Skybird03

Cpt Colossus, Just that the US army would not face Ukraine in the most likely future big war, but China. A high tech country. China watches what is going on in the Ukraine, and will draw its conclusions. And missiles they have had already before, and plenty of them, all kinds of, modern ones. In that war, navies would play a role, and the concept of US carrier group imo only still works against inferior enemies, not against enemies on same technological level, with ICBMs as ship killers, satellite intel, and good submarines, and enough missiles to drown any missile defence system. The text I linked to also mentions that carriers may be a dinosaur by now, more of political than military value I think. Last but not least, in a scenario US versus Ukraine you still would deal with the extreme motivation and the top morale of the Ukrainians. And the competence of their current military top leader, I red a bit about him in recent weeks, repeatedly. What he has implemented in modernization of tactics and not chnagign but just scrapping the old Sovjet doctrine, is remarkable, and borders a miracle when considering the short time he is in office. In brief, i think any Westernr tank force , if it invaded the Ukraine, would have bled, too. Probably not as intense as the Russians, but the vulnerability of armour to modern ATMs and ATGMs remains, and the Western civil societies digest high losses much worse than the misinformed censored Russian civil society in the Rodina. Time has moved beyond the RPG-7. And then there are drones. And drones will escalate further, will become autonomous. And then will operate in swarms. Autonomous swarm AI. Why that is a concern can be learned in an entertaining fashion when reading this thriller: "Kill Decision", by Daniel Suarez. Still a fiction, but good book fooder for holidays. The inhibition levels will be reduced to conduct military strikes against unsuspicous nations or industrial targets, once these drones can be made by anybody with anonymous compenents bought off the shelve while three dozen national economies have the knoweldge to produce these components and offer them on market. And thats how market economy and capitalism work..The first pocket calculator my grandfather (a teacher) bought, did just +, -, : and x, and it costed several hundred D-Marks, late 70s I think. The computer capacity on board the space shuttles were comparable to home computers in the early and mid 80s. And today...? Regarding computer power, you could fly the space shuttle comfortably with a smart phone. A playstation. Drones will become privately affordable. Promised. And they will be used, and the attacker unlikely to be held accountable in many cases. States. Individuals. Corporations. Organised crime. Gangs. Small drones. Big drones. It will happen. For germany now "rearming" in a hurry, I think it is not really realistic to imagine that Germany needs to rebuild a bigger fleet of MBTs than the pathetic number of Leopards that are still in service (if operational, that is). We should get a better and sustainable personnel basis, a better reserve sytem (militias system maybe like in Finland or Switzerland), and high stockpiles of "intelligent" weapons and missiles of any kind, scattered all across the place. I am not thta big a fan of the vision of a loepard-3, or somethign like that, but of high mobilty, fast, agile small units with smartest weapons available. Intel and sensor ability, cyberwarfare and secure electronic environments, redundancy, training, morale and motivation also rate high. Heck we see it in the Ukraine! And first we would need to educate the Germans in general to understand again why one even should want to be able to defend oneself. The sad truth is that many Germans have been intentionally untrained to no longer understand even this simple, natural reason. After WW2, that was understandable, but now it is a problem - like in Japan.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fideas%2Farchive%2F2022%2F03%2Famerican-volunteer-foreign-fighters-ukraine-russia-war%2F627604%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2g9hMR22Cczce-EwXCVwFf7yNUTuMbojH8xKgZA664zFiqzwPsZm5so8o [quote]First, Jed wanted to discuss anti-armor weapons, particularly the American-made Javelin and the British-made NLAW. The past month of fighting had demonstrated that the balance of lethality had shifted away from armor, and toward anti-armor weapons. Even the most advanced armor systems, such as the Russian T-90 series main battle tank, had proved vulnerable, their charred husks littering Ukrainian roadways. When I mentioned to Jed that I’d fought in Fallujah in 2004, he said that the tactics the Marine Corps used to take that city would never work today in Ukraine. In Fallujah, our infantry worked in close coordination with our premier tank, the M1A2 Abrams. On several occasions, I watched our tanks take direct hits from rocket-propelled grenades (typically older-generation RPG-7s) without so much as a stutter in their forward progress. Today, a Ukrainian defending Kyiv or any other city, armed with a Javelin or an NLAW, would destroy a similarly capable tank. (...) Since February 24, the Ukrainian military has convincingly displayed the superiority of an anti-platform-centric method of warfare. Or, as Jed put it, “In Afghanistan, I used to feel jealous of those tankers, buttoned up in all that armor. Not anymore.” [/quote]

