History, Politics And Current Affairs

Cool! And you actually included my personal naval hobby horse and pet peeve, construction reserve. Tonnage is dirt cheap. You want to build a naval vessel of X tons displacement? Cool. Add at least 25 percent tonnage, put in ballast as needed to ensure stability and seaworthiness, and WHEN new syste...

I might cook something up. That BB(N) just SCREAMS "Fahrpahr". I am actually breaking it down to how US and Germany in @ approach defence against RAM. The Americans use the 20mm CIWS, which is waste of ammo made manifest, while ze Germans use 30-35mm explosive shells in controlled, very pr...

I see someone picked up on that. The boxy turrets do ‘transform’, but not in a ‘robot toys for little boys’ sense. It does utilise some technology from the Japanese transformer projects, but that will be revealed in due course, apart from first noticeablr fact that the mount comes out of its armour...

My reasoning was that 4000 to 5000 tons would lead to naval planners wanting, no, pathologically NEEDING to cram more stuff in.

But seaworthiness in the North Atlantic is more important, agree.

Strictly speaking, one of those "pure" ASW frigates could be kept to what, 2,000t? Call them corvettes, then, CO would be a Lieutenant Commander (I like that the French and German rank designations fit the ship size), a nice step on the way to commanding bigger units. This would foster an ...

Now imagine the DoD skipping the NIH bias and, I don‘t know, cooperate with Blohm & Voss who incidentally have years and years of experience designing and building modular warships. Also known as MEKO. This includes containerization options. But knowing what happened pretty much every time, the ...

Regarding the female GSG9 sergeant, no worries. I mean, half of TV and cinema‘s iconic characters are present in TLW, what‘s one female GSG9 member?

Whoa, what a whopper of a chapter to wake up to! Lots of stuff going on, lots to comment on. First off, I hadn‘t been sure if the story of Kampfgruppe Märkl wasn‘t a bit too whimsical, but reading it now, months after writing it…I guess it‘s okay. The (West) German armed reconnaissance troops have v...

1. Running Man (this time a LOT closer to the short story/novella by Stephen King than the Ahnuld vehicle out of centuries past) 2. The Long Walk (also Stephen King/Richard Bachman) 3. A House of Dynamite (deals with a nuclear attack on the USA, directed by Kathryn Bigelow) Can't wait for either of...

I just looked at the general area (Venezuelan-Guyanan border, Brazilian-Venezuelan border) on Google Earth, and the conditions one has to face there even without having to fight a damn war, are mind-blowing. There are lots of places I'd rather fight in...all of them.

In Germany, there is a neuter pronoun, but it is used for things. So that one simply isn‘t used for persons. Think "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again." There have been attempts to introduce the Swedish "hen" for nonbinary persons but so far it hasn‘t c...

However the story itself seems to be a continual series of screwups. I shan't be reading it. I read Jacobsen's book and I agree that it was basically a Murphy's Law gangbang for maximum shock effect, but Kathryn Bigelow has proven more than once that she is very good at depicting military-themed st...

German F4F 175 provided, 110 upgraded under ICE. Was the 110 ICE an @ pre or post-1989/reunification number? Might more be upgraded in TLWverse? I believe the surviving fleet was 151 in 1989. The ICE upgrades were done between 1991 and 1996. in TLW, the rate would be the same thanks to the three ye...

drmarkbailey wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 5:19 am
When might the Typhoon fleet start to enter German service?

Cheers: mark

For sake of simplicity, I'd say 2001, along with Italy, Spain and the UK. The Typhoon is after all a multi-national project.

Interesting. Maybe I‘ll do a piece on the West German small arms manufacturers, including at least one (Sauer und Sohn in Eckernförde) whose production facilities end up behind enemy lines. One of the main reasons HK was acquired by Royal Ordnance was actually the dearth of government contracts afte...

West Germany had 88 RF-4E and 175 F-4F in its inventory, and only one Geschwader is left, in TLW, IIRC. I SEEM to remember that Jan said the West German government transferred the retired Phantoms to AMARC. I could of course be mistaken. It might be more accurate to say the West Germany bought 88 R...

West Germany had 88 RF-4E and 175 F-4F in its inventory, and only one Geschwader is left, in TLW, IIRC.

I SEEM to remember that Jan said the West German government transferred the retired Phantoms to AMARC.

I could of course be mistaken.

And how long to a) manufacture the radars if no spares are at hand, and b) do some flight testing, maybe with a live shoot or two, before going out to patrol in NORPAC? Step 1 : Notify VX-1 (ASW testing - they'll be most familiar with the P-3) and VX-4 (A2A testing) that a tiger team will be taking...

1. Running Man (this time a LOT closer to the short story/novella by Stephen King than the Ahnuld vehicle out of centuries past) 2. The Long Walk (also Stephen King/Richard Bachman) 3. A House of Dynamite (deals with a nuclear attack on the USA, directed by Kathryn Bigelow) Can't wait for either of ...

James1978 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 06, 2025 8:27 pm
About that scene in Zurich. Are the Germans acting on behalf of NATO in seizing those accounts, or are they planning to keep all the money for themselves?

I may not have been succinct enough, it is not only ze Germans who turn up at various banks in various places with dodgy tax laws...