre-school.  Except with an e-book you can get it back and fix your mistakes.

A couple from the collection..
 
First, a MAS 35-
 

 
 
And next the SACM 1935A-
 

 
 
The two, bracketing a M1911A1 to illustrate their comparative sizes.
 

 
This is the "packet" lockwork, something the French were pushing in their service pistols.
to the left is the '35A, and the MAS 35 to the left. The concept lived on in the SiG P210 and the MAC Mle 1950.

 
 
The magazines. The two are not interchangeable, which I'm sure merely added to the misery already suffered by French logistical officers.
 
MAS35 to the left, 35A to the right. The MAS 35 has a removeable baseplate.
 

 
 

Truth be told I take my pre-war MAS 36 out more, but this is my pride.  A MAS49 sniper rifle with a matching serial number scope.  
 

 

Truth be told I take my pre-war MAS 36 out more, but this is my pride.  A MAS49 sniper rifle with a matching serial number scope.  
 

 

I had to disarm a couple of guys who were hunting deer with an AR.  We kept finding deer run into the neighborhoods with 20 or 30 shots in them.  They would run about a mile and bleed out.  Finally tracked it to two guys.  One yelled at me that we were NAZIs because we were taking his guns from him.  The magistrate who fined them said he was not fining them because of the gun, but because anyone so stupid as to fail to get a kill shot in 30 rounds was too stupid to participate in a democracy, and he was hoping they would move to Somalia.

Big, light weight, plastic boxes with no interior divisions.  Less packaging, cheaper food.  Grapes and eggs are expensive to get to troops in fresh form because they require extensive packaging.  Fresh meat needs a reefer to move sides and a human butcher at each end.  
 
Flour is easy to travel - throw it in sacks or - if you are handling it rough - a high wall container like show above, suitably covered.  A highway container can carry 50kg, be carried by two soldiers like a litter using little carry hooks, be stacked 5 units high, rolled onto.  Truck beds can have wheels and a ramp allowing the boxes to be rolled on and off fast.  High wall loads do not shift in transit because they are tight packed - full to the top.  When you want to use what is in the high wall you open the top and dig in.  best of all - the bulk cost of a high wall is like $5.  You cannot carry ammo in it, but if you can make all your food stuff naturally shelf stable without packaging (think how you can sit a bowl of uncooked rice on your counter for three months and it will cook up find afterward) then it cuts lift costs a LOT.  Technically reusable, but some high walls are made from food products themselves (such as corn) and can be shredded, soaked in lye water, and used for tortillas.  

We can see some new ration technologies on the horizon just by looking at recent research requests from Natick and at RFPs issued by the Army on long term research.
 
1. Food Printers.  Military cooks are a part of the logistics tail that can be cleaned up.  First, in the last year, 1/2 of all cooking specialists failed specializations.  Next, and infantry brigade uses around 80 food service personnel in its tail requiring a daily lift (just for them, not the food they make) of nearly 8 tonnes of supplies.  Finally, changing food preparation requirements can take a food service staffer 6 months to a year to master.  Food printers would cut 70 of 80 cooking staff, produce uniform food that could not be messed up, could be reprogrammed in days to changing food needs, and would reduce wastage of food delivered by 50%.  
 
2. Nonlinear food delivery.  The concept of meals has been studied, and it is discovered that soldiers do not eat them unless forced by command.  Soldier prefer to graze, eating all through the day and only stopping for a single large meal occasionally.  Nonlinear food services uses IT to monitor soldier intake and nutrition.  Education teaches soldiers how to graze.  Grazing allows more bulk foods in teams which soldiers "buy" from the commissary system using ration points.
 
3. Interactive preference logistics.  Each soldier has favorite foods, and new software can track what they like and make sure it is available more often.  Soldiers can also plan rations by putting in their preferences for meals while overseas.  The system will be designed to meet the soldiers desired at least half the time, baring logistics issues, in which the soldier will be told why the meals they wanted are not available, reducing complaints.

