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A friend of ours works for Boeing here in St. Louis (used to McDonnell-Douglas) and they had their Family Day today so we tagged along since her family was out of town.

While there we saw several banners in the production facility (way cool!!!!) about the E/A-18G Growler, scheduled to be operational in 2009. This is effectively the replacement for the EA-6 Prowler. There was also a completed F-15K on display. This is the latest variant of the F-15 produced primarily for South Korea. Neat stuff!

They many aircraft on static display. The last flying P-26A Peashooter was there. Would you believe it is almost literally half the size of a Dauntless?

There was also a B-17 that was open. You couldn't actually get in it, but you could look in through the hatches and the bomb bay and you could touch it. That was the closest I'd been to a B-17 ever (and certainly trumps the half hour or so one did figure eights over my apartment complex prior to a big airshow many years ago). It's awfully tight in there! Makes you wonder how they did what they did.

Lots of great things to see, and it was pretty cool that they let people into the production facility. Fascinating stuff, and I was glad I got to go. Maybe I can convince her to transfer to the St. Charles plant next year so we can see where they make Harpoons and JDAMS.

Charlie sounds very cool! I can not imagine how cramped those ball turret gunners had to be, let alone the other guys in the B-17 as you noted. Sounds like a nice day all around though good deal.

You want cramped? They had an M-5 Stuart on display, also. You couldn't get in it, but they did have a platform setup so you look down through the hatches. According to my friend, who's in the Guard, even M-1s aren't much roomier.

I don't think I would have made it as a tanker - way too cramped in there.

Charles Lewis wrote:You want cramped? They had an M-5 Stuart on display, also. You couldn't get in it, but they did have a platform setup so you look down through the hatches. According to my friend, who's in the Guard, even M-1s aren't much roomier.

I don't think I would have made it as a tanker - way too cramped in there.

Yeah I've heard that as well about the M-1. And the M-5 had a four man crew and over 100 rounds of 37mm cannon ammo and THOUSANDS of rounds of .30 MG ammo, I've no idea where the guys were after all that ordinance. That is great you got to see one up close though, very cool.

And I think the Soviets had a maximum height requirement for their Cold War era tank crews (like no one over 5'6" that sort of thing). I can see being in a tank the land equivalent of being in a submarine, cramped, and generally crappy conditions (especially WWII era).

Good suggestion Charlie.

I had the privaledge to tour an older submarine. Now I haven't had the chance to tour many airplanes besides what we have at the air force museum in Dayton, but that was cramped, especially compared to the USS NC in Wilmington.

Back to the original topic of this post, new plane (F-15K) for expansion. I definitely want the dedicated air superiority F-15 (F-15C in U.S.A.F.) to show up. The Air Force has demanded/cajoled/etc and got built exactly three dedicated air superiority fighters in its sixty year existence: F-86 Sabre, F-15 Eagle and F-22 Raptor. The original mission of all three was to kill anything it found in the air. And the F-15C is still the best air-to-air aircraft outside the F-22. And there are around 500 F-15Cs still in U.S. frontline service while there will never be more than 188 F-22s. So it will continue to fly and get EW and avionics upgraded.

Other planes to consider: Chinese J-7 (Mig-21 improved clone), Asia F-16 clones (South Korean KAI T-50 / A-50 Golden Eagle, Japanese Mitsubushi F-2, and Taiwanese AIDC Ching-Kuo). And yes happy lill air nerd that I am, I have stated these guys already.

And this just in from a forum member at strategypage.com:

"Report: Japan to develop stealth fighter jets" -- AP article from August 11. The U.S. is reluctant to sell Japan F-22s or F-35s because there have been several incidents of Chinese spies gaining access to U.S. military technology via Japan (honey-pot espionage is the typical way).

Here is the link to the article: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/ ... r-Jets.php

Base on what I've learned about the F-2, this is a very ambitious undertaking and will probably result in a Japanese version of the Eurofighter (an F-15E peer style plane in other words). It's a national pride issue, but Japan is becoming downright bellicose ever since North Korea fired those unannounced ballistic missiles through Japanese airspace a few years ago. Japan has started fielding "helicopter-destroyers" in its navy and these are comparable to the light carriers used by all the European navies that deploy major assets (Britain, France, Italy, Spain).

I think given the cost of the F-22 we are likely to see F-15's flying for many, many years. I think the craft has a good history of being adaptable, despite its age.

-Jay

mwaschak wrote:I think given the cost of the F-22 we are likely to see F-15's flying for many, many years. I think the craft has a good history of being adaptable, despite its age.

-Jay

Oh yeah the F-15 and F-16 will continue to fly for a long time to come I'm sure. *salutes them both*

MarkG88 wrote:
Oh yeah the F-15 and F-16 will continue to fly for a long time to come I'm sure. *salutes them both*

*Joins salute*

Which brings me to the next round of fun discussion for today. Is it worth noting the many, many variants in the expansion material. If so, which? I could see in Worlds of MAS that the F-15K might be available in certain parts of the world, and might be worth noting.

I should probably start posting some of those rules soon.

-Jay

mwaschak wrote:

MarkG88 wrote:
Oh yeah the F-15 and F-16 will continue to fly for a long time to come I'm sure. *salutes them both*

*Joins salute*

Which brings me to the next round of fun discussion for today. Is it worth noting the many, many variants in the expansion material. If so, which? I could see in Worlds of MAS that the F-15K might be available in certain parts of the world, and might be worth noting.

