12 hours ago, xanderf said:

This is true. The F-22 is kind of stupidly over-designed. It's a marvel of the sky, and easily the best manned air-to-air combat platform that will ever exist.

The F-35...is not the same thing. It's the generic 'bomb caddy' for once the F-22 has achieved air superiority, but there are still pockets of resistance, random single aircraft launches, and MANPADs all over that prohibit the Cold War-era tech from doing the job. Obviously once THAT phase is done, it's all 'turn the target into a sheet of glass via B-52 carpeting', but whatever - that's the boring part.

The F-22, though, is...just... silly levels of technology, powerplant, design, and computing.

So the raptor was so incredibly advanced tecnologically, so well designed, so technically marvellous, so superior to other fighters... that the USA army must discontinued it, use only a few and the continue with the fabricación of muchos less optimal (but cheaper) fighters?

Ok, sounds rassonable. Then could we continue with the discussion of how absurd is the idea of the SW Empire not using his best fighters, the defenders, in episodes IV to VIII. Is so unveliable, that it dropped me completely out of the escenario.

Chopper didn't seem as snarky as usual. At least he dropped that trooper with the rifle... strong little arms!

And what material is specific to storm trooper armor that it could be singled out the way whatever it was in Mando armor could be?

2 hours ago, ViscerothSWG said:

Chopper didn't seem as snarky as usual. At least he dropped that trooper with the rifle... strong little arms!

And what material is specific to storm trooper armor that it could be singled out the way whatever it was in Mando armor could be?

Could be along a particular molecule, even electronic signature.

6 hours ago, Draconis Hegemonia said:

So the raptor was so incredibly advanced tecnologically, so well designed, so technically marvellous, so superior to other fighters... that the USA army must discontinued it, use only a few and the continue with the fabricación of muchos less optimal (but cheaper) fighters?

Ok, sounds rassonable. Then could we continue with the discussion of how absurd is the idea of the SW Empire not using his best fighters, the defenders, in episodes IV to VIII. Is so unveliable, that it dropped me completely out of the escenario.

This is why I argue that the F-22 has been replaced by the F-35. Even if it isn't a superior fighter, it is supposed to be a fighter for all roles. It doesn't matter what's coming out of R&D 10 years down the line, the question is if we were to have a war tomorrow, and the F-22 started to experience losses due to attrition, accidents, or any of the other things that happen to military equipment, what will replace those losses. At this point, the F-22 is like one of those 40k weapons that are super powerful but that mankind just kinda forgot how to build them so each loss is irretrievable.

Yes, we have greater than 150 of them in service and that should be enough to last the entirety of a modern war, but we have to remember that our opponents have been studying our stealth capabilities for well over a decade now and our secrets have a nasty tendency to get hacked on accidentally loaded on a person's briefcase as they go for a permanent vacation in China.

If our adversaries break our stealth advantage and we start losing a significant portion of our aircraft to their ADA, the F-35 will be used to fill in the holes, not more F-22s. America is attempting (very poorly I might add) to minimize the cost of a longterm air fleet by making a jack of all trades fighter at the expense of having something that is truly good in the role.

The Pentagon is putting out figures for the F-35, F-22, and even F-16 flying past 2050. I don't think we'll be getting a new wonder weapons down the pipes anytime soon. That long of a lifespan just exaggerates how irreplaceable each Raptor is. Without repair parts and without replacements, that line will eventually start to look like the air forces of Middle Eastern countries that bought US planes then made enemies of us. They'll still be on the books, but many of them will have been scavenged for parts to keep the others in the sky.

4 hours ago, ViscerothSWG said:

Chopper didn't seem as snarky as usual. At least he dropped that trooper with the rifle... strong little arms!

And what material is specific to storm trooper armor that it could be singled out the way whatever it was in Mando armor could be?

Plastoid has had an interesting shift from Legends to new Canon. Legends states that it was a major component of building material and also used to make 'sturdy chairs' (which is ironic since Legends is the period where people argued that stormtrooper armor turned them into Robocop when it came to ballistic weaponry).