It's a "welcome back"!

Since last hour, I am aboard 4.268.

Holy moly, thats what I call a deinstallation! Took over half an hour for v4.023 (on an i7-8700K). Is this normal - or a sign that something was/is wrong? Codemeter deinstallation was a stunt of seconds. Did not realise that 4.268 already is out since a few days, noticed it just today. Will buy and install tomorrow. My time budget for the moment is up. :)

Thank you once again. It seems my dongle is all fine despite its first generation age, CM stick is version 1.18, CM active license is version 1.19, and "WebAdmin" shows me five entries: "unnamed", SBP 2.5, 2.6, 3.0, 4.0 . If the runtime environment thing takes care of itself during installation of the upcoming new software version, then I expect no problems, it has always been a smooth ride in the past anywayway. I just do not recall each and every single step and detail while nevertheless believing in being well prepared, thats why I ask. I base on the assumption that I uninstall SBP manually before installing the new version. Uninstalling Codemeter software, too? Scenario folders last times of updating survived the changes. Whether the older scenarios I used still work with newer SBP versions, remains to be seen, much of it is from 2.x times, and I seem to recall that I ejected from SBP when 3.x came into full swing and some things changed that made adaptation necessary.

Could be that I mistake it with this mysterious something called Runtime Environment. Or was that automatically updated during the sim installation procedure? Must I even manually worry about these dongle-related things anyway? Did some shooting exercises at the gunnery range last night. 52-72% Argh! I am really out of it, last time I did this years ago, I got a perfect 100% score regularly... As they say: shooting is an ephemeral skill LOL. I need to sharpen my teeth again a bit.

Thanks. So its back to the books (and videos) for me.... And a firmware update for the dongle is most likely also on order, I assume.

Thanks, I am really back in the mood for some tanking. Past couple of years saw me having abandoned it, since 2017 or so. Since I lost contact to the forum discussions on newer versions that i could not buy anyway, I missed much of the newer stuff and changes. I also have forgotten quite some things and keybindings, I need to relearn quite a lot again. Got a new system in 2017 and went into VR, was amazed and got absorbed by Assetto Corsa already earlier (I am with it since the tech demostrator in I think 2012 or 2013), but VR completed the migration from tanks to racecars in record time. However, after four years of VR racing I have inhaled it soo deepley that I now need a break from it, and so I got back my taste for military sims. Combat MissionShock Force 2 paved the way, and now I am going back to the roots: SBP. In between, like always in the past 30 years, a bit of flying here and there. I will wait for the new version that you mentioned, Ssnake, thanks. Why messing around with the hassle twice if you can get away with doing it just once! Some forum research might be on order, too. Tips for getting me updated quick are welcomed. Last version of mine was 4.023, but I think last version I actually played around with was some version 3.x

Oh great, I hoped back then that one day other options would be made available again! Paypal works well enough. My openign screen of the existign version is 4.023. I assume I take the last buying option for 30 coins then to upgrade to the newest version, yes? As I said, I got a bit rusty and have been away for a few years, so i do not recall every detail of the drill anymore. I seem to recall that installation now is more complex, somehow, different separated downloads for maps and engines, or something like that, or am I mistaken? Is there a detailed instruction on codemeter upgrading, installation and such? Heck, I really feel out of things, very. Too much VR and sim racing in past years...