I should probably start posting some of those rules soon.

-Jay

Jay I'll need more info to go on as you noted. I don't think we need every single variant, just the significantly different ones. The F-15K for instance, won't be seen far from the Korean peninsula, ditto the F-15I and the Middle East. They're both basically upgrades of the basic F-15C platform as far as I know, but I'll be looking deeper into this.

Actually, the original topic was the new E/A-18G and the F-15K. The Growler points to a lack of a heavy electronics warfare plane in MAS or a need for one. Question is: is that a road we need to go down? If so, then we'll also want its predecessor the EA6 Prowler.

Charles Lewis wrote:Actually, the original topic was the new E/A-18G and the F-15K. The Growler points to a lack of a heavy electronics warfare plane in MAS or a need for one. Question is: is that a road we need to go down? If so, then we'll also want its predecessor the EA6 Prowler.

Yep you are correct. I meant to add that to my post about F-15s and the F-16 clones, it got deleted and not added on before I sent it. I'd suggested this to Jay, probably in an email a week or so ago during the final frenzy to edit MAS: the EA6, F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111 Raven for SEAD of heavily defended ground targets. The Growler definitely deserves a place since it is the newest EW bird.

Also its looking like the F-22 will do some SEAD type stuff as well (really doesn't need EW pods, just some bombs on board). As a stealthy plane it has a leg up on the SAMs already and the Air Force wants it's $200 million babies (highest cost I've seen so far for them, but still worth it) in action so if Iran or North Korea get frisky, the F-22 will be going in as a RADAR killer as well as Air Superiority missions.

Charles Lewis wrote:Actually, the original topic was the new E/A-18G and the F-15K. The Growler points to a lack of a heavy electronics warfare plane in MAS or a need for one. Question is: is that a road we need to go down? If so, then we'll also want its predecessor the EA6 Prowler.

Yes, I think we do. Right now we glaze over this in the current version with the miscellaneous equipment option, but we don't "fly" any. The expansion opens up this "world" of possibilities to us .

-Jay

I couldn't resist digging this toppic up

Hi I've just bought MAS, read the rules and liked it alot, I'm really looking forward to more aircraft mostly older models though. Unlike the posts above, I'm not too keen on the newer high tech stuff being available to mercenaries (thought I don't mind having the stats for use as NPC government opponents), my reasons for this is 3 folds.

1. Security, I don't think any government would want to give away its best technology, as stated above about US worries about China getting technology through sales to Japan. I don't think these planes would get to even less reliable mercenaries, it might be used against themself.

2. Logistic, even if they manage to get an F22, F35 or EF-18G they'd need very high level of support to keep them running, doesn't make it practical in the long run. The US military are using more and more civilian contractors to make up for this (I think especially F22)

3. Training, top of the line aircraft are going to need specific trainnig and type qualification, this probably means that any mercenary who can fly the F35 well are going to be ex military from the country that owns them, making them pretty experienced.

I can imagine thought that an MAS would hire a pilot and a specific plane from an airforce unit to bulk it out using the Freelancer rule to bypass these.

Now that I've made my attemp to shoot down newer aircrafts I'm gonna ask for the A-4 since these are pretty numerous around the world and easy to maintain, they should be one of the planes on the MAS shortlist.

What about transport aircrafts? C-130 and such, these could be cargo/ordnance carriers and air-air refuelers and more practical in World of MAS's idea of moving planes around different regions.

Welcome! I'm glad to hear you like MAS - Jay and I were hoping that the game wouldn't receive a chorus of crickets after it was released and that the target market was larger than our playtest group. hehe

Keep in mind that MAS is set in the (near) future so that planes like the F22 will have been around for a while (and could start to trickle down to the open market). They are expensive and very hard to get a hold of, so if your MAS gets even one, you are definitely the cream of the crop.

And if the US Military is using civilian contractors for maintenance, why couldn't an MAS?

Part of the reason the newest stuff is there (and more to be added) is because players could certainly encounter these aircraft on missions. Government air forces still exist in the world of MAS, and they will have the best stuff, for sure. Since the planes are statted out, they might as well be available for players, but as I mentioned above, getting a hold of the latest and greatest is a goal to shoot for over the course of many, many campaigns. Of course, there is nothing stopping you from making some planes simply unavailable to players in your games (or you could double the purchase price, effectively achieving the same result).

Transport aircraft were included, initially, but ultimately cut from the initial release for not having much to do. With the various ideas being bandied about for World of MAS, transports and tankers will almost certainly be making an appearance there.

Another objective is to add more of the trainer/light attack planes from around the world. Jay is sitting on a good source of lesser known attack aircraft (I know, because I gave it to him ) from Romania, Yugoslavia and elsewhere, that will provide more (and cheaper) options.

Finally, there is definitely a push for more of the Vietnam-era aircraft.

Believe me, there is a lot we can do with MAS, and a lot we want to do with MAS, but we didn't want to get too carried away with the initial release. MAS is definitely a new direction for VBAM Games, and we wanted to test the waters a bit before plunging in.

If you have any ideas, please be sure to share them. Work on Worlds of MAS has not started yet (other stuff needs doing first), but believe me, we'll note any good ideas that come along.