Badgerboy

Patriot was never designed as a ballistic missile defense platform. It was a PR exercise during the 1st Gulf war. Not one intercept was succesful. Patriot is a SAM system, nothing more really.

Point being.... I have not seen threats like this from Israel for a long time. Why do they appear to have been more outraged by the kidnapping of a Israeli SOLDIER than the death of an un-armed Isreali citizen? Personally, when you start blowing Palestinian civilians to bits whilst hunting for terrorists, you are guaranteed to get some sort of reprisal. I'd prefer it to be directed at the armed forces, than un-armed civilians. At least the army can defend itself. From the reaction from Israel, it looks like Hamas would be safer attacking civilian targets again. THAT, being my point.

Any particular reason why Israel seems more horrified by one of its soldiers being kidnapped than when a group of its civilians gets blown to pieces? The soldiers know the risk, its their job. The poor civies on the other hand are just going about their business. Surely the militia forces tageting the Israeli armed forces is better than suicide bombers on buses? They have been calling for a 'fair fight' for years now. Seems the militia attack was well planned and executed, and agains't a legitimate military target.

Good to see Avon is still babbling on with her extreme right wing views. Avon, your a racist, although you thinly try to conceal it whenever the issue is raised. I had made a long and pertinent reply in regards to this, but it would have diluted the point. Your attitude sickens me, and degenerates all of your countrypeople. I can only hope someone like you never gets into power, or ironically we would be looking at another holocaust. Still, can't make an omelette..... eh?

Well as Denior pointed out earlier, the hyteria is once again taking people lives Afghan Shot Dead Is it possible to have a rally without firearms?

Meh, where are the King Tigers?

The rocket packs on the MLRS are actually loaded by a truck with a crane. This restricts the amount of fire power it can project before having to re-supply.

Well, the company I work for actually makes them! They are based in Hong Kong and China, and I run all the IT operations in the UK. Usually get a few trips a year to HK, and hopefully might be going over for a few years soon. This EU business is causing some grief though, as well as the US getting shirty. About 50% of our retail products ship to the US.

It's not the licensing laws that cause the drink problems here in the UK, its just that a majority of the population are socially inept bastards. God knows why there is this air of thuggery, but it really pisses me off. Shrieking dog faced women shouting at 2am, and pissed blokes bouncing off cars and windows, while attempting to fight everyone they come across..... And if I was to stun them with an iron bar, gaffer tape them up, and dump them in the river, I'd be the criminal! Bah. I'm moving to Hong Kong....

A BBC chap was trying to draw comparisons between this and the Kobe