@Warmelon lol Good question. When the allies attacked Iceland, a neutral country, I proposed the idea of using that as propaganda to get neutral nations to side with the axis powers or risk having the same done to them for the convenience of the allies. I think Panama responded positively but Switzerland did not. By getting Panema to side with the Axis we've made it very difficult for allied fleets in the West Pacific to make way into the South Atlantic. Unless they go around the horn and risk Brazilian detection, it prevents them from making a bold move to make another landing in Africa. Nvm that Iraq just did the same to Arabia~ <.<; lol
Nicely done! She looks rather like the real deal, love the detail for the open cockpit and that landing gear you put together is awesome! I took her up for a spin around Krakablowa, taking off from bandit and put her through her paces. I think she's a bit faster than the real thing but hey, if you can improve on it, why not? lol She tends to pitch down a bit in the midst of rolling, which I think might be a little on the slow side, but a bit of elevator and a lil negative G for the pilot straightens that out. Your' main wings were absolutely flawless but I noticed quite a bit of clattering coming from the tail. After a nice and smooth landing back at Bandit I took a closer look and noticed that the top and bottom horizontal stabilizers are a bit out of alignment and the elevators don't quite match up. Still I didn't have any structural failure as a result so it didn't seem to effect the build after all, though her rolling was slow her looping ability was stellar! Overall another excellent build!! Great work!! ^_^
@migman2 Yep, its pretty tough if you're not on a PC though. The "supersonic prop jobs" I was talking about have contra-rotating engines snuggled up nice and close.
@MrVaultech lol My dear sir, the slightest detail can provide a clue as to the outcome of any battle, whether in the office or actually with a weapon in hand and on the field. ^_~
@MrVaultech Oh okay, might wanna update the axis list saying that all jet engines are now permitted so long as they are not VTOL or modded for higher thrust values. I've yet to use those new engines in a build, I may have to change that. First I'll finish my hundred and one other ideas I wanna work on. lol
I am very impressed with this build of the M-17. I have always liked aircraft with twin-boom rear fuselages and of course had to take this one up for a flight. First I looked at her in the hangar and liked what I saw. I like how you concealed the square intakes with the panels, the subtle touch of the camera looking at what is under the airplane as a high altitude reconnaissance plane would have as well as how this aircraft performed. It was not too maneuverable but it was not so heavy that it couldn't make maneuvers at all - it was proportional. The elevators worked just right without the nose bouncing a lot, the ailerons were just the right size for her to roll slowly as you would expect of an aircraft with long wings for high altitudes. I flew from Bandit Airport over to South airport and then returned to Yeager Airport and brought her in to land. I was greatly surpised at how well balanced it was and easy to adjust both the pitch and roll for a perfect landing in the middle of the runway with no bouncing or trouble. If I would add anything to this it would be air brakes to slow down a little faster on the runway. It seems that is something an airplane like this might have. Great work on this aircraft, I look forward to your' future builds!
Truly remarkable! The attention to detail is superb. I wasn't expecting much from the performance but was pleasantly surprised that you didn't just tack on insanely powerful engines and call it a day but rather paid attention on how to make this build somewhat maneuverable! I didn't try to land her, I was afraid of what hitting the runway might do to the horizontal stabilizers on landing it. XD Overall, great build of this underappreciated and often viewed in the background starfighter. ^_^
@MrMecha Thanks, yep this one likes to leap into the air and run like her hair's on fire. You gotta slow down to train that big ole 50 mm cannon on anything though. I WISH it could knock out the bridge but the coding for that makes it so powerful that firing at ships just either slides them off of the map or causes them to spin around crazy-like. Glad you like the modded tracers. I couldn't find reference for the BK.5 50 mm cannon's tracers so I just made an educated guess based upon Nazi field cannon cannon tracer color. The tracers for the MG 213C are on the mark though I went with a mintcream color since straight white looks like solid white I-beams flying out of your' plane. Notice the rate of fire and how fast those rounds are flying? lol
For reference, the stock model wing gun fires 7 rounds per second for a burst count of 28 (4 seconds) followed by a half second delay. Muzzle velocity is 700 meters per second. This one fires 20 rounds a second, burst count of 80 (4 seconds,) and has a muzzle velocity of over 1,000 meters per second. lol For reference the minigun I believe is 16 rounds a second and a burst count of 64. Same muzzle velocity as the wing gun and both the wing gun and minigun are .50 caliber. (Yes I know it's weird that they did everything else in metric but then went with caliber.)