The new canon however says that Darth Vader's armor was made of the same stuff. Which means the bucket heads were getting a LOT more TLC when it came to the armor department.

Jesus Christ, will you people stop talking about airplanes?

20 hours ago, Celestial Lizards said:

No, but you have to admit, the Russian fighters win from sheer style points alone.

Mmmmmmnnnnnnaaah, the T-50 is a cool-*** fighter but... It's just no F-22.

But they all visually pale in comparison to the GLORIOUS F-14 TOMCAT.

18 hours ago, DarthEnderX said:

Jesus Christ, will you people stop talking about airplanes?

Be careful not to choke on your aspirations of coffee....

19 hours ago, flyboymb said:

This is why I argue that the F-22 has been replaced by the F-35. Even if it isn't a superior fighter, it is supposed to be a fighter for all roles. It doesn't matter what's coming out of R&D 10 years down the line, the question is if we were to have a war tomorrow, and the F-22 started to experience losses due to attrition, accidents, or any of the other things that happen to military equipment, what will replace those losses. At this point, the F-22 is like one of those 40k weapons that are super powerful but that mankind just kinda forgot how to build them so each loss is irretrievable.

Yes, we have greater than 150 of them in service and that should be enough to last the entirety of a modern war, but we have to remember that our opponents have been studying our stealth capabilities for well over a decade now and our secrets have a nasty tendency to get hacked on accidentally loaded on a person's briefcase as they go for a permanent vacation in China.

If our adversaries break our stealth advantage and we start losing a significant portion of our aircraft to their ADA, the F-35 will be used to fill in the holes, not more F-22s. America is attempting (very poorly I might add) to minimize the cost of a longterm air fleet by making a jack of all trades fighter at the expense of having something that is truly good in the role.

The Pentagon is putting out figures for the F-35, F-22, and even F-16 flying past 2050. I don't think we'll be getting a new wonder weapons down the pipes anytime soon. That long of a lifespan just exaggerates how irreplaceable each Raptor is. Without repair parts and without replacements, that line will eventually start to look like the air forces of Middle Eastern countries that bought US planes then made enemies of us. They'll still be on the books, but many of them will have been scavenged for parts to keep the others in the sky.

Plastoid has had an interesting shift from Legends to new Canon. Legends states that it was a major component of building material and also used to make 'sturdy chairs' (which is ironic since Legends is the period where people argued that stormtrooper armor turned them into Robocop when it came to ballistic weaponry).

The new canon however says that Darth Vader's armor was made of the same stuff. Which means the bucket heads were getting a LOT more TLC when it came to the armor department.

Perhaps stormtrooper armour is actually so good that it absorbs/dissapates the impact of most blaster bolts. That makes the humble stormtrooper durable, at least from the standpoint of actually surviving (with injury) an encounter, if not overly effective at combat.

2 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Perhaps stormtrooper armour is actually so good that it absorbs/dissapates the impact of most blaster bolts. That makes the humble stormtrooper durable, at least from the standpoint of actually surviving (with injury) an encounter, if not overly effective at combat.

I mean we saw just what they can put up with in Rogue One. Quite a bit! If anything armor is designed to keep you alive beyond the battle anyway.

25 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

I mean we saw just what they can put up with in Rogue One. Quite a bit! If anything armor is designed to keep you alive beyond the battle anyway.

But is your foot okay?

4 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

I mean we saw just what they can put up with in Rogue One. Quite a bit! If anything armor is designed to keep you alive beyond the battle anyway.

I thought that was pretty well established? In EU, anyway, although I thought in canon, as well? (It was one of the gimmicks that gave Han Solo away as a criminal - he had an illegal sidearm that was capable of penetrating Stormtrooper armor...most couldn't)

Certainly, that seemed pretty clear from 'Rebels' - most combat saw Stormtroopers merely disabled/knocked out, which tends to speak to armor that is somewhat capable of doing its job. (No believable personal armor makes the wearer invincible , it - at best - makes combat injuries survivable when they otherwise wouldn't be)

4 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

But is your foot okay?

