Posts by Mike Fortey

Queen-like behavior?

You mean 'regularly', I think.

Friday's liquid lunch consumed a little too keenly, was it?

Bravo

Any chance you could call the BBC ande Sun and explain to them the realities of submarine warfare, as they still have their knickers in a twist!!

WTF?!

"Because the pissant little fairies in blue may have got a hurty wurty?"

Because anyone else could have got hurt by the bloody great monstrosity, perfectly capable of driving over a car? It's a danger to the public.

Or would you prefer it for them to have tried to climb inside a large moving vehicle and to struggle theatrically with the driver?

They should have used a real firearm.

RIP MBT

Bravo. The MBT is as dead as the pike block, and the sooner the MOD catches on, the better.

Yes; it's a shame to roll up the cavalry regiments, but they simply need to find new roles: Either piloting remote vehicles or flying helicopters.

"I am suprised that you are anti tank as it were. They are still useful for holding ground and as mobile heavy weapon platforms."

Firstly, tanks cannot effectively hold ground. Only infantry can take and hold ground. Secondly, they are poor weapon platforms, having only the capability to throw armour piercing projectiles or pretty small amounts of HE: Jobs that can be done better by something shoulder launched, something air-launched, or arty.

"Its all well and good saying the attack copter now rules but shoulder launched portable missiles can take them out."

Something shoulder launched can take out tanks too... and a lot easier. In reality, the shoulder-launched surface to air threat in low intensity situations has traditionally been overestimated. It's not a very serious problem at present. The threat to vehicles is far greater. Just look at the number of RPG7's produced compared to the number of Stingers and similar weapons out there.

"I know lets get rid of all vehicles and just have the men fighting each other."

Ultimately, that's what warefare is. However, they need to now be supported by a new wave of vehicles: airpower and Remotes, rather than MBTs.

MBTs are a dead duck. They are designed to kill other MBTs, not support infantry of fight in low-intensity campaigns. The sweeping warfare planned for them in Western Europe isn't likely to happen. We need to move on and spend the money in more effective ways.

As to being 'survivable', a 60 ton lump of metal is not survivable on a modern battlefield. It's a big target. Being in a tank crew has always been a very dangerous job in comparison to being in a ditch with a rifle... and that was before the invention of long range shoulder launched missiles and helicopter gunships. Tanks can easily be countered by a bloke in a shed with an RPG or a landmine. Sure: It has a lot of armour, but that's not all that survavability is.

MBTs might seem cool, but their time has passed.

*froth*

"Seriously, as quick as it is, they're asking £90,000 for something that is potentially explosive "

Because Hydrogen and petrol are perfectly safe in comparison?

*raises eyebrows*

As for being 'obsolete'; well, not really. Any of us could buy an electric car today, plug it in and use it ahppily for the next 10 years. Do you actually think you'll be easily able to obtain H2 at the pumps for five years? H2 is a future technology that isn't viable at present. Electric vehicles are still pretty much demonstrators, but at least they're ten years ahead of the game.

For 90k it might be out of our price range, but maybe that's not where it's aimed. LA rages about the Prius as the cool car to own if you want to try to feel less guilty about being a planet-wrecking capitalist pig. The Tesla does the same thing but doesn't look like a brick, and drives fast in a straight line for 1/4 of a mile (the only performance indicator other than HP that matters to US petrol heads). And the cost differential between a Prius and a Tesla is laughable to anyone in Hollywood anyhow. And those people ahving these cars is a GOOD thing: They're rolemodels, regardless of if we like it or not. By encouraging them to drive electric, we're encouraging a lot of others to do so, too.

Erm... final point: A lot of tech heads on here have frothed about how dangerous it is for a burned out fuse to cause brake failure. For all we know, it might have failed safe. How about we don't jump the gun? Anyhow, it's just as unsafe as the problems that a simple fuse or electrical failure in your ICE can cause. There's a lot more breakable componants in a conventional braking system, too.

Hmmm

"Tanks both project power and protect the occupants. In Iraq the smaller APCs as well as tanks have been crucial for dealing with roadside bombs."

Tanks aren't APCs though. I don't doubt that this toy won't kill off the APC, but it's yet another nail in the coffin of the MBT. MBTs really have no place on today's battlefields. They are a liability in urban engagement, and fodder for missiles and airpower in more open terrain.

However, I do feel that the article strikes wide of the mark in one aspect: These things really can't replace the heavy guns when it comes to churning up hundreds of square metres of ground and making life in the area very unpleasant for everyone, in preperation for or conjunction with assault. Sure: We can do that with airpower, but conventional 'dumb' artillary is still the cheapest way of dumping several tons of explosives on top of a vague target area, and it would take a lot of very expensive smart munitions to achieve the same results.

Eh?

"OK, class - please wake up and analyze the (non)redundancy of this illustration..."

Don't you think that there is a slim chance that the one of the world's most tech-savvy companies might have thought of that, and that the diagram provided in a press release may be a drastic over-simplification?

Definition of 'field'

"the middle of a covert marijuana field."

"suspicion of growing ten cannabis plants."

Since when did ten plants equate to a field?

I clearly must have fields full of roquet plants in my window box!

Boardgame deaths are up!

"I swear, what we need is a violent first person shooter "board game". Blow off parts of your opponent and see guts flying. *lol*"

I recommend you play the games 'Frag' or 'Last night on Earth', then!

"How much time do people have? Because we know that people have less time now than they did before."

Indeed. There are now less hours in the day before, and the truth has been hidden from us by clock-makers and time-keepers the world over. Obviously, we're really screwed for time in comparison with our grandparents... what with microwaves, washing machines, cars being common, etc...

'I can just imagine some fat moron at Hasbro HQ thinking "We've got to punch this up for the LOL, OMG, interwebs generation. The kids eat this stuff up."'

Hasbro are doing a lot of that recently...

Duh!

"If it's not illegal, is it really any business of an employer what an employee gets up to in their spare time? "

I'm not sure that you thought that statement through.

When it's done on work machines, on work property, you're damn straight it is!

The fact that it's public money makes it ourbusiness as well as the employer's, too.

Paris, because even she could understand the concept of an employer having the right to manage their own resources.

*sigh*

Quick, let's scrap the project because a few thousand people with no relevant qualifications or experience in the field think that the people who do know what they are talking about are wrong!

Let's all go and throw shoes into it, until it breaks.

Some for me!

Skunk being 'vastly' stronger than normal weed makes it 'lethal', eh?

It doesn't mean that you just smoke less, then, Mr. Brown?

I mean; Whiskey is ten times stronger than lager, so by the government's logic, it's 'lethal' because people go out and drink ten pints of it!

Paris... because even she could follow this basic maths.

saddened

A million dollars is still a lot of money to a writer. Even for the likes of Pratchett, there's surprisingly little money in it.

Personally, I'm saddened by the diagnosis - Pratchett and Banks are by far my favoured writers, and it's sad to know that fairly soon there will be no more diskworld niovels. (I just wish Banks would start churning out Culture novels at Pratchett's rate!)