@MrMecha lol Thanks, for that RP this would have been considered heavy. The primary adversary jet fighter at the time had an operational time limit of MAYBE 10 minutes.
@MrMecha Ah yes, you can see the actual post-RP end comments below here. He was the other party in it and once I started releasing my own designs instead of just polishing up some very flawed designs he designated as the enemy and trying to explain why they bothered with them - the plug was pulled. This is where he expressed regret on that matter.
@MrMecha Thanks! Somewhat inspired by the Tu-16, though I didn't have the skill to quite make it look as good but dang this one performed well - though it lagged horribly.
@MrMecha Thanks, back before the update if you panned out away from it and looked up or down at these birds you could hardly see them when they were over water or in clear sky. Shadows have become more pronounced now though and somehow the colors lightened in the light.
@MrMecha Wow, thanks again. This one was one of my really early projects. No concept, no inspiration, just to get something with wings and engines on the water that could take off and land again safely. lol
@MrMecha It's a useless build though, it was intended to be made into a subassembly to drag out so you can destroy the whole thing but when they added the subassemblies tab where you click and drag it, it doesn't bring any of the top of the control tower. I might assemble the pieces again from the new ones. lol
@MrMecha Thanks for the upvote, but I recommend the more recent builds that resemble this assembly. It used to be that you could take off the one canopy that was set at main and save the rest as a subassembly but then they changed it to where canopy pieces get stripped clean off of a build if you try to drag the build even after the main canopy is stripped. Plus there's the issue of the part count. The other ones were made with far fewer parts thanks to finding my XML files and learning a lil about modding. lol I haven't rebuilt the two vehicles with the reduced part count yet. I also plan to add some hangars with big ole rooftops that look like a quonset hutt with some dummy aircraft as well.
@MrMecha Thanks again for the upvote over here, this one has REAL short operational legs but landing characteristics make it one of my best. (Technique in the description.) The floatplane you upvoted, I forgot to warn you, if you're not used to taking off and landing in float planes, read the instructions carefully before you try her out. XD While I can frog-hop all day in her a prolific builder told me he just couldn't keep her from ground (water?) looping. A lot of the contra-rotating prop planes I have are overpowered when starting in a take-off roll so it takes a bit of technique to it. Landing floatplanes and to a lesser degree seaplanes requires a special touch where you are almost at a stall when the rear of the float hits the water and then it sort of settles in. This recent one though, power has to be nearly if not at a dead stick or she'll loop forward.
@MrMecha Beware on the landing - add some dampener to those rear gear or she'll rock back and forth on them! >.< And I often add TOO much to my descriptions. lol
Jokes aside, aside from sluggish elevator control she has fair maneuerability, good operational time in the air once you reach altitude. Heck I accidentally got her up to 75,000 feet and capped 1200 mph at several altitude levels. She takes about 12,000 feet of altitude to recover from a dive at speeds though. The only question I had though was; I thought we were forbidden to use the second tier BFE yet?
Brits: "Oh dear, Jerry's sending us more hate mail - just look at all those flying courier pouches."
Yanks: "Heh, the 'krauts are really - pushing the envelope - aren't they?"
Cannucks: "Eh?"
This map REALLY helps give a visual of the situation! So the Canadians did land in the more sparsely populated Northern reaches of Norway, which is right at Finland's back door - Lapland. Meanwhile seeing where the remaining Soviet resistance is helps as well. The peninsula they control was a part of the Yamal (Nenets) National Okrug and contains no major cities. The entire Okrug combined in 1939 only had just shy of 46,000 people and thus the ability to support that number. Thankfully or perhaps unfortunately, from the viewpoint of the axis, it is the largest source of Natural Gas in present day Russia and represents 12% of their oil producing resources - therefore they won't freeze to death. For the sake of simplicity we'll say they have those resources at least. Checking google maps there's a high incidence of large round lakes, perhaps suggestive of sinkholes caused by natural gass "blowouts" and marshy terrain between jagged short outcroppings of rock - right at where you drew the border on the peninsula. Novy Port is the closest Soviet "community" to the border which in 1930 was used as an interrim coal depository/outpost for ships navigating the arctic route. As far as local industry goes, there's the natural gas, a fish cannery, and such. Novy Port to today only has a population of 1700ish. I saw several other unexploited ports, mostly of shallow water, on the Kara Sea side of the peninsula. Despite the marshy appearance, its a very dry region with an average annual precip of only 14 inches, eight months of winter with record lows of -54 degrees F in February and December but with summer time temperatures still occasionally dipping down to below freezing. (Additional note, the coal is not locally mined, it was shipped to Nova Port to supply ships passing through the northern shipping route.)
