The Download Munkey : A Link A Day ;)

© Jakko Westerbeke

I have never been particularly interested in old fortifications - having always regarded them as ugly constructions of steel and concrete until I looked through this PDF by Jakko Westerbeke about the German bunkers on Walcheren, in the Dutch section of the Altantikwall built during WWII to defend the coastline of German- occupied Europe from an Allied naval invasion.

© Jakko Westerbeke

I didn’t realize that so much thought went into the design and construction of these ugly-looking bunkers - a testament to German throughness and engineering - features like the color-coded airways, the simple yet effective escape mechanism and the ingenious entrance design which allowed defenders to fire at enemies attempting to breach the bunker but not vice versa.

© ACE Models

ACE Models’ T-55 ‘Enigma’ model kit cover art.

Jakko Westerbeke has also compiled photos and data on selected tanks like the Iraqi up-armored ‘Enigma’ variants of the T-55 (above), the Russian IS-2 heavy tank introduced late in WWII, and my favourite one on the WWI Whippet medium tank (below). While the incredible level of close-up detail is certainly an eye-opener, they should prove more useful to those scale modellers craving absolute realism than to casual armor enthusisasts.

© Jakko Westerbeke

Each book comprises of a quick introduction and history of the subject accompanied by clear photos with detailed captions and 3D models to indicate the part of the subject that was photographed.

Download these photobooks from Jakko Westerbeke’s site.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
ACE Armoured Vehicle Scale Model Boxart
The Book of Tanks
Official US Army Photos & Factsheets of Modern US Infantry Weapons and Equipment
Free Military History Books from Focal Point Publications

Just completed reading the free downloadable PDF version of The Complete Wargames Handbook (2nd Edition - 1992) by James F. Dunnigan, a profilic designer of paper wargames (just see the list of books and games credited to him at Wikipedia).

The first two chapters are invaluable for new or casual players wanting to understand more about traditional paper wargames - the type with foldout paper maps with superimposed hex grids, counters printed on thick paper/card and the requisite Terrain Effects Chart and Combat Results Table (CRT).

© James F Dunnigan / Richard Mataka

The first chapter consists of a short turn-by-turn analysis on playing The Drive on Metz, a small and simple wargame focusing on XX Corps’ attempt to wrest control of the heavily fortified French city from the German 462nd Infantry Division and other German units. There’s only 20 units on both sides so it’s relatively easy to follow along and quickly grasp the basics of both tactical and strategic warfare.

I haven’ tried this but I think the wargame map and counters available for this game at BoardGameGeek could be printed out to make a relatively playable version (or sort of).

The second chapter is a quick look on applying analytical techniques to a wargame to learn more about the scenario presented in each game as well as to formulate strategic plans for completing the objectives for each side.

© James F Dunnigan / Richard Mataka

Basic offensive and defensive strategy and tactics are also explained, such as the optimum way to position your units into a defensive line (which isn’t as simple as it looks due to the intrinsic properties of a hex grid) and techniques to advance your victorious units to cut off and encircle enemy units.

Being a book published more than 10 years ago, the sections on computer wargaming are understandably out of touch with relatively modern wargames like Norm Koger’s The Operational Art of War series as well as the Battlefront’s Combat Mission tactical wargames but the fundamentals of paper wargaming are still applicable to a certain extent on most hex-based computer wargames.

© Talonsoft

I’m currently trying to apply them (badly) to an old copy of Talonsoft : Rising Sun I picked up in a bargain bin years ago Talonsoft is no more : Matrix Games has republished this game together with other games in the Campaign series as John Tiller’s Campaign Series with over 350(!) scenarios as well as units and weapon data for 20+ nations.

The PDF version of the The Complete Wargames Handbook can be downloaded from Richard Mataka’s website or if you prefer to read it online, you can head over to StrategyPage.com.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
War and Game : Military History Blog
WinSPWW2 & WinSPMBT : Freeware Armor Wargames
People’s Tactics : Freeware Operational-Level Wargame
Devil’s Brigade Lux : Free Risk-style Boardgame
Vantage Master Online : Fantasy Tactical Freeware Game
BrikWars : Mini-Fig Wargaming

Alex Vdovichenko, developer of TequilaCat Bookreader (TCBR) kindly sent me an email a few weeks back with instructions on reading rotated text with TCBR.