Hollywood likes to make you believe that Kevlar vests can allow you to take a bullet and have the wind knocked out of you but allow you to keep going during the rest of the episode/movie instead of having cracked ribs and bruised internal organs. There’s a huge difference between surviving a shot and being combat ready.

4 hours ago, FlyingAnchors said:

But is your foot okay?

I actually twisted my ankle **** near out of socket this weekend during a move. It's okay but it hurts hella.

22 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Hollywood likes to make you believe that Kevlar vests can allow you to take a bullet and have the wind knocked out of you but allow you to keep going during the rest of the episode/movie instead of having cracked ribs and bruised internal organs. There’s a huge difference between surviving a shot and being combat ready.

Bingo.

37 minutes ago, xanderf said:

I thought that was pretty well established? In EU, anyway, although I thought in canon, as well? (It was one of the gimmicks that gave Han Solo away as a criminal - he had an illegal sidearm that was capable of penetrating Stormtrooper armor...most couldn't)

Certainly, that seemed pretty clear from 'Rebels' - most combat saw Stormtroopers merely disabled/knocked out, which tends to speak to armor that is somewhat capable of doing its job. (No believable personal armor makes the wearer invincible , it - at best - makes combat injuries survivable when they otherwise wouldn't be)

Well it's never been as well established as it was in Rogue One. That really showed us the sheer punishment the Stormtroopers put up with more than anything else ever could.

15 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Hollywood likes to make you believe that Kevlar vests can allow you to take a bullet and have the wind knocked out of you but allow you to keep going during the rest of the episode/movie instead of having cracked ribs and bruised internal organs. There’s a huge difference between surviving a shot and being combat ready.

umm

a) storm trooper armor isn't Kevlar

b) duh Hollywood is fake when it comes to action movies and bullet proof vests

and to follow up on my original comment, all those troopers chirrut whacked with his staff weren't exactly getting up. They weren't dead (well the ones admiral aimbot didn't blast anyway) but they weren't getting back in the fight anytime soon.

5 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

and to follow up on my original comment, all those troopers chirrut whacked with his staff weren't exactly getting up. They weren't dead (well the ones admiral aimbot didn't blast anyway) but they weren't getting back in the fight anytime soon.

That's not inconsistent with what anyone else is saying.

Nobody is suggesting that armor let's you shrug off attacks (you seem to agree, here), or 'get back into the fight any time soon' (your point?)

Training a soldier takes a lot of time, and a lot of expense - even when we aren't (today) dealing with energy weapons, force fields, magic space ninjas, etc. Surviving well enough to return to combat at all - and not having to train a new recruit up from scratch to the same skill to replace the lost soldier - is a HUGE win, and easily worth the cost of a little armor.

Also full body armour (and helmets) have a huge function in protection from shrapnel (and Rogue One finally established, in canon, that grenades are a thing that stormtroopers will sometimes actually use).

Correct me if I'm wrong but during earlier wars, getting hit in the head with a bullet if you were wearing a helmet was still likely to be fatal. However, when dirt, dust and shrapnel are flying all over the place, the helmet is a life-saver.

There's a really interesting statistics exercise in that. In WW1, the number of head injuries went UP after the wider introduction of helmets. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the helmets remained. (The video I saw that discussed this gave you a moment to ponder this is you want to puzzle out the situation, so I'm going to put the 'answer' and the video under a spoiler tag xD)

Just watched the first two episodes of Season 4. After a spell of rewatching Clone Wars for months, Rebels seems just... off. The animation isn't as good, it's not as gritty or realistic, it's so stupid that all of Sabine's family survives...

Eh. I'll still watch it for Thrawn and Rukh. But ONLY for Thrawn and Rukh.

11 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Just watched the first two episodes of Season 4. After a spell of rewatching Clone Wars for months, Rebels seems just... off. The animation isn't as good, it's not as gritty or realistic, it's so stupid that all of Sabine's family survives...

Eh. I'll still watch it for Thrawn and Rukh. But ONLY for Thrawn and Rukh.