As for the islands they've taken up refuge upon; I pity them. Novaya Zemlya, which translates simply to "new land," is considered the furthest eastern landmass of Europe. Its southern half is composed of tundra while in the north it is a barren landscape of bare rock, glacial ice and the interior of both halves being entirely composed of mountains. Temperatures, even in this age of global warming, never climbing above freezing save for three months out of the year. The native population, which was resettled elsewhere in 1957, subsisted on reindeer herding, fishing, polar bear and seal hunting. The only known natural resources on the island are lead, copper and zinc. Meanwhile there were few settlements with small numbers that mostly involved dealing with shipping through the area and relied on supplies shipped to the island to survive. Interestingly, in 1943 the islands were host to a secret German seaplane base established by U-255 & U-711 to monitor allied shipping to and from Siberia. However Soviet activity in the area was also prevalent and by 1944 a Soviet Naval base was established at Belushya Guba (Literally; Beluga Whale Bay.) An air base would have been established in the 1960s at Rogachevo as a base for topping off bomber fuel tanks and later as part of their Arctic Air Defense zone.
Assessing this information suggests to me that they likely attempted to stockpile weapons, munitions and have pulled their political elite back into this icebox and are essentially under seige with a near perfect blocade. Given the state of affairs and reputation of Soviet Political Elite of the time, the average soldier would be little more than a conscripted soldier scraped up in the retreat, kept on a starvation diet and would have to account for nearly ever round fired and the loss of a weapon or, Kremlin forbid, an aircraft or armored vehicle would likely result in a so-called "battlefield court marshall," but likely without gunfire as ammunition would be too precious to waste. (With Stalin already bordering on insanity and Kruchiev's extreme tendencies I also wouldn't pass it by them to supplement the rations with "ground pork" as a product of those who disappoint the elites.
Unless the allies are supplying these vestiges via covert aerial deliveries through air drops from low altitude or are running the "gauntlet" that is the Barrents Sea they will either try to weather it out and see what happens with the allied invasion of Scandinavia and the impact on their lines. If it grinds to a hault or the allies are repelled they are likely to attempt to breakout and head for Soviet-friendly Persia or will try to go out in a blaze of glory, in the name of Mother Russia, in which I'd say at least half of their troops would attempt to flee the battlefield or attempt to surrender.
@Pilotmario I never heard that Gulf War story. I saw on the history channel what happens when an Abrams gunner forgets to switch over to the co-axial Browning .50 cal and puts a 120 mm "silver bullet" through the torso of a man wielding an RPG ... but never this story.
@Pilotmario lol Probably more like a Focke-Wulf Fw-189A on steroids. I can't imagine how to produce a realistic Hs-129 fuselage as it has a smooth edged nearly triangular cross section a bit like the shape of the Me-262 just not as sleek and a bit boxier. The gun on there is scaled to the 50 mms BK.5s used on the Me-410 and I -think-, experimentally, on the Me-262. The gun for the Hs-129 would have a 25% larger bore! 0_0
@TheLatentImage Ah, I need to go through the process of authorization first. I tried logging in on chrome one day and got a whole bunch of jargon about that not being my usual method of logging into SPs and having to go through steps to authorize it.
@Pilotmario I know that, it was a joke related to the movie in question. -_- I guess kids these days just don't watch the classics~ Bruce Campbell flick, very cheesy but funny.
@Brields95 Either way I shall never judge one by their faith or ethnicity, merely by the manner in which they conduct themselves as individuals. An individual of virtue, honesty and magnanimity is not bound by religion, race or nation of birth - these are qualities of a humble, wise and true individual; Not a people.
