Communism Fell… Or Did It?
A mighty T-72, symbol of the USSR and communism, late of the Iraqi Army, crushes an unsuspecting car at the Danville tank museum.
The Midterms showed that the American voters were willing to put off communism for one more election cycle. But DNC Chairman Tom Perez noted that there weren’t any moderates left in the party, that socialist Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (who believes you have no right to question her, your only role is to obey her commands; who believes that a male challenging her to a debate is sexual harassment, a belief which the Left immediately claimed was true as indicated by Jessica Valentine at Medium with her headline “Yes, demanding women debate you is like catcalling”.) was the future, with her unfunded policies and hatred of the liberal media because even they can’t make her interviews look good (She’s one of those slogan people Khrushchev was critical of in Khrushchev Remembers– the type of person who can spout Communist slogans, would give their life for Communism, but has no clue what they’re fighting for or what their slogans even mean… I like this, I wrote this line BEFORE I knew of how when asked how to pay for medicare her response was “you just pay for it”). So… some future for the party.
And the more they lose, the louder the liberal media screams. Until eventually the public thinks that so many screaming people can’t be wrong, or until the voices of m
oderation are drowned out by the screams. Or until the folks our liberal schools and colleges have been grooming to be good little Stalinists takeover.
So with another election not going the way they planned, what else can we expect from the Left? They still have two largely unassailed bastions of liberalism- the courts and the Deep State. Like with the many 9th Circuit Court cases, and the many Deep State acts of sabotage, we can expect this to be the crutch the Left leans on to get what they want.
The Left is being stubborn as a… as a… did I make this joke already? I’m not a fan of this symbol of communism. Needs less blue, more red, and change white for yellow.
But don’t be fooled by the crutch. The reason the Left isn’t using its left leg to walk is so that when they kick you with it you’ll be all the more surprised. I’m thinking of the mobs here. Like a faked injury, liberals in power and in the media claim that mobs aren’t a working part of their group. But they encourage the mobs, sic them on targets, and then liberal leaders claim that the threat of the very liberal mobs they encourage is enough to stop conservatives from entering their town. Mob rule, in other words, as we see in Portland. As we saw in Baltimore when the mayor told police to stand down.
My prediction, in other words, is the same five tactics the Left has been using since Hillary lost, except much more intense: officially smearing anyone disagreeing with them as being racist/sexist/Nazis/etc because liberals (much like their face of the future Ocasio-Cortez) can’t be bothered to argue their points and instead think you should just believe them merely because they tell you to, and if you don’t believe them then it’s not because the liberal is wrong, it’s because you’re wrong, ie racist/bigoted/Nazi/or just stupid. Tactic 2 would be liberal courts passing the liberal agenda into law on their own, 3 would be the Deep State doing that as well, 4 would be mob violence, and 5 would be censoring opposing viewpoints while claiming to be a neutral centrist group- like liberal Google censoring Republicans and then claiming they’re not politically biased, with no Democrat talking points regardless of how extreme they are being censored.
And remember- the culture wars are ongoing. Communism has repeatedly failed, but the Left still wants to bring it to you. The idea keeps coming back. American youth now want it, badly. The media is happy with it too- even in 2009, Newsweek proudly declared that under Obama we were all socialists (which is ironic given how one of my college professors insisted that we didn’t have socialism, and given how many times the media claimed calling Obama a socialist was fearmongering). The Cold War ended, but it was not the end of history. We haven’t run out of history quite yet.
Super Battletank
“…looks so real that you’ll wonder if it’s Super NES or CNN.” If it looks real then there’s no way it’s from CNN.
Back when “VCR-quality video sequences” was a selling point. Also, I think you are fighting T-72 tanks in the game. While Iraq did have T-62 tanks, most of the Iraqi heavy divisions had the T-72. Not like I can tell the difference.
Super Battletank isn’t simulating a fictional war between an M60A2 and the rest of NATO. Instead, it simulates the First Gulf War. It’s basically Battle Tank but with spiffy new graphics… and actual enemies that the U.S. fought. You still meet minefields and fight helicopters, tanks, fortifications, and have to blast various static objects.
From the Game Gear version.
You actually do get to drive an M1 Abrams in this game… I think. I’m pretty sure a real Abrams doesn’t have these big windows immediately under the cannon. Anyway, there are only 10 stages. I managed to get to stage 9, before being defeated by my own ignorance. You do I have a set amount of lives, but I was not counting so I don’t know how many.
You have I guess pretty much the same weapons in Battle Tank on the NES, and the same number of things you can control. You just have more buttons with which to control things.
This is what a Wii-U would’ve looked like in 1995.
