History, Politics And Current Affairs

Lots of grass and cars on deck there?

Happy Vicksburg Day?

It looks like the current Admin is trying to increase whatever is likely to be available in the short term vs platforms that won’t be available for a long time. Think they'd be interested in HMS Bristol ? Combat-proven and newly available... https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1024x576/p0lhmg9r.jpg

Craiglxviii wrote: ↑Wed Jul 02, 2025 5:37 amThey’re all the same once one gets past Carlisle Watford Gap

<dons tin hat & waits for incoming>

Fixed it for you...

Perhaps something similar to the old Lend Lease program where we lease someone else’s old ships in exchange for tariff relief…. I suspect the only navy who might be interested are the PLAN - for the various allied countries public acceptability of such a deal would be near-zero, while the PLA "...

There are some very brave assumptions being made here about the accuracy of trans-Atlantic navigation at the time. The Butt report said that the RAF was achieving between 25% and 10% of crews dropping bombs within 5 miles of their target in 1941, i.e. before the advent of electronic navigational aid...

I think the answer to that is "probably". He never lied about verifiable things in his autobiography, but some aspects (particularly those he implied about working with the SAS are just a bit too good to be true and inherently a bit fishy.

Home now, so more capacity to expand. The entire flow of the event can work, but perhaps just with a bit of tweaking: - Having ASIO (note that it is not 'the ASIO' anymore than it would be 'the MI5') get a further lead on a potential threat from a sleeper cell - Emphasise very heavy security of the...

That’s a cool one. 1924 American LaFrance Speedster - https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/93-1924-american-lafrance-speedster/?lot=57716&sd=1 We had a bunch of others including the oldest surviving Aston Martin (Green Pea) - the Aston in Aston Martin comes from the village I lived in which was ...

Had a very early New York fire engine racing in the village recently.

I've got a couple of issues with the logic of it, which will no doubt turn out to be a case of @ being stranger than fiction: SAMP/T, Patriot and NASAMS 1 really aren't comparable - 75 mile range for SAMP/T firing ASTER 30, 50-100 miles for Patriot depending on variant, and 16 miles for NASAMS 1. If...

Nope on my part - the V&A really isn't my sort of thing.

At the same time, a manager in the Ambulance Service in the UK managed to run a Teams call with a Nazi Flag and portrait of Adolf Hitler in the background - everyone just laughed it off as normal and when someone tried to object they had their career ruined.

I’m reminded of President JFK directing the USN to add some 5” guns to our missile cruisers. Of course, JFK did have some cred in that Now, politicians engaging in detailed technical requirements might sound odd HOWEVER That’s who authorizes programs and appropriates the money so…….. And the USN ha...

Oh good grief...

Honestly, I'm trying to think of a historical non-PC name for a missile. Closest I can get is Red Hebe, and even that's only problematic because of a tertiary meaning and was a terrible design which never entered service.

I have a theory. There were originally 1,000 Minuteman silos, of which 400 are currently in use. The most recent tranche of 50 silos were de-activated in 2015. I rather suspect that the plan was to do a shuffle whereby they refurbished 50 silos at a time and put new missiles in them before decommiss...

Was actually done with the Churchill pretty early on - they fitted a WW1 3" 20cwt AA gun (very similar performance to the later 17pdr) in a casemate since the biggest thing they could fit in a turret at the time was the 6pdr.

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 28, 2025 12:07 amwhy couldn't they use any radars?

Sea Slug was a first generation beam-riding SAM designed for use against Bear bombers in the North Atlantic. Dealing with terrain clutter was something that never came to it. And San Carlos had deliberately terrible sight lines…

Not convinced the 4.5" or the AS-12s would be very effective - the 4.5" shells are exactly what Belgrano 's armour scheme was designed to protect against, and AS-12s have a penetration of 20mm coupled to a very short effective range which puts the helicopters in AA range. The RN would try ...