Tag: Zabek

05/21/13

Birds Make Terrible Dive Bombers

Author: Jim Zabek

Mankind has been inspired by birds for as long as we could appreciate their ability to fly. We have marveled at their ability to take off on a moment’s notice, soar effortlessly through the sky, and alight somewhere that we could never aspire to climb. Nature, fantastic and wonderful, has managed to perfect through evolution some fantastic creatures.

Mankind, always inventive, seems determined to take that evolutionary perfection and improve it to his own ends. Nowhere could this be more obvious than during the Cold War, when the CIA concocted a brilliant scheme to teach cats to spy on people. The idea was simple: surgically implant a microphone and transmitting device inside of a cat, then teach that cat to walk up to a suspected pair of people having a suspect conversation, and Presto! The purrrfect eavesdropping device. Operation Acoustic Kitty was born.
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05/15/13

The Significance of Airpower

Author: Jim Zabek

Airpower in warfare has been employed for over a century. Examples of its use go back as far as the American Civil War, where hot air balloons were used for aerial reconnaissance. The First World War saw an expansion of role of aircraft, and the typical roles that aircraft play in combat were largely defined during that conflict. Fighters, bombers, interceptors, and reconnaissance aircraft all emerged during World War One. But it was during the Second World War that airpower evolved from being a part of combined arms operations to being a fully-fledged combat arm of its own, capable of tipping the scales of battle on its own.

Dauntless-at-midway
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05/14/13

Tuesday Screenshot

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A sudden airborne drop behind enemy lines by NATO is designed to keep the Warsaw Pact off-balance. This lightly defended hinterland looks ripe for the pickings but look closely: two East German Mig-17s are swooping in from the left spoil this surprise attack. Air power can’t win this battle by itself, but it sure can put a dent in the troops trying to seize this ground.

05/3/13

Wargame: AirLand Battle – AAR

Developer: Eugen Systems

Publisher: Focus Home Interactive

Author: Jim Zabek

The closed beta has been released for Wargame: AirLand Battle and I’m having a blast with it. The sequel to Wargame: European Escalation, it builds upon the strength of the land units and adds a robust air power component. Gameplay resembles a tactical RTS, but the units are modeled after historical NATO and Warsaw Pact units. This provides a great mix of real-time tactical action with hard-hitting Cold War units. The beta has only released the multiplayer part of the game, and in this one I jump into a six-player game in the last available slot as the Warsaw Pact. I select an East German force just to see how it plays. While I did play Wargame: European Escalation I didn’t spend much time with the multiplayer game and this aspect is new to me.

AirLand-Battle-AAR-Image-1

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04/27/13

Small General Eastern Front

GrogHeads is pleased to induct Small General Eastern Front into the Order of the Hex for Excellent Depth in Mobile Gameplay.
GrogHeads is pleased to induct Small General Eastern Front into the Order of the Hex for Excellent Depth in Mobile Gameplay.

Review by Jim Zabek, 27 April 2013

Publisher & Developer: Victor Reijkersz Games

Great gameplay on the go? Believe it! If you’re on an Android phone, you’ve got a new ‘must-play’ game.

About a year ago Grogheads published a review of Small General. Set in a generic World War II-ish environment it to offered a non-historical operational wargame to players with Android-powered devices. Developed by VR Designs, the same development house that recently won an Order of the Hex award for great historical gameplay and Third Place in our Readers’ Choice Awards, it should come as little surprise that a more historically-focused game for Android devices would soon follow.
sgef

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