I had to disarm a couple of guys who were hunting deer with an AR.  We kept finding deer run into the neighborhoods with 20 or 30 shots in them.  They would run about a mile and bleed out.  Finally tracked it to two guys.  One yelled at me that we were NAZIs because we were taking his guns from him.  The magistrate who fined them said he was not fining them because of the gun, but because anyone so stupid as to fail to get a kill shot in 30 rounds was too stupid to participate in a democracy, and he was hoping they would move to Somalia.

I had to disarm a couple of guys who were hunting deer with an AR.  We kept finding deer run into the neighborhoods with 20 or 30 shots in them.  They would run about a mile and bleed out.  Finally tracked it to two guys.  One yelled at me that we were NAZIs because we were taking his guns from him.  The magistrate who fined them said he was not fining them because of the gun, but because anyone so stupid as to fail to get a kill shot in 30 rounds was too stupid to participate in a democracy, and he was hoping they would move to Somalia.

I have no reservations in taking these peoples' guns away for life after stuff like that. A wounded animal can get freaked out and maul a person out of fear. A gun is a responsibility as much as a "right." If you're not up for the responsibility, then you're not up for a right granted to you by the state. I'm tired of doofuses making us all look bad.
 
These doobers used to wait by roads in the mountains and shoot at dogs. It was treated with fines and generally ignored until some Gomer shot a trained rescue dog a few days after 9/11. The dog was out of training, and had just gotten called to serve with first responders at the tower or Pentagon, so the guy really got run through the wringer. It really didn't help that he "mistook" it for a deer, and shot it in the head as the owner was walking it down a paved road.
 
edit: Because that first paragraph may seem like I'm trying to steer us into the debate we all hate by now, I'm gonna just end this on a higher note. I just want someone to give a 20th century version of this speech to hunters in our areas before they're allowed to go out:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90TQGasjs0Q

I had to disarm a couple of guys who were hunting deer with an AR.  We kept finding deer run into the neighborhoods with 20 or 30 shots in them.  They would run about a mile and bleed out.  Finally tracked it to two guys.  One yelled at me that we were NAZIs because we were taking his guns from him.  The magistrate who fined them said he was not fining them because of the gun, but because anyone so stupid as to fail to get a kill shot in 30 rounds was too stupid to participate in a democracy, and he was hoping they would move to Somalia.

I had to disarm a couple of guys who were hunting deer with an AR.  We kept finding deer run into the neighborhoods with 20 or 30 shots in them.  They would run about a mile and bleed out.  Finally tracked it to two guys.  One yelled at me that we were NAZIs because we were taking his guns from him.  The magistrate who fined them said he was not fining them because of the gun, but because anyone so stupid as to fail to get a kill shot in 30 rounds was too stupid to participate in a democracy, and he was hoping they would move to Somalia.

I've done the exact opposite as I currently reside in Snoqualmie, about two miles from the famous falls of the same name. Don't miss it one bit.
 
Although I do get to venture into my old stomping grounds such as my friend's BBQ yesterday on Beacon Hill where my ghetto senses were put to good use deciphering the sounds of a drive by shooting down below on Rainier Avenue. For those of you not familiar with Seattle's geography, the areas that I mentioned are - despite the ravages of gentrification - are locations where the economically disenfranchised continue to congregate.
 
Suburban friends who moved to the City: Wow. That sounds like a car backfiring.
Don: No. That's gunfire. Probably a handgun. Probably a low caliber revolver since there were six shots.
Friends: No. But they sounded like they were moving.
Don: It's a drive-by shooting.

Truth be told I take my pre-war MAS 36 out more, but this is my pride.  A MAS49 sniper rifle with a matching serial number scope.  
 

 

I love the Remy and Winchester, guys. I posted these in the small arms thread because I got the Enfield yesterday. I got the Argentine Mauser back from my dad today, so I got the whole gang together:
 

 
 
The Mauser's been in the family forever. It's been well taken care of, and the metal has only recently developed a petina. They're great rifles. I don't consider myself a wonderful shot, but I can't miss whatever I aim at with it. I also have never heard a more satisfying noise than when I work the action on this bolt.
 
