Vantage Point
The US President is shot twice by an assassin and 8 strangers have a perfect view of the kill,but what did they really see? As their individual stories are told,we see just a little bit more of what happened.This kept me guessing up until the last third of the film,which then goes into a really hoaky and drawn out car chase.
Would I watch it again? Only on a rainy night when I want to annoy the neighbours,’cause the 5.1 mix rocks:diablo:

I thought that one was pretty good. Very well cast, and the way they showed the entire story was certainly original.

I saw Tropic Thunder, WALL-E and The Day The Earth Stood Still (that one in the theater) over the past few days. WALL-E was amusing, looked great on Blu-Ray. Tropic Thunder was HILARIOUS. Tom Cruise was the best part of the film. Best Supporting Actor good. I was floored. The rest of the film was a riot as well, but Cruise totally stole the show. The remake of The Day… was pretty good as well, although I haven’t seen the original. I think Keanu Reeves was pretty convincing as Klaatu, the way he sort of deadpanned it. The best scene was Gort’s escape.

Still have X-Files 2, Hellboy 2, and Hancock to watch. Plus, one of my all-time favorite Sci-Fi flicks came out on Blu-Ray, it’s totally sick: Event Horizon.

Two Russian KGB types, becoming enlightened in Firefox:
-Perhaps he intends a close inspection of the MiG-31?
-He cannot be here for that.

Harrison Ford, K-19:
“Without me, you are nothing. Without you, I am nothing.”

Don Rickles, Kelly’s Heroes:
“Maybe the guy’s a Republican.”

Various guys, Predator (how did these not come up yet?):
“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
“GET TO THE CHOPPER!”

Anything out of Tom Cruise’s mouth in Tropic Thunder, that was his best role EVER.

Sigourney Weaver, Alien series:
“I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them *******each other over for a ******* percentage.”
“You can’t stop it. It’s inevitable.”

Bill Paxton’s “knives, nukes” speech in the Director’s Cut of Aliens. Pure hilarity.

1. PAF Had no BVR capability until AMRAAM and SD-10 were recently ordered. All of the “PAF has BVR” nonsense was people (mostly reporters) misinterpreting the whole H-2/H-4 issue, which were found to be air to ground weapons.

2. Were it me I’d rate the air combat effectiveness of the MiG-21BISON significantly above that of the PAF Mirages and arguably equal to the PAF F-7PGs. The Mirages have no BVR capability to consider and aren’t going to be carrying an AAM load exceeding that of the BISON anyway. From an air combat standpoint the BISON is more effective in a 1v1 fight than a Mirage III/V. First shot, move in for an R-73 shot if you missed.

3. PAF SAM support is a complete disaster except at low altitudes where air combat performance breaks down anyway. They have one HQ-2 battery, that makes up their “long-range” SAM force. Everything else is short-ranged and low altitude, predominantly MANPADS and Chinese shorter-range systems. I’d leave the SAM support element out of it and concentrate on the airpower element. And for the record IAF SAM support is no better, they rely on S-125 batteries at airfields. Neither nation has a serious SAM defense network, although a few hundred MKIs does make that a secondary concern on India’s part if you ask me.

4. Air combat effectiveness of the MiG-27 should probably be pretty low, no AI radar and no serious WVR AAM as far as I know makes for a very poor air combat platform.

Very interesting analysis.

And good job everyone, this has been kept civil despite the potentially volatile subject matter. Just goes to show you that it is in fact possible to have a mature discussion around here.

Yeah that number of 1500 is probably a pipe dream unless World War III breaks out next week. It might be the DoD’s desired number but I’d bet it won’t come near that mark. The USN will probably not see a big cut to their fleet as they’re arguably in the most need of the jet, leaving the cuts to come from the USAF and USMC orders. USMC F-35Bs will probably be relatively safe for the most part since there’s no other alternative if htey stick to wanting STOVL capability, meaning that as with the F-22, the USAF will likely have to deal with less F-35As than they want. Which is the way it works.

Off topic but I wonder what the breakdown of those 38 aircraft will be? Surely there are Yak-130s and Su-34s in there.

In case you missed it, Russia’s air defense network:

http://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/12/russian-strategic-air-defense.html

What the heck is that nonsense LOL!?

The Russians have been using RAM on aircraft starting with the Su-34/35, possibly even the Tu-160 according to some sources.

Operational Tu-160s feature RAM-treated intake trunks.

so i thought in era 2008 things should be far better than in 2000 when they lost kursk , the state is flooded with Oil money , inspite of Oil crisis.

The defense budget may be larger, but you have to consider that a lot of the money is going to the Strategic Rocket Forces to continue Topol-M acquisition and RS-24 development. Lots of acquisition programs to continue funding as well, like the Su-34 and the Dolgorukiy class SSBN.