Anyone else up watching things unfold?

Des muttered
<Now... about this 'the UK was a superpower' idiocy.

Go on then. Justify your position in terms that might hold some water
outside the playground.

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote in message

IIRC the US currently has the military capacity of the next 15 best
armed nations in the world.

I guess in a nuclear age that's less import. I assume a piss poor
place like the UK could wipe out the key areas of the US from a Sub in
a few minutes.

I always thought that there would be a war with Islam. I assumed that
Bin Laden was trying to provoke a holy war by goading Bush into
attacking a random Arab country after 9/11. (Presumably Saudi)

Although the plan worked Islam didn't play ball and the trouble has
been localised.

 

You obviously don't understand how killfiles work - TOG doesn't see
anything you *post*. Stuff that other people write in response he does
see - because they come from someone else and not from you..

It's hardly rocket science..

I think you have mis-spelt "I" - you seem to have spelt it "they"

Phil

 

I'd be surprised if that were the case. I mean, 15 countries is a
*lot*. You'd start with Russia and China, I suppose, then the UK and
France. India..... Don't forget Israel, either. I'd love to know how
the league table goes down, actually, right down to (say) 20th place.

Well, that's true. Destruction is not the same as conquest, after all.
I don't think Britian was in any position to conquer (say) the US or
Russia in 1900, no more than the US could conquer Russia today.

Blow it to bits, yeah, but that's different....

It's interesting to see what parts of the US military are rated and
which aren't. I don't think their land army is particularly highly
rated, whereas their air force certainly is.

The US navy? I dunno. It's not something I really know a lot about.

I was interested, though, to read a critique by Tom Clancy a while
back. Not one his novels, but one of his non-fiction things: a book
about submarines. He reckoned that the Royal Navy was the best in the
world when it came to submarines, and it was mainly due to the RN's
unique "perisher" system.

Vry telling - he said that while the world respected the US submarine
fleet, and others, *everyone* in submarines *feared* the Brits.

(Of course that may have changed in the light of the slightly used ones
we've just flogged the Canucks....)

Fact is, a century ago one-quarter of the world's land mass was ruled
by Britain. The Empire continued to expand, reaching its geographical
zenith round about 1930, but British economic power had been sapped by
then (Great War), its military power had been scaled right down, and
its industrial power was being eclipsed by other countries.

James Morris, in Pax Britannica, takes 1897 as the zenith of Britain as
a superpower, and it's a nice date to choose. Victorian self-confidence
was limitless, it was Diamond Jubilee Year, and the Boer War - the
first crack in the facade - had yet to break out.

It makes me wonder what date could be used to mark the USA's zenith.
Apollo 11 landing? Berlin Wall coming down? We won't know for certain,
of course, until the USA's power starts to wane.

 

Dunno. I read it somewhere. It mihgt be accurate. The EU nations spend
1/3 of the US budget of defence, yet due to duplication we don't
anything like 1/3 of th emilitary strength. If you *assume* the EU has
1/6 o f the US's power then the 15 nation figure might be true. I
can't remeber the source but it wasn't the Daily Mail so it must be
true.

Oh that would be so sweet. Stinking US flesh. An American Stalingrad.
A Napoleonic winter retreat. Krauts, the French and then the Septics
all breaking their own backs on Russia. I love the smell of frostbite
in the morning.... I suppose the down side is that Blair would want to
send British Teenagers to absord some of the slaughter...

How can we get George W to do it?

That would be enough for me!!

We have/had the quietest subs. However you only have to look at the
Sherman to relalise that quantity should not be underrated the
battlefield.

I'm going for the peak being Beverly Hills 90210. After that pinacle
it was downhill.

 

Snipped sig follows.

From:

"Transatlantic relations: a European perspective"

Disclaimer:

I've no idea whether it's his, or not.
There's so much nonsense in that group it's hard to follow.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..73063../..16589.../..3180./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4
'^'

 

How much training do you need to hold a rifle?

Or an F16?

Allegedly, Nimrod crews train hunting RN subs, cos if they can find
them, they can find anyone's.

There was a (probably exaggerated) story of a hunt-off between RN/RAF
and USN, whereby each side's ASW capability was tested against each
others' sub ona Transatlantic transit.

As the story goes, the USN ASW aircraft lost the RN sub within a
hundred miles of the coast, and the USN sub captain docked to be
presented with a track of his course across the ocean courtesy of a
series of Nimrod patrols.

This was related to me very late in the evening at a pub in Kinloss,
and some of the facts(!) may have been manipulated for the receptive
audience.

Having seen what a Nimrod *can* find in open ocean, I'm not that
surprised.

Not the same kettle of fish as the proper boats, them.

--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..73063../..16589.../..3180./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4
'^'

 

Heh, I'm not replying. I like my SKA number.

 

Mé èswell. Minêd Ëwe, I do have an advantage.

 

I like stories like that. To be fair though, the Merkins can be pretty
good sometimes, when it comes to battle tactics and warfare in general.
After all, look at, er, um, well, ah, it'll come to me, um... Oh, I
give up. They helped us win the war, didn't they? ;-)

 

True, but you'd be surprised at the amount of Saudi's that are dreading
their country eing cut up into smaller chunks, by the Merkins...

 

On 8 Nov 2004 06:34:35 -0800, (DannyBoy)
wrote:

snip

snip

Why? Bush has better personnal links with Saudi Arabia than he has
with most european countries...
--
O
1 Black, shortly to undergo extensive surgery.
1 Red, undergoing lightweight surgery. -----
1 Blue, for Power-Ranger baiting. | o |
Numbers ... | o |
Stuff ... | ooo |
Life ... -----

 

FX: tumbleweed.....

 

SD muttered

Blimey. Oh well, just goes to show leopards don't change their spots.
Is there anything he's not Faux at?

 

Not if you believe the (genuine)[1] French, they didn't, no.

[1] And the fake ones.

 

Imbecility?

 

I've a feeling I might have just earned a bar to mine...

 

With honours.

 

No, I think that would be reserved for someone who could find a copy
of aforementioned web page...

 

IIRC:

The Russians won the war with limited help from the US and Britain.

Britain did her bit by staying free long enough for Russia and the US to join in.

US funded it to a large extent with equipment and cash.

QED.