Hi, coming back to SBP after some longer years-long absence, so i have missed some versions, I have asked about it before (around the time the arrangement with okaysoft.de collapsed), that is three or four years or longer ago or so, and just ask again in case some policy may have changed: have any additional payment options been made available now, or is it still just credit card exclusively?

It sneaks noiseless. Its hybrid-engine-driven, can go all-electric. It dives. German: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article216804864/Elektro-Panzer-Lautlos-bei-Tempo-100-das-kann-der-Genesis-aus-Deutschland.html English: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.welt.de%2Fwirtschaft%2Farticle216804864%2FElektro-Panzer-Lautlos-bei-Tempo-100-das-kann-der-Genesis-aus-Deutschland.html I am suspicious of the charging times... (FFG-company colours)

A brief VR episode: Do VR on PC and then try Google Earth VR and Streetview VR. You will be in loss of words. Unbelievable. For me this alone already justifies buying VR. I travel with this a lot. A good racing sim, Eleven, Racket FX and Subnautica are others musts one should try in VR. Box VR and The Thrill of the Fight are two excellent workouts. Virtual desktop allows you to play just any game on huge screens: that of a Cineplex movie screewnk, if you use that mod for it. But not every game works well with that, some are more prone to VR sickness this way than others. You do not get stereoscopic viewing this way,lk but a damn huge, detailed screen. I lioke to weatch movies in a virtual cinema with VR. Works wonderful. Peopel are afraid of the resoltuion. You must not be, you get comopensation for it, and it is not that prominent an issue as you think. Skybox works well, or sdaid Voirtual dersktop with cineplexx mod (copies a cineplexx in Sydney that meanwhile was shut down). VR will stay a niche for more time to come, I thinl not everythign works well in VR, but it definitely has come this time to stay and not go away again. VR can do real wonders, but one has to be rrealistical in assessing what goes and what not, what works with it, and what not. Okay, back to the program.

Those were good years. Many intense and immersive moments, i think only Falcon 4.0 gave me comparable experiences. When I was a little boy, i loved to play cowboys and indians, and sneaking on the "enemy". SB was the perfect digitization of this sort of gameplay. Sometimes my whole life feels like a running simulation. Too bad I need to move on on second to last tracks. But then: still occasionally rumbling around.

I agree that probabilities and trends - maybe that is the consensus we can reach - are a reality on the level of pragmatic reality, and even below, like Newtonian physics still rule the play of balls in billiards despite the existence of quantum physics. Certainly people also follow trends, or tendencies in their behaviour, and behaviour again feeds back on trends/tendencies, sharpenign them or weakening them. But when t he step is taken to formulate rules based on prabilties that got artuclated by observign past events, the danger is that past events took place in contexts that manwhile may have chnaged, so that these events in the prresent would not take place that way any longer. What happens in money theory and invetsment strateies, is a good exmaple for that: we cannot be that certain at all anymore that past investment stratgeies that with high probability in the past have formed you a profit still function in the forseeablwe future, even more so since there are actors - states - that try to bypass and derail them even further. Experiences of the past can only be seen as valid of the present if the present still ticks by the sma rules as the past did. Else you follow old rules from a world that no longer is there, and so these rules do nto fit in the present. Its difficult. I also agree to your last part on brain, neural scans, behaviour, and would add that there are also two other factors making themselves heavily felt: hormones, and instincts. The amount by which these two control our deciding, acting, choosing and behaviour, for some are scary, for others would be a serious offence to their self-understanding of fostering an oh so very civilised ego - if we would be aware of their dominant rule. It puts our assumption of how self-determined we are, into relation a bit. Some scientists say we have just started to get a first glimpse of understanding regarding how dominated we are by our hormones. Of course, beside elemental survival, sex is one of the key foci here.