Alright, since the release of the 2 new DoD maps ive noticed one thing: they both make use of para models. I fear that many maps that will come in the future will choose to use para models instead the regular "grunt" models. SO I just hope that future released maps (that become official) will not make a habit of continually using the para models. Ok thats it.

Well I'm not a mapper but I'm thinking mappers use paratroopers when it would be historically accurate or would make for better gameplay(fg42) or just for the plain coolness factor. For example dod_escape had to have paratroopers as they were the units in combat during operation market garden, the setting for dod_escape.

Plus i think the default paratrooper models look better:D

Originally posted by Kampfer/Burns
Alright, since the release of the 2 new DoD maps ive noticed one thing: they both make use of para models. I fear that many maps that will come in the future will choose to use para models instead the regular "grunt" models. SO I just hope that future released maps (that become official) will not make a habit of continually using the para models. Ok thats it.

Thanks for your imput

/me ponders your post then discards it on the fact i don't care what models you want

I think its pretty simple. The fg-42 is a fun gun that contributes to the game. Using para models lets them easily put it in the game.

In terms of balance, it (fg-42) is a nice counter to the BAR, since its deployable.

Of course, I'm making an educated guess as to their intent... so I'll wait for FuzzDad/IR to answer this thread and pwn me. :)

escape is in holland operation marketgarden so i had the chooise
between brit or para amercian, for gameplay and the size of the map , para allies is much more interesting.

In general that's only visual apearance, overall that's only one difference - GF42 for Axis.
I would like to see more variety in this area (different weapons setups).

Originally posted by IR -inw-
escape is in holland operation marketgarden so i had the chooise
between brit or para amercian, for gameplay and the size of the map , para allies is much more interesting.
We need the British Airborne/ Red Devils in dod. :D

Ok then there is a second problem with escape.. would there be axis paras there? why couldnt they be regulars?

I was in the 82d Airborne for three years and jumped out of perfectly good airplanes over 60 times...all my maps will have paratroopers in them

Originally posted by FuzzDad
I was in the 82d Airborne for three years and jumped out of perfectly good airplanes over 60 times...all my maps will have paratroopers in them

/me wonders how many times you jumped out of crappy airplanes

Just a thought :D

I just wish they'd use para respawn...

paratroopers models are way cooler. buts its nice have them mixed with regular infantry also like in dod_jagd and dod_zalec.

i just wish the fallschirmjagers didn't have the "crete" uniforms.

and the american paratrooper head models are ugly as hell. the rest of their bodies are good (and accurate to boot)

QUOTE]Originally posted by haircut
/me wonders how many times you jumped out of crappy airplanes

Just a thought :D [/QUOTE]


I apoligize for the horrific length of what some of you are about to read but I thought it might be interesting

Actually...in jump school at Ft Benning Georgia my very first five jumps were in an old contraption called a C123...it was the medium sized cargo plane featured in that old movie with Mel Gibson about the CIA operating in Vietnam (Air America) and the movie with Nick Cage about the criminals escaping while in route in a prison plane (Con Air). These planes were originally designed to be prop-only and during Vietnam they added jet engines to the outer wings to give the aircraft more power on takeoff. All of them were built in the 1950's and 1960's and all of them leaked oil and hydraulics and were noisy buckets of bolts.

The only two-ways you could jump them were either through the door on the right side or the tailgate but in jump school you had to use the door. There was an additional problem in that the door had to be removed prior to takeoff because you could not open it properly in flight because it was not designed right or something for jumping. So the engines start up and the first thing you notice is that they initially belch black, thick and oily smoke followed by flame from the exhaust stacks and then a burst of power followed by a bit of white smoke and then the engine settles in with that rhythmic sound of a radial piston engine. The engines constantly leak oil down the sides of their engine fairing leading you to think that perhaps joining the paratroopers wasn't the most intelligent decision you'd ever made.

As the airplane lumbers down to the take off end of the airfield the pilots fire up the two jet engines...these engines were built before noise-reduction requirements were enacted so they are loud and screaming and the entire wing is shaking from the combined cycles of piston and jet engine rhythms all the long while you're looking out the open door seeing bits of oil, debris, paint and other assorted "things-you-wish-would-remain-on-the-plane" all fall off to the taxi-way or get blown away in the slipstream. There's a crew chief in the back tapping certain overhead hydraulic lines occasionally and there’s all sorts of noise, clanking, creaking, whooshing, clicking and other assorted mechanical noises all coming at you in a massive sensory-overload of noise. Military transports...the older ones...have all their wires, plumbing, control cables, push rods, etc all exposed to the naked eye so as you're sitting down in the back you can look up and see this symphony of movement...every movement is choreographed with a sound effect. All this and we have not even gotten to the end of the runway to take off.