I'm guilty of this as well, usually I drop in to see what other folks are doing, when I am thoroughly enthrawled with a design oftentimes I'll DL it here on steam, play with it, get a feel for the design, study how it ticks, etc. - unfortunately often in the midst of that I forget who the designer is and when I go back into the Steam browser it goes immediately to the front page anew. -_-
Huge, that it is, but you've a contemporary competetor! Check out @TheOwlAce with his Do-400, its insanely HUGE!! lol I don't know if your' device can run it, it has over 700 parts and is almost 300 feet long. XD
This is gorgeous. I haven't added any mods to my game - I don't even know where to look for them! I suppose I better figure it out before the ships mod is released, eh? Honestly though the curves on this are perfect. If I could get this degree of detail in my builds I'd have ... okay ... I'd probably still have a complaint or three, but far fewer! lol
@Daaavy Another nice showing, not sure of your' choice of colors though. You're not red/blue colorblind per chance are you? To my son this would look green. lol I had an old modeling buddy about ten years back online who was similarly color blind. He was the type to went to the big modeling conventions to show off his latest builds and he took this Japanese plane he was terribly proud of and was all kinds of P.O.'d that he didn't even get an honorable mention. It wasn't until he got home, fuming, set the carton with the model in it down on the table that the truth became clear. His wife said; "Well isn't that airplane pretty, I've never seen you paint one like that before?" He soon learned that what he thought was IJN green was actually a vibrant shade of purple. >.<
Wooooh ... twin booms ... -drools- lol j/k Not a bad looking bird! The landing gear is a bit perplexing though isn't it? Once you learn to mod, you'll be able to make custom landing gear that retracts into the body/booms. (Though admittedly I've yet to do this myself. XD)
Another great looking replica!! :-D When I first got on SPs I thought that's mostly what I would be making. Aside from my first few awkward attempts at a series of Ju-86 bombers and recon planes and my one-off replica of the Mc.205 though I haven't done another. I keep getting caught up in RP builds. lol
Now, to make the pump action, double barrel, break open shotgun and you can label it "Good, Bad, I'm the Guy with the Gun." Yes, I just did an Evil Dead series, Army of Darkness reference ... forgive me. lol
Very nice as always, you really do give your' all for each build! ^_^ I need to buckle down and do a bunch more land vehicles. Variations on my Light Tank, Tank Destroyer, munitions carriage, Flak tank, a turret-less variety with a roller out on arms in front of it for detonation of land mines, an open mount Howitzer, etc. Then for my second military truck, a light Flak gun mounting, probably quad 20 mm or twin 40 mm, a covered variety though I'm debating on how to give it an appropriate fabric covered effect, a fuel truck, a rigid covered back for an ambulance variety, maybe some towed artillery, an ordinary trailer for munitions, provisions, medical supplies etc., then for new projects I'd like to build a conventional jeep-like general purpose utility vehicle, maybe with a pintle mounted gun, then an amphibious utility vehicle and maybe something like the "Duck" - basically an amphibious truck that looks like a half breed between a landing craft and a deuce-and-a-half. lol PLUS still finish my night fighter project, heavy bomber project and try to develop a fuel efficient jet fighter with better knife-fighting characteristics. Now, if I could only get paid to do this too! lol XD
@Pilotmario You're right, I do like aircraft and aircrews that have a history. Shoulda tossed a few more miniguns into the side to make her a real Puff the Magic Dragon! The navy had a handful of Neptunes outfitted like the AC-47 in 'nam, I don't remember the details of why they did it or why they abandoned the practice, maybe due to the sheer overwhelming power of the first AC-130s? This aircraft reminds me of a Neptune and in their position I could relate to their determination to either stay and fight as long as possible to protect the friendlies on the ground and risk being taken down due to the loss of cover of darkness or tuck tail and run and having to live with that
@Warmelon lol Good question. When the allies attacked Iceland, a neutral country, I proposed the idea of using that as propaganda to get neutral nations to side with the axis powers or risk having the same done to them for the convenience of the allies. I think Panama responded positively but Switzerland did not. By getting Panema to side with the Axis we've made it very difficult for allied fleets in the West Pacific to make way into the South Atlantic. Unless they go around the horn and risk Brazilian detection, it prevents them from making a bold move to make another landing in Africa. Nvm that Iraq just did the same to Arabia~ <.<; lol
Nicely done! She looks rather like the real deal, love the detail for the open cockpit and that landing gear you put together is awesome! I took her up for a spin around Krakablowa, taking off from bandit and put her through her paces. I think she's a bit faster than the real thing but hey, if you can improve on it, why not? lol She tends to pitch down a bit in the midst of rolling, which I think might be a little on the slow side, but a bit of elevator and a lil negative G for the pilot straightens that out. Your' main wings were absolutely flawless but I noticed quite a bit of clattering coming from the tail. After a nice and smooth landing back at Bandit I took a closer look and noticed that the top and bottom horizontal stabilizers are a bit out of alignment and the elevators don't quite match up. Still I didn't have any structural failure as a result so it didn't seem to effect the build after all, though her rolling was slow her looping ability was stellar! Overall another excellent build!! Great work!! ^_^
Thanks, @SarcasticCommander for the upvote! ^_^
@migman2 Yep, its pretty tough if you're not on a PC though. The "supersonic prop jobs" I was talking about have contra-rotating engines snuggled up nice and close.