This game came out across multiple platforms. No computers, but we did see it on SNES, Sega Genesis, and Game Gear. The Game Gear version looks pretty good, fairly similar to its console counterparts. I tried to get pictures from each, but it didn’t go too well with the Genesis version. First, my original copy simply didn’t work. I tried to find one in a used game store, and went to half a dozen but didn’t find it. Finally I find it and try it on my Sega Nomad (because my Genesis is 200 miles away), and sure enough my Nomad doesn’t work. I probably should have tested that console in the last 5 years, and maybe brought its battery pack too (without it, you can only power it via an outlet.
You’ll notice in the graphics for this game that they went for the best realism the console at the time could offer, achieved by scanning images for sprites rather than 3D polygon work. And it looked great; flowed smoothly, gave a level of realism within technological limits that worked well. Hear that guys behind M-1 Abrams Battle Tank?
that’s totally a T-72
Yes, I understand games like Star Fox on the SNES are meant to push the envelope of what the console can do, and not necessarily go for great artwork, but M-1 Abrams Battle Tank puts too much effort into being a realistic tank simulator for me to let them get away with lousy graphics when superior options were available. In other words- their controls were so bothersome and intricate and distracting to me that I want to complain about everything I can from that game. Hmph!
Moving Right Along
Alrighty… maybe later I’ll cover Super Battletank 2. That had a fun new gameplay mode, but otherwise was fairly identical to Super Battletank.
As for this next section, since there is no way I could possibly write this after knowing how the midterms turned out, I wrote two different sections. One for a Republican victory, one for a Democratic victory. The first covers Republicans, the second Democrats… even though I wrote the second first because that’s what I expected, a Democratic House and another 4 years with Nancy “Hamas Is A Humanitarian Organization, MS-13 Are Divine Beings, and Republicans Are Legislative Arsonists” Pelosi as House Speaker because she is so connected in the Democratic Party that removing her would be like removing the screen from your monitor and expecting it to work. If Democrats sweep the House and Senate, section 2 is still mostly valid, just figure that they’ll have more progress in trying to impeach Trump but will still be wasting everyone’s time. Also, if section 2 is true, where the hell was Russia? Didn’t they hack the election already? Trump will be sending Putin a nasty letter for sure! And I guess the GOP kinda sucks at suppressing voters.
By the way, no better place to note it I guess, but Trump has actually been delivering on his promises. So with all the negative coverage, accusations of hatred that have led to no tangible policy measures (I’ll stop you right here- children in cages was Obama’s fault, and the liberal 9th Circuit Court’s ruling made child separation into law, and the travel ban was something Obama considered. Are liberal black Obama and the liberal 9th Circuit Court racists? Oh yeah, and to you folks at Vox, with your 2017 headline “Trump says Obama banned refugees too. He’s wrong.”, I guess since you liberal reporters gloat over having sex with mass murderer Fidel Castro you would not see Cubans as refugees, so you would not believe that the many Cubans who Obama banned from entering the U.S. were refugees.), it’s all aimed at carrying Democrats into power. Proof positive whose side ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, Univision, Telemundo, and Hollywood are on. If any were impartial, this would’ve been reported. If you only had those networks for reality, America would right now be a place where a white male can go out and rape the first woman he comes across and gut the first black or Jew he sees, all while the economy is failing and Trump is sending illegal immigrants to concentration camps. That’s what the Left believes is happening. Depending on how the election went, I guess Americans might believe it too.
NOTES
The Abrams is a full tracked, low profile land combat system possessing a high degree of armor protection, lethal firepower, maneuverability and agility.
The M1 offers improvement over M60 series tanks in areas of protection, mobility, firepower. The M1 also offers improvement in reliability, availability, maintainability, and durability (RAM-D). It has a very high automotive performance, but quiet operation due to its turbine engine.
For protection against newer anti-tank weapons, the M1 turret and hull has advanced armor protection similar to the English Chobham armor used on the Challenger and Leopard 2 main battle tanks.
The driver sits in the front center in a semi-reclining position when his hatch is closed.
He steers with a motorcycle-type T-bar with twist grip controls for throttle and electronic fuel management.
A panel displays the condition of fluid levels, filters, batteries, electrical connectors, and circuit breakers.
Opening to the right is the driver’s single hatch which has three integral periscopes.
He has a 120° field of view. His night-driving periscope will fit into the loader’s periscope housing.
The commander and gunner sit on the right of the turret, and the loader on the left.
The commander has six periscopes that cover 360°.
He also has a x3 sight for the 12.7-mm machine gun, and an optical extension of the gunner’s primary sight (GPS).
This GPS has dual x10 and x3 day optics or x10 and x3 thermal imaging night vision, a Hughes laser rangefinder, and sight stabilization.
