Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

It's not Darby is it?


Sorry for the mini-hijack. Anyone know why the smoke trails on the sounding rockets appear curved in RT's sig pic?
Its not what I thought when I was a kid.

Darby, as in Darby's Rangers? Didn't find any mention of him in looking this up. Didn't see Tristanjohn on here lately, so i haven't given up that i've got the right answer.

As for the curved smoke trails - i had always wondered what was going on there, and had asked different folks without results. Tthat they were sounding rockets makes perfect sense - this photo was taken from a test shot, of course. I would GUESS that the trails are curved due to local wind currents combined with the blast wave - they would be pushed outwards away from the blast, but as they got higher the rising hot air would straighten them out.

Darby was just a guess.

The smoke trails are actually well beyond the blast. They were used to observed the optical "lens effect" of the blast (as the shock wave moves away from the blast, the air is compressed at the leading edge of the wave..the higher denisty air refracts the light from the smoke trails leading to apparent curvature of the trails). The strength of the shock wave could be used to estimate the yield of the weapon.

my guess:
Colonel Russell Volckman

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

Darby was just a guess.

The smoke trails are actually well beyond the blast. They were used to observed the optical "lens effect" of the blast (as the shock wave moves away from the blast, the air is compressed at the leading edge of the wave..the higher denisty air refracts the light from the smoke trails leading to apparent curvature of the trails). The strength of the shock wave could be used to estimate the yield of the weapon.

Wow - interesting fact![:)]

ORIGINAL: grossmetzger

my guess:
Colonel Russell Volckman

Didn't run across this either.

I am pretty sure that Pyke is correct. After i googled Pyke (see above), i kinda remembered the exchange that Mogami and Tristanjohn had - something about pykrete, iirc.

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

Gen. Eschenburg was a commander of the 1st Special Service Force, but the original commander was Lt. Col. Robert T. Frederick. Don't know if he was the "inspiration" for the unit's formation, but as ORIGINAL commander, it is a good bet...

I am not getting a response, so i assume i am wrong. One history says the impetus for development of the unit came from a civilian named PIKE, who developed some sort of snow mobile, and the idea was to drop the unit into Norway with these things. The original commander says the idea is bad (in the movie).

So you've watched the movie now? Did you like it? If you haven't seen the movie per your first reference yesterday, do so. It's a pretty good film in its own right, especially the first half of it.

There's a book entitled The Devil's Brigade that I highly recommend to you. It includes a representative history of Nathaniel Pike. That's the gentleman you're after. You might be able to pull up some interesting stuff on the guy if you search long and hard enough. Mogami came away with a brief bio, but it was bullshit. There's more to this guy than readily meets the eye.

Anyway, pretty good job on this quiz. I don't know if it was hard, but it wasn't easy, either.

Haven't watched the movie yet, but plan to see if i can find it at my local video store. The stuff i found about the movie was in various and sundry reviews.

You might be able to pull up some interesting stuff on the guy if you search long and hard enough. Mogami came away with a brief bio, but it was bullshit. There's more to this guy than readily meets the eye.

Anyway, pretty good job on this quiz. I don't know if it was hard, but it wasn't easy, either.

Yeah - see my posts above. The references called him Geoffrey Nathaniel Pyke, and he sounds like quite a character. I'll have to see if i can find out more on him...

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

You might be able to pull up some interesting stuff on the guy if you search long and hard enough. Mogami came away with a brief bio, but it was bullshit. There's more to this guy than readily meets the eye.

Anyway, pretty good job on this quiz. I don't know if it was hard, but it wasn't easy, either.

Yeah - see my posts above. The references called him Geoffrey Nathaniel Pyke, and he sounds like quite a character. I'll have to see if i can find out more on him...

I wondered about the correct spelling of Pyke's name when Mogami brought up that little piece on him. My first search found the same site Mogami had hit. At that time I was convinved I'd simply forgotten over the years and had his name spelled incorrectly in my mind as Pyke, but as it turns out I was correct after all.

Yes, Pyke is one of those very remarkable and special people that each century seems to endow. One of his ideas regarding pykrete was to use these large vessels as supply transports to Africa and the Near and Middle East, where they then could be allowed to melt down and provide fresh water for that region. A case of killing more than one bird with a single stone.

He was a genius, and so of course he was misunderstood, misappreciated and pretty much ignored by the powers that then held sway. Churchill had a nonconformist bent, and Lord Louis Mountbatten the same, plus both were always eager for effective ideas as to how best progate the war, and never mind their egos. Mountbatten, though born to position, was an extremely smart man in his own right, and we lost something when he was killed by the IRA. Another sad story.

Good job on this! I'd guess you've learned a few things in the process. (Which is, by the way, why I go to the trouble. Plus, I like to have some fun once in awhile. [:)])

because i don´t know the filo i had to guess...
here´s a nice site about all those guys
special forces