The pilots throttle up the pistons and the jets and we slowly but surely gain speed and loose the vibrations...you're pushed gently to the side (we sit looking in towards the center of the aircraft like they did in BoB). You feel the airplane swaying a bit on the runway and the view outside the door becomes rushed. The noise is at a high pitch now and with the wind howling though the aircraft it makes you understand why they issued you ear plugs. The nose pitches up, the wheels leave the ground, and the vibration almost ceases. The plane crabs into the wind slightly and as you look out of the door when the plane banks you see large expanses of green (it's one of the many wonders of flight...how green and brown the world is) and thank the manufacturer of the seatbelt you're wearing because you're staring straight down a good thousand feet.

Along the way to the drop zone you start to loose the thoughts about the plane and start to think about the jump. It's not being nervous, it's being cautious. Did I put the loop belt on right? Is my weapons carrier snug? Will my chin strap stay in place? The funny thing for me is...I never worried too much about the chute opening as much as worried that I would screw something up in the sequence to cause a problem. The proper sequence when I got to the door was hands to the outside edges of the door, thrust up and out of the plane, snap chin on chest, elbows tight to my sides, hands on my reserve, toes pointed and legs together, start counting "One-one thousand, Two-one thousand...")

Somewhere deep in personal thought i happen to glance up at the engine and there's a nice oil slick forming on the engine fairing...i point this out to the crew chief and he gives me that hard stare and a shake of the head that all but tells me i'm an idiot for suggesting that something as normal and mundane as an oil leak is important to him. The reason I'm sitting near the door is that I'm the stick leader and will be the first out the door...there's a guy next to me who has never been in an airplane in his life and so for the next five flights he'll be able to say that although he took off five times he didn't land once.

The red light comes on. The red light tells you we're 10-20 minutes to the actual jump time. The jumpmaster uses an armsignal and yells to you to stand up. The next five minutes are exactly what you saw during the jump sequence in Band of Brothers and in the MOHAA Spearhead game:

"Stand Up!"
"Hook Up!"
"Check Static Line!"
"Check Equipment!"
"Sound off for Equipment Check!"

After all the training you've done this first jump goes like clockwork...you follow the steps and you're so busy making sure you're doing your job you fail to realize that you're about to hurtle yourself out of this "perfectly good airplane" into the sky and fall to earth. It's why the army pays so much attention to training...if you ever actually thought rationally about the steps you were taking perhaps you'd hesitate...and in that hesitation you and your buddies could die. Someone slaps you hard on the back bringing you back to reality. "OK!" he shouts load and clear. Since I'm the first person in the stick and the last person in line getting the OK slap I turn to the jumpmaster and yell out "All OK Jumpmaster!". He looks me straight in the eye and tells me:

"Stand in the Door!"

At this exact moment all the training in the world didn't prepare me for what would go through my mind in the next 10 seconds. I reach forward with my left hand and grasp the outside trailing edge of the door and place my left boot on the platform step that's just outside the door. I place my right hand just outside the right outside trailing edge of the door and steady myself in a semi crouch position. Both my hands are outside the aircraft, thumbs down and slightly locked inside the door at about waist level. They tell you to look straight out the door and wait for the green light but I glance down to see a river rushing under my feet and to my left I see the wide expanse of the drop zone coming up. The ground looks impossibly close..."will my chute open in time?"

I feel a slight shakiness in my stance and feel a wetness on my left check...it's my eyes tearing up as the wind rushes by my face at 120 knots. I glance back up being mindful of my training and once again I notice the oil slick on the engine fairing...this time I'm close enough to count the rivets on the fairing and can see the oil forming small balls and being whisked away into the slipstream. The green light fires...the jumpmaster hits me hard on my ass with the palm of his hand...I lurch up and out of the plane and start to run through my sequence and all of a sudden I close my eyes...yell "****" as loud as I can.

A few seconds later there's a lurch (it's not rough, it's like being on the end of a short bungee cord) and my head is thrust forward and I open my eyes. I look up and the chute looks impossibly small...did something wrong happen? No...it's just the perspective of being below one. Another thing I notice...all that noise is gone. I hear the drone of the planes as they pass overhead but it's eerily quiet. However, the silence is short-lived as I hear all this hollering and yelling...everyone in the sky is yelling like their very lives had been spared, like they just hit the home run that won the World Series or won the lottery. And the funny thing is I realize that I'm yelling too. For the next several seconds it's as peaceful a experience that I've ever had...gently floating on a South Georgia summer breeze, slowly dropping towards the earth.

My peacefulness is shattered by a bullhorn from below:

"Jumpers!!!! Prepare for landing!!!"

Our instructors are at the drop zone barking out orders over bullhorns as we descend. I look down and find my feet spread and the ground is starting to rush up at me. The closest "Black Hat" instructor starts yelling at me:

"Jumper! Keep your feet together!"
"Jumper! Look to the horizon and prepare for landing!"