The M44 was a gift from my dad, and it was the first rifle that was "mine." This is back when $80 got you the rifle, a sling, a carrying case, and surplus ammo pouches and cleaning equipment. It's a fine rifle, but not for pinpoint aiming. It's mostly useful for freaking people out on the range with the muzzle flash and earth-shattering kaboom.
 
The 91/30 is a recent addition. $200 for a barrel that had never been used, and restored wood. Kicking myself for not buying a $90 one when I could, but I'm glad to have him.
 
edit: Now that I look at it, the Mauser looks like it's in worse shape in the picture than it actually is, and the Enfield looks better than it actually is. Odd.

This is Chester. He is my first rifle which I got on my fourteenth birthday. He is a Winchester Ranger Model 94 chambered in 30-30. For years I dreamed about having a Winchester rifle, looking longingly at the printed advertisements in the Big-5 flyer that came in the mailbox once a week, tracing my finger of the pixilated photo that advertised Chester for just $199.99.
 

 
He has been with me on multiple adventures including each of my trips up to Bristol Bay, every hunting trip, my honeymoon and multiple instances when something went bump or howl in the night.
 
After nearly a quarter of a century that he's been with me, I can think of few circumstances where Chester wouldn't be more than a match for what I'd need to ask of him.
 
Also Bonus Book-aki 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFKu_bwMoYE&feature=youtu.be

I don't have anything against gold dots, just that they seem to have some cult following and whenever designers switch to something else for whatever reason (in this case, something entirely out of BB's control), people flip out to the point of demanding refunds or boycotting which is kind of ridiculous. (This is actually where alot of Underwoods fanbase of former BB buyers come from.)
 
Personally, if I had absolute choice over what bullet style to use, which I don't because I don't handload really, I'd load Black Talons (really rare now though) or Ranger SXTs.
 
People can say what they want about the supposed downfall of Winchester, but they still make damn fine bullets.

This is correct.  There are small things we can do.  
 
>Early tracking mandatory pre-K for all children, with special classrooms for children whose parents are incarcerated to teach basic skills on how to be a human being to children who have learned nothing of that sort at home.  Piaget says before age 8 a small correction leads to big change.
 
>More money to special education and an end to mainstreaming / a return to tracked education.  This repairs the dumbed down K-12 system.  Scholarship students at very good private high schools break all sorts of statistical models.
 
Those two things alone could drop future crime rates by 25% and represent the absolute best investment in terms of ROI.

Because it is my human rights that have to be spent to get the guy who robbed a bank (or even sold heroin) out of jail.  Personally, if I have to pay to have someone warehoused under threat of their committing violence on me, then it has to be done under my terms.  And my terms are - commit a violent act for any reason, earn a stay at a welfare center which I choose to call a jail.  I will accept no other terms since they are my rights, I possess them already, and it takes extraordinary acts to remove them.
 
Pablo Fajnzylber, working under a Neo-Marxist assumption set, reverses causality as a matter of course in the article - which is why I teach my students to tread carefully when employing a tool like Neo-Marxism.  Now I am the last person to throw Gary Becker and the Chicago mafia under the bus here, their work is valid and their discovery connecting racial bias with economic disfavor are ground breaking and important.  But their work can, should, and is questionable with regards to crime.  Messier found no connection between economics and crime.  Blau squared found a connection, but also a blizzard of caveats.  All this work pre-exists the article you provide but the author - a world bank employee, choose to only use Becker as a foundation.  About like someone arguing against germ theory but failing to cite John Snow.  
 
Now to personal experience.  I never in five years arrested anyone who stole because they needed money to feed themselves or house their family.  You could argue they did not have a yacht, but neither do I.  And the theory you present cannot be used to predict the chance of someone being a criminal.  

Do what you can to up the odds of people in bad situations being able to get out of those situations.