The gunner has a x8 auxiliary sight. The loader has a x1 periscope that can traverse 360°.
Armor bulkheads separate the fuel tanks from the crew.
Sliding armor doors and armored boxes isolate the main gun ammunition.
A Halon fire-extinguishing system reacts to the outbreak of a fire in two milliseconds and extinguishes the fires in less than 250 milliseconds.
If penetrated by a HEAT projectile, the ready-use ammunition stowed in the turret bustle would explode through top panels.
The turret bustle magazine also vents to the rear as well as upwards.
Heavy access doors are kept closed automatically when the loader is not holding a pressure switch.
An engine-driven pump provides power for the electro-hydraulic gun and turret.
A 1,500 horsepower gas turbine engine operates primarily on diesel or kerosene-based fuel, but can operate on gasoline during emergencies.
Most engine components can be removed without taking out the engine.
A complete powerpack can be removed and replaced in less than an hour, compared with four hours for the M60 series tanks.
The gas turbine delivers more horsepower than a comparable diesel because of the low cooling requirement.
Exhaust is at the rear and air inlet at the hull top.
Air transportability: C-5 Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster III heavy cargo aircraft.
The temperature of the M1’s exhaust may be over 1,700°. Soldiers following behind the tank must be to the side of the exhaust grill or at a safe distance away if they are moving directly behind it.
Crewmen on combat vehicles have very limited abilities to see anyone on the ground to the side or rear of the vehicle.
As a result, vehicle crews and dismounted infantrymen share responsibility for avoiding the hazards this may create.
Infantrymen must maintain a safe distance from heavy vehicles at all times.
M1-series tanks are deceptively quiet and may be difficult for infantrymen to hear as they approach.
WEAPONS
The Hughes infrared Thermal Imaging System (TIS) senses a small difference in heat radiated by objects.
This is converted to electrical signals which are displayed on a cathode ray tube, similar to a TV picture.
This image also is projected into the gunner’s eyepiece.
His sight displays target range information, ready-to-fire, and other systems indications.
It also indicates if the laser rangefinder has received more than one return.
The fire control computer has data entry and test panels for fault diagnosis.
A stabilization system permits accurate firing on the move.
The gunner merely places his graticule on the target, and uses the laser rangefinder to determine the range.
Then a computer applies necessary angles, and the gunner opens fire.
The computer also gets information from a wind sensor and a pendulum static cant sensor on the turret roof.
The main gun has a muzzle reference system to measure the bend of the gun.
The gunner manually sets battle sight range, ammunition type, barrel wear, muzzle reference compensation, barometric pressure, and ammunition temperature.
Main Armament
The turret can accept the standard 105mm M68 series gun or the German Rheinmetall 120mm L44 smoothbore gun (American designation M256).
- The 105mm gun fires standard M60 type armor piercing rounds.
A newer depleted uranium (DU) round has higher density and penetrating capabilities (not exported by the U.S.).
The tank carries 55 rounds of 105mm ammunition: 44 in the turret bustle, three horizontally in spall-proof containers on the turret basket, and eight in a hull box. - When fitted with the 120mm gun, the tank is designated M1A1, or M1A2.
The M1A1 carries 40 rounds of 120mm ammunition; 34 in the turret bustle and six in a rear hull box.
Maximum effective range is 3,000 meters.
Secondary Armament
Mounted coaxially to the main gun is a 7.62mm M240 machine gun.
A similar machine gun is skate-mounted on the left side of the turret for the gunner.
The M1 carries some 11,400 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.
A .50 caliber Browning M2 HB machine gun is located at the commander’s station.
It can be aimed and fired from within the turret (the M1A2 has lost this ability due to turret changes).
The tank carries 1,000 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition.
M1A1 turret, 1024×865, 67, PNG
Bonus Stage!
I’ll end on a high note. T-Mek. It’s like Battlezone, and was made by Atari. Except Shao Kahn from Mortal Kombat exclaims things at various points, and you’re fighting for the amusement of an alien warlord or something. It’s easier than Battlezone, and you have more weapons to choose from.
Made by Atari, and even has the crosshairs and radar from Battlezone
It’s a fancy offering for your Sega 32X, one of the less-than-40 games made for it. If you’re collecting-to-collect it’s usually a cheap grab, but if you’re collecting-to-play then you’ll find this is superior to some other games, like BC Racers and that motorbike one. That one was AWFUL. BC Racers just had a bad frame rate and slow controls, not too shabby (except it runs worse than Super Mario Kart which it’s a clear imitation of), but T-Mek came off as faster.
POWER TRAIN
The power train on the M1 tank, located in the rear of the hull, provides the basic power to drive the tank.
The power train has a turbine engine mated to an automatic transmission (aka «power pack»).