You’ll need to create a new JAR file for your mobile phone (see previous post) with the following additions.

1. Add Windows Font - only Windows fonts can be rotated
2. Click on Font Direction button (last button) to rotate the font 90 degrees clockwise or anti-clockwise
3. Change font properties as desired - I recommend MS San Serif size 16 and inverted colors with white text on a black background
4. Change midlet name to something like TequilaCatRotated so that the application will not install over your existing installation. Using the same name requires you to delete the existing application data which probably means that your bookmarks are gone
5. Install on your mobile phone and you’re all done!

Since the GetText utility used by TCBR supports HTMLs but not compiled HTML files in the CHM format, users may want to manually convert their CHM files to TXT using this freeware Text Mining Tool.

© Text-Mining-Tool.com

The Text Mining Tool has some quirks though as listed below.

• Unzipping the application in a folder with a extremely long pathname will cause it to fail when processing certain CHMs. Since internal HTML files in the CHM are extracted and written to the application folder, the resultant length of the pathname of these files may exceed Windows limit and cause a writing failure
• Unhandled HTML entities e.g — (probably Unicode characters) are left in the output text file. It’s only a minor annoyance which can probably be solved with some programming or search-and-replace.

Download TequilaCat BookReader or Text Mining Tool.

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Read Books on Your Mobile Phone with TequilaCat BookReader
Foxit Reader vs PDF-XChange Viewer vs Sumatra
Lifehacker.com - Productivity and Software Guide
Lone Wolf Gamebooks - Internet Editions
Before You Know It Lite - Free Virtual Flashcards for 63 languages

Don’t want to deceive anyone hunting for the actual Call of Duty 4 Limited Edition artbook that the PDF that I’m recommending today is the real deal - at least I hope it is isn’t because a 30 page book is an awfully thin artbook

© Activision / Infinity Ward

Anyway, I grabbed this PDF from the eclipse e-sports clanpages - it’s a fifteen page PDF formatted in double spread (which translates to 28 pages) and contains concept art and their transformation into onscreen graphics. The text is in German though - I doubt anyone would seriously bother about the text in an artbook

Screenshots of some of the pages in this mini-artbook.

© Activision / Infinity Ward

I would much prefer that Activision or Infinity Ward released the actual artbook as a free download like what 2K Games did for the Bioshock artbook for some extra publicity and fan love but hey, Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare is probably far too popular to need that extra boost of hype and publicity.

Download the Art of Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare Mini-Artbook and check out more concept art and renders at the ConceptArt.org Forums.

BTW, does anyone have the Limited Edition artbook? I would really to like to know how thick it is and whether it’s worth forking out the extra money for the Limited Edition.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
Free BioShock Artbook
Alliance of Valiant Arms Wallpapers & Concept Art
Next-Gen Infantry Concepts from Tom Clancy’s EndWar
Weapons in Ghost Recon : Advanced Warfighter 2
Possible Influences for Weapons in Frontlines : Fuel of War

Finally found time to read this free issue of Brick Journal #9 - a must-read for anyone remotely interested in Lego. While I haven’t been actively playing with Lego for close to fifteen years, occassionally I get the sudden inspiration to create something simple like this birthday present

© thoo2.net

The Lego blog The Brothers Brick and now BrickJournal, are surely inspirational stuff for anyone who has ever touched a Lego brick and dreamt of building something bigger and more ambitious than their brick collection (and for me, proper building skillz )

© Twomorrows Publishing

This free 148 pages BrickJournal issue showcases loads of cool Lego models as well as instructions to build a Mini Super Star Destroyer (Star Wars) amongst several other building instructions.

Some of favourite builders and models from this issue:

© Twomorrows Publishing

Fanis Dovas - Page 21

© Twomorrows Publishing

Matt DeLanoy - Page 34

© Twomorrows Publishing

LegoFest Ballabio 2007 - Page 100

Published by Twomorrows, BrickJournal is available for 3.95 USD per issue (digital edition) and 66/78 USD for an annual 4 issue subscription for readers outside US and Canada via surface mail/airmail respectively. Annual subscriptions for US and Canada are 32 USD and 50 USD respectively.

Download BrickJournal #9.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
BrikWars - War with Mini-Figs!
The Brothers Brick
Virtual Lego Designers
Warhammer 40,000 Vehicles in Lego