That probably is because it is being budgeted as a show rather than George Lucas throwing tons more into the budget, which was something he often did for Clone Wars, all out of his own pocket. Since it is a CG show, if they keep making them the more likely they will be able to just focus on the animation once enough assets are made, they routinely pull from Clone Wars assets in the show just changing textures.

Also on a side note this episodes is the first time that a Lambda shuttle makes an appearance in the show.

On 10/21/2017 at 3:39 PM, Draconis Hegemonia said:

So the raptor was so incredibly advanced tecnologically, so well designed, so technically marvellous, so superior to other fighters... that the USA army must discontinued it, use only a few and the continue with the fabricación of muchos less optimal (but cheaper) fighters?

Ok, sounds rassonable. Then could we continue with the discussion of how absurd is the idea of the SW Empire not using his best fighters, the defenders, in episodes IV to VIII. Is so unveliable, that it dropped me completely out of the escenario.

First off, by USA law passed by the USA Congress the USA Army cannot fly the F-22. USA law prohibits the US Army from operating super-sonic aircraft, believing that is the role of the US Airforce

On 10/21/2017 at 10:04 PM, flyboymb said:

This is why I argue that the F-22 has been replaced by the F-35. Even if it isn't a superior fighter, it is supposed to be a fighter for all roles.

I'm not trying to be contrary, but you quoting the above post is one of the reasons I don't believe you understand. You are right when you say that the F-35 is a multi-roles aircraft. It is also a multi-department/agency airframe which is why it is called the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). But for all of it's amazing qualities it isn't the F-22. But it is an excellent aircraft and one that does/will make up the bulk, in various forms and roles, of the USA's air power.

I love how this thread has descended into talking about real combat aircraft.

Everyone knows THIS is the best one:

So today's Episode is another 2 parter, but on Disneyxd's website, they have both episodes listed.... and it's the SAME episode for both part 1 and part 2.

Anyone else seeing this?

Just watched the second two-parter on Amazon. Much better than the first episode. Actually had something to say and the stakes felt bigger instead of "let's wrap up the Mando storyline because it's obviously Filoni's baby and Clone Wars didn't get a real ending."

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Just watched the second two-parter on Amazon. Much better than the first episode. Actually had something to say and the stakes felt bigger instead of "let's wrap up the Mando storyline because it's obviously Filoni's baby and Clone Wars didn't get a real ending."

What's it about?

3 hours ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

First off, by USA law passed by the USA Congress the USA Army cannot fly the F-22. USA law prohibits the US Army from operating super-sonic aircraft, believing that is the role of the US Airforce

Not supersonic, only, but the prohibition is on operating any fixed-wing combat aircraft. So for CAS, the Army is "stuck" with attack helicopters (ergo development of the AH-64), and has to call up the Air Force when an AH-64 won't do and they need an A-10 to fly over. This is something that has seen some argument at a number of levels, given the Air Force being very keen to stop flying the A-10, while the Army is very keen to NOT have the A-10 retired - more than a few have suggested the Air Force just give them to the Army and both sides should be happier.

4 hours ago, Celestial Lizards said:

Just watched the first two episodes of Season 4. After a spell of rewatching Clone Wars for months, Rebels seems just... off. The animation isn't as good, it's not as gritty or realistic, it's so stupid that all of Sabine's family survives...

Eh. I'll still watch it for Thrawn and Rukh. But ONLY for Thrawn and Rukh.

Oh, yeah. Noticed that big-time when we were re-watching the Clone Wars episodes that introduced Saw Gerrera, and then again for the Clone Wars episodes around the Mandalorian arcs. The 'Clone Wars' series battles were just so much... BIGGER . I mean, so much more detail, so many more moving parts in a scene.

The cost must have been ridiculous (the show famously was horrifying for its budget), but geeeez it looked good.

1 hour ago, Celestial Lizards said:

What's it about?

Dealing with Saw Gerrera, and seeing his more 'do what ever it takes' (or as much as a show focused to kids would). Some stuff linked to Rogue One, like Two-tubes is there and you can see U-wings, even the civilian variant which is only in the background, hope they will have its image up on the gallery for the episode once that guide is out ( a few days from now at the most).