Accessories on the power train provide hydraulic and electrical power for the tank and its auxiliary systems.
The power pack and accessories are designed for ease of maintenance and have «quick disconnects» to facilitate removal.
The power pack weighs approximately 8,500 pounds (3,855 kg) and is 119 inches long, 80 inches wide, and 47 inches high (3,022 x 2,032 x 1,194 mm).
The AGT-1500 is a multifuel engine and will burn virtually any distillate for internal combustion engines.
Transmission output is through identical left and right final drives to the track drive hub and sprocket assemblies.
USMC M1A1, Company A, 2nd Tank Battalion.Operation Iraqi Freedom.Camp Habbaniyah, Iraq.29-JUN-2006U.S. Marine Corps Photos by Cpl. Mark Sixbey841k, 742k, 972k
E Troop, 108th Cavalry Regiment, 48th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.Removing engine and transmission from an M1A1.Mahmudiyah, Iraq.19-OCT-2005U.S. Army Photo by Sgt. David Bill1024x783, 181K, JPEG
M-1 Abrams Battle Tank
A Soviet T-64, with the Soviet’s well-known trapezoidal prism chassis. The bright red feather at the top indicates it is a male. Female T-64s are attracted to the tank with the brightest feather, as they know that a T-64 with such distinct plumage must be a strong warrior to have survived natural predators like the M60.
It might be unfair to say these are all knockoffs of Battlezone just because Battlezone came first and was pretty much the same game. But even if such a statement were fair, Abrams Battle Tank would be an exception. It’s more of a simulator than a game. It was originally released on one of them thar 1980s computers I can’t be bothered to look up the name of. I never played the computer version, but my difficulty with the controls makes a lot of sense if the game originally took advantage of the many more buttons a keyboard offers.
First of all, I hate simulators. They’re dry and unfun because of their focus on realistic controls. One glaring flaw in that notion is when the simulator is of a vehicle that requires more than one person to operate it. 4 people are needed for an Abrams. So you simulate handling 4 positions at once. Could be worse, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy on the PC is a simulator where you simultaneously must manage the jobs of anywhere between 80 and 430 different people.
Is that supposed to be George H.W. Bush in the upper left? It looks like they shrank George W. Bush’s face and pasted it on Richard Nixon’s head.
Second, Abrams Battle Tank does it poorly. They should not have taken the 3D polygon approach. The game did not have a smooth framerate, which only exacerbated frustration caused by odd controls and needing to control so many positions at once. And controlling the tank gets very awkward. While Battle Tank had the turret move with the tank, always facing forward (with limited traverse to target the enemies in front of you), in Abrams Battle Tank the turret (and any point of view you scroll to that is based on it) could be facing whatever direction. So you could be facing front with the commander or driver perspective, but then end up staring in the turret’s direction from the gunner or cupola positions. And re-orienting the turret to the front is a bit difficult.
Third, it might’ve been easier on the computer but is really lousy on the Genesis. The buttons could certainly have been better- instead of scrolling through the different perspectives in the tank with a pop-up menu, you could do it with the number keys. It’s like the pacing was slowed by that, but they either didn’t care to change the rest of the gameplay accordingly or they just assumed the naturally slow nature of polygon graphics on video game systems at the time compensated.
The Last Major Cold War Conflict
The Cold War still had 10 months left when the Gulf War wrapped in February of 1991. So while the Soviet Union was still around, they were able to see how their equipment faired against the West. While the Soviets had a few valid points in their post-Gulf-War review, sometimes they were just laughable. In comparing the T-62 and the M1 Abrams, a Soviet General said the T-62 was perfectly acceptable because the Abrams kept needing to have sand cleaned out of its filters. Which did nothing to affect how the gun works, and the gun of an Abrams routinely blasted Iraqi tanks before the Iraqi tanks could even get into firing range. However, as the article referenced above states, this was not a battle of Soviet vs American weaponry like the Korean War. Iraq’s military and training were mixtures of Soviet and Western practices, plus whatever they learned from their recent war with Iran. Iraq barely had Soviet advisers to tell them about what weapons they did have, and their technology was far behind what the West and even what the Soviets had (as you’ll see in the NYT article, Soviet leaders did admit to some inferiority).
But the Soviets seemed to have a bout of Multiple Personality Disorder when dealing with the Iraq crisis. Aside from “we have no advisers yes we do” schism, they also started by breaking with Iraq and condemning them both for invading Kuwait and wiping out Iraqi communists over the years. Yet they still kept their advisers and the like in there. Then of course the Soviets were/weren’t sharing their intelligence on Iraq with the U.S. Yeah, it was a mess and this fractured response was symbolic I guess of the Soviet Union’s dissolution.