@MrVaultech lol My dear sir, the slightest detail can provide a clue as to the outcome of any battle, whether in the office or actually with a weapon in hand and on the field. ^_~
@MrVaultech Oh okay, might wanna update the axis list saying that all jet engines are now permitted so long as they are not VTOL or modded for higher thrust values. I've yet to use those new engines in a build, I may have to change that. First I'll finish my hundred and one other ideas I wanna work on. lol
I am very impressed with this build of the M-17. I have always liked aircraft with twin-boom rear fuselages and of course had to take this one up for a flight. First I looked at her in the hangar and liked what I saw. I like how you concealed the square intakes with the panels, the subtle touch of the camera looking at what is under the airplane as a high altitude reconnaissance plane would have as well as how this aircraft performed. It was not too maneuverable but it was not so heavy that it couldn't make maneuvers at all - it was proportional. The elevators worked just right without the nose bouncing a lot, the ailerons were just the right size for her to roll slowly as you would expect of an aircraft with long wings for high altitudes. I flew from Bandit Airport over to South airport and then returned to Yeager Airport and brought her in to land. I was greatly surpised at how well balanced it was and easy to adjust both the pitch and roll for a perfect landing in the middle of the runway with no bouncing or trouble. If I would add anything to this it would be air brakes to slow down a little faster on the runway. It seems that is something an airplane like this might have. Great work on this aircraft, I look forward to your' future builds!
Truly remarkable! The attention to detail is superb. I wasn't expecting much from the performance but was pleasantly surprised that you didn't just tack on insanely powerful engines and call it a day but rather paid attention on how to make this build somewhat maneuverable! I didn't try to land her, I was afraid of what hitting the runway might do to the horizontal stabilizers on landing it. XD Overall, great build of this underappreciated and often viewed in the background starfighter. ^_^
@Gestour lol I knew it involved XML modding I just am uncertain of how to change the mass of things in XML. XD
OMG this is AMAZING!! How do you manage negative weight when she's not loaded?!
@MrMecha Thanks, yep this one likes to leap into the air and run like her hair's on fire. You gotta slow down to train that big ole 50 mm cannon on anything though. I WISH it could knock out the bridge but the coding for that makes it so powerful that firing at ships just either slides them off of the map or causes them to spin around crazy-like. Glad you like the modded tracers. I couldn't find reference for the BK.5 50 mm cannon's tracers so I just made an educated guess based upon Nazi field cannon cannon tracer color. The tracers for the MG 213C are on the mark though I went with a mintcream color since straight white looks like solid white I-beams flying out of your' plane. Notice the rate of fire and how fast those rounds are flying? lol
For reference, the stock model wing gun fires 7 rounds per second for a burst count of 28 (4 seconds) followed by a half second delay. Muzzle velocity is 700 meters per second. This one fires 20 rounds a second, burst count of 80 (4 seconds,) and has a muzzle velocity of over 1,000 meters per second. lol For reference the minigun I believe is 16 rounds a second and a burst count of 64. Same muzzle velocity as the wing gun and both the wing gun and minigun are .50 caliber. (Yes I know it's weird that they did everything else in metric but then went with caliber.)
@MrMecha lol That was my testing criteria too, ironically, that and destroying a few AI controlled allied planes from the RP in dogfight mode. ;-)
@MrMecha lol Thanks, for that RP this would have been considered heavy. The primary adversary jet fighter at the time had an operational time limit of MAYBE 10 minutes.