I look down once...there's a creek bed below me that I think I might land in so I pull a bunch of risers down on my front left in an attempt to tack away from but to my dismay I've done the opposite...I've caused my chute to turn towards the creek. It's too late now for any more course corrections so I return to the proper landing position and watch the horizon.

They teach you that there are five points of contact when you land. You're taught how to land because if you tried to land standing up with all that equipment on you could easily break a leg or something worse. Those five points of contact are the balls of your feet, the calf, the thigh, the butt, and the backside of the shoulder. If done correctly you can minimize injury and the time it takes for you to get out of your chute and get to a combat fighting position. In truth it's more like you hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and land any which way you can. I landed ion the upslope part of the creek and did a three point landing back into the creek:

Feet
Butt
Head

The jar when you land is pretty intense but it's no more than jumping off a seven or eight foot platform. In my case the feet-butt-head landing was a bit rough...enough to give me tweety birds around my head but not enough to cause injury to anything else but my pride. Right after I hit I did my post landing procedures and started to get out of my harness. Sometime in the middle of all this I heard someone trying to suppress a laugh and as I looked up I saw a Black Hat looking over me with a silly grin on his face. "Betcha that hurt a bit didn't it sir?

Pride somewhat squashed I picked up my chute and trotted to the assembly area. While jogging back I heard this "THUD" and to my right about 50 feet a helmet had come off and hit the ground. The one thing I began to realize about drop zones was that the name "Drop" was very apropos...stuff is dropping all over...people, equipment, rifles, boots....etc. It's not entirely a healthy place to be so it was prudent to get off the drop zone fast.

Once back at the assembly area we all were slapping ourselves on the back and marveling that we were all there OK. Suddenly we hear a shriek from the crowd and looking back to the drop zone I see a guy falling from the sky, his parachute twirling over his head completely furled up...we call this a cigarette roll...for some reason his chute didn't open properly. There are several Black Hats on the ground frantically yelling at the jumper telling him to open his reserve chute but the jumper isn't listening. Both his hands are trying to pry his risers apart in what looks to be a vain attempt to get his chute to unfurl. I notice one of the Black Hats out of the immediate area squatting down with his hands over the back of his head. Several other Black Hats are rushing towards the eventual impact point. Off to my right I hear "Oh my God" and "Jesus" and I hear the ambulance already starting to roll.

At 50 feet above the ground his parachute snaps open and before he can get ready to land he hits the ground at three times the normal speed. There's a huge roar of relief from the crowd and I can feel my breath taken away for the moment. It was an amazing scene. There's then a few seconds of silence from the Black Hats then I can hear one of them yelling at the trooper "WHY DIDN'T YOU USE YOUR RESERVE!!!!"

The rest of the Black Hats regain their composure and we're put back into formation for the walk to the trucks that will take us back to the airfield to do this over again...five times in the next three days.

I went on to a three year tour w/the 82d and saw a lot of things happen on a drop zone but the memory of my first jump is forever seared into my brain...so if you ever ask me why I like to put paratroopers into my maps I think you can find the answer to that here.

sounds like some noobs made that plane ;)

AWESOME read, FD!


Pick up your weapon and Follow Me...

AIRBORNE!

Bloody Excellent FD - writing your memoirs any time soon??

Sounds like you'd make a perfect drinking buddy - plenty of tall tails to tell us all ! :D

iAn

Great story FD. Made me chuckle as it reminds me of all my fathers stories about his time in the British airborne during the 60's.

He had his chute candle and his reserve get fouled up in it and on a 500ft jump didnt really have much time to take in what was going on. Training being what it was he kept the landing position and whump! By luck they were jumping in on the edge of a marsh and with the inpact he completely submerged himself vertically in the ground. They ended up pulling him out of this tiny whole in the ground by his risers, unconcious and stinking like s***. :D

- Jed

Lucky guy your dad...I never had any trouble other than that one jump into the creek and one jump where I hit my head on the top of the helicopter on the way out the tailgate and did one of those "land-on-your-butt-and-fall-out-face-first-tumbling-forward" exits from the helo...funny as hell too...I was laughing the whole time. My dad had a bad break (pun intended) once...(he was 82d before me) a guy floated under him stealing his air and his chute collapsed...he slid by the guy and before his chute opened fully again he hit the ground hard...busted his leg up real good.

I ended up with 62 or 63 jumps...two or three more and I would have been a master jumper...but I was a jumpmaster and in all of my jumps not one person was ever hurt. We lost a few jeeps and a couple of trucks though...when you see a 5-ton truck hit the earth at 200 plus mph from 1500 feet you understand why it's important to get off the drop zone.

Interesting story there FD, a little too detailed in places- but I think you have a talent for writing!

*sigh* how I miss English. And Art. Well I was drawing earlier so thats kind OK! But still its never the same without your mates, and the girls around to flirt with :rolleyes: awww!

Ahem! Back on topic... I agree with Shane, the FG42 is bloody cool. Its my "lawnmower" weapon, if you catch my drift.