@MrMecha hehe thanks, this was my first land vehicle. XD
@MrMecha Ah yes, you can see the actual post-RP end comments below here. He was the other party in it and once I started releasing my own designs instead of just polishing up some very flawed designs he designated as the enemy and trying to explain why they bothered with them - the plug was pulled. This is where he expressed regret on that matter.
@MrMecha Thanks! Somewhat inspired by the Tu-16, though I didn't have the skill to quite make it look as good but dang this one performed well - though it lagged horribly.
@MrMecha Thanks, back before the update if you panned out away from it and looked up or down at these birds you could hardly see them when they were over water or in clear sky. Shadows have become more pronounced now though and somehow the colors lightened in the light.
@MrMecha Wow, thanks again. This one was one of my really early projects. No concept, no inspiration, just to get something with wings and engines on the water that could take off and land again safely. lol
@MrMecha It's a useless build though, it was intended to be made into a subassembly to drag out so you can destroy the whole thing but when they added the subassemblies tab where you click and drag it, it doesn't bring any of the top of the control tower. I might assemble the pieces again from the new ones. lol
@MrMecha Thanks for the upvote, but I recommend the more recent builds that resemble this assembly. It used to be that you could take off the one canopy that was set at main and save the rest as a subassembly but then they changed it to where canopy pieces get stripped clean off of a build if you try to drag the build even after the main canopy is stripped. Plus there's the issue of the part count. The other ones were made with far fewer parts thanks to finding my XML files and learning a lil about modding. lol I haven't rebuilt the two vehicles with the reduced part count yet. I also plan to add some hangars with big ole rooftops that look like a quonset hutt with some dummy aircraft as well.
@MrMecha Thanks again for the upvote over here, this one has REAL short operational legs but landing characteristics make it one of my best. (Technique in the description.) The floatplane you upvoted, I forgot to warn you, if you're not used to taking off and landing in float planes, read the instructions carefully before you try her out. XD While I can frog-hop all day in her a prolific builder told me he just couldn't keep her from ground (water?) looping. A lot of the contra-rotating prop planes I have are overpowered when starting in a take-off roll so it takes a bit of technique to it. Landing floatplanes and to a lesser degree seaplanes requires a special touch where you are almost at a stall when the rear of the float hits the water and then it sort of settles in. This recent one though, power has to be nearly if not at a dead stick or she'll loop forward.
Thanks for the upvote, @MrMecha! ^_^
@MrMecha Beware on the landing - add some dampener to those rear gear or she'll rock back and forth on them! >.< And I often add TOO much to my descriptions. lol
Jokes aside, aside from sluggish elevator control she has fair maneuerability, good operational time in the air once you reach altitude. Heck I accidentally got her up to 75,000 feet and capped 1200 mph at several altitude levels. She takes about 12,000 feet of altitude to recover from a dive at speeds though. The only question I had though was; I thought we were forbidden to use the second tier BFE yet?
Brits: "Oh dear, Jerry's sending us more hate mail - just look at all those flying courier pouches."
Yanks: "Heh, the 'krauts are really - pushing the envelope - aren't they?"
Cannucks: "Eh?"
lol
This map REALLY helps give a visual of the situation! So the Canadians did land in the more sparsely populated Northern reaches of Norway, which is right at Finland's back door - Lapland. Meanwhile seeing where the remaining Soviet resistance is helps as well. The peninsula they control was a part of the Yamal (Nenets) National Okrug and contains no major cities. The entire Okrug combined in 1939 only had just shy of 46,000 people and thus the ability to support that number. Thankfully or perhaps unfortunately, from the viewpoint of the axis, it is the largest source of Natural Gas in present day Russia and represents 12% of their oil producing resources - therefore they won't freeze to death. For the sake of simplicity we'll say they have those resources at least. Checking google maps there's a high incidence of large round lakes, perhaps suggestive of sinkholes caused by natural gass "blowouts" and marshy terrain between jagged short outcroppings of rock - right at where you drew the border on the peninsula. Novy Port is the closest Soviet "community" to the border which in 1930 was used as an interrim coal depository/outpost for ships navigating the arctic route. As far as local industry goes, there's the natural gas, a fish cannery, and such. Novy Port to today only has a population of 1700ish. I saw several other unexploited ports, mostly of shallow water, on the Kara Sea side of the peninsula. Despite the marshy appearance, its a very dry region with an average annual precip of only 14 inches, eight months of winter with record lows of -54 degrees F in February and December but with summer time temperatures still occasionally dipping down to below freezing. (Additional note, the coal is not locally mined, it was shipped to Nova Port to supply ships passing through the northern shipping route.)
As for the islands they've taken up refuge upon; I pity them. Novaya Zemlya, which translates simply to "new land," is considered the furthest eastern landmass of Europe. Its southern half is composed of tundra while in the north it is a barren landscape of bare rock, glacial ice and the interior of both halves being entirely composed of mountains. Temperatures, even in this age of global warming, never climbing above freezing save for three months out of the year. The native population, which was resettled elsewhere in 1957, subsisted on reindeer herding, fishing, polar bear and seal hunting. The only known natural resources on the island are lead, copper and zinc. Meanwhile there were few settlements with small numbers that mostly involved dealing with shipping through the area and relied on supplies shipped to the island to survive. Interestingly, in 1943 the islands were host to a secret German seaplane base established by U-255 & U-711 to monitor allied shipping to and from Siberia. However Soviet activity in the area was also prevalent and by 1944 a Soviet Naval base was established at Belushya Guba (Literally; Beluga Whale Bay.) An air base would have been established in the 1960s at Rogachevo as a base for topping off bomber fuel tanks and later as part of their Arctic Air Defense zone.
Assessing this information suggests to me that they likely attempted to stockpile weapons, munitions and have pulled their political elite back into this icebox and are essentially under seige with a near perfect blocade. Given the state of affairs and reputation of Soviet Political Elite of the time, the average soldier would be little more than a conscripted soldier scraped up in the retreat, kept on a starvation diet and would have to account for nearly ever round fired and the loss of a weapon or, Kremlin forbid, an aircraft or armored vehicle would likely result in a so-called "battlefield court marshall," but likely without gunfire as ammunition would be too precious to waste. (With Stalin already bordering on insanity and Kruchiev's extreme tendencies I also wouldn't pass it by them to supplement the rations with "ground pork" as a product of those who disappoint the elites.
Unless the allies are supplying these vestiges via covert aerial deliveries through air drops from low altitude or are running the "gauntlet" that is the Barrents Sea they will either try to weather it out and see what happens with the allied invasion of Scandinavia and the impact on their lines. If it grinds to a hault or the allies are repelled they are likely to attempt to breakout and head for Soviet-friendly Persia or will try to go out in a blaze of glory, in the name of Mother Russia, in which I'd say at least half of their troops would attempt to flee the battlefield or attempt to surrender.
@Pilotmario I never heard that Gulf War story. I saw on the history channel what happens when an Abrams gunner forgets to switch over to the co-axial Browning .50 cal and puts a 120 mm "silver bullet" through the torso of a man wielding an RPG ... but never this story.
@Pilotmario lol Probably more like a Focke-Wulf Fw-189A on steroids. I can't imagine how to produce a realistic Hs-129 fuselage as it has a smooth edged nearly triangular cross section a bit like the shape of the Me-262 just not as sleek and a bit boxier. The gun on there is scaled to the 50 mms BK.5s used on the Me-410 and I -think-, experimentally, on the Me-262. The gun for the Hs-129 would have a 25% larger bore! 0_0
@TheLatentImage Ah, I need to go through the process of authorization first. I tried logging in on chrome one day and got a whole bunch of jargon about that not being my usual method of logging into SPs and having to go through steps to authorize it.
@Pilotmario I know that, it was a joke related to the movie in question. -_- I guess kids these days just don't watch the classics~ Bruce Campbell flick, very cheesy but funny.
@Pilotmario Are you saying you need these guns to cull the herd, so to speak?? lol
@Brields95 Either way I shall never judge one by their faith or ethnicity, merely by the manner in which they conduct themselves as individuals. An individual of virtue, honesty and magnanimity is not bound by religion, race or nation of birth - these are qualities of a humble, wise and true individual; Not a people.
I'm guilty of this as well, usually I drop in to see what other folks are doing, when I am thoroughly enthrawled with a design oftentimes I'll DL it here on steam, play with it, get a feel for the design, study how it ticks, etc. - unfortunately often in the midst of that I forget who the designer is and when I go back into the Steam browser it goes immediately to the front page anew. -_-
With all the Islamophobia running about these days I applaud your' decision to make this post. I wish you all the same, inshallah! @CaliphIndustries
... shouldn't your' first priority be studying for finals - and THEN the cargo plane? XD lol
Huge, that it is, but you've a contemporary competetor! Check out @TheOwlAce with his Do-400, its insanely HUGE!! lol I don't know if your' device can run it, it has over 700 parts and is almost 300 feet long. XD
Very nice! I've been here a while and I still struggle with making good biplanes.
Kirei! Yoku yatta. ^_^
This is gorgeous. I haven't added any mods to my game - I don't even know where to look for them! I suppose I better figure it out before the ships mod is released, eh? Honestly though the curves on this are perfect. If I could get this degree of detail in my builds I'd have ... okay ... I'd probably still have a complaint or three, but far fewer! lol
I don't care who you are, this thing is cute!! lol
@Daaavy Another nice showing, not sure of your' choice of colors though. You're not red/blue colorblind per chance are you? To my son this would look green. lol I had an old modeling buddy about ten years back online who was similarly color blind. He was the type to went to the big modeling conventions to show off his latest builds and he took this Japanese plane he was terribly proud of and was all kinds of P.O.'d that he didn't even get an honorable mention. It wasn't until he got home, fuming, set the carton with the model in it down on the table that the truth became clear. His wife said; "Well isn't that airplane pretty, I've never seen you paint one like that before?" He soon learned that what he thought was IJN green was actually a vibrant shade of purple. >.<
Wooooh ... twin booms ... -drools- lol j/k Not a bad looking bird! The landing gear is a bit perplexing though isn't it? Once you learn to mod, you'll be able to make custom landing gear that retracts into the body/booms. (Though admittedly I've yet to do this myself. XD)
Another great looking replica!! :-D When I first got on SPs I thought that's mostly what I would be making. Aside from my first few awkward attempts at a series of Ju-86 bombers and recon planes and my one-off replica of the Mc.205 though I haven't done another. I keep getting caught up in RP builds. lol
@Johndfg Wow, that's a beautiful replica! Great work! ^_^
lol You really have a thing for your' guns, don't you? XD
Now, to make the pump action, double barrel, break open shotgun and you can label it "Good, Bad, I'm the Guy with the Gun." Yes, I just did an Evil Dead series, Army of Darkness reference ... forgive me. lol
Very nice as always, you really do give your' all for each build! ^_^ I need to buckle down and do a bunch more land vehicles. Variations on my Light Tank, Tank Destroyer, munitions carriage, Flak tank, a turret-less variety with a roller out on arms in front of it for detonation of land mines, an open mount Howitzer, etc. Then for my second military truck, a light Flak gun mounting, probably quad 20 mm or twin 40 mm, a covered variety though I'm debating on how to give it an appropriate fabric covered effect, a fuel truck, a rigid covered back for an ambulance variety, maybe some towed artillery, an ordinary trailer for munitions, provisions, medical supplies etc., then for new projects I'd like to build a conventional jeep-like general purpose utility vehicle, maybe with a pintle mounted gun, then an amphibious utility vehicle and maybe something like the "Duck" - basically an amphibious truck that looks like a half breed between a landing craft and a deuce-and-a-half. lol PLUS still finish my night fighter project, heavy bomber project and try to develop a fuel efficient jet fighter with better knife-fighting characteristics. Now, if I could only get paid to do this too! lol XD
... and be careful with your' computer! She's givin' it all she's got cap'n but she canno' take nah more! XD
@TheOwlAce See, already fixing things! XD How many of these does Das Germanishe Weltreich have?
@Pilotmario You're right, I do like aircraft and aircrews that have a history. Shoulda tossed a few more miniguns into the side to make her a real Puff the Magic Dragon! The navy had a handful of Neptunes outfitted like the AC-47 in 'nam, I don't remember the details of why they did it or why they abandoned the practice, maybe due to the sheer overwhelming power of the first AC-130s? This aircraft reminds me of a Neptune and in their position I could relate to their determination to either stay and fight as long as possible to protect the friendlies on the ground and risk being taken down due to the loss of cover of darkness or tuck tail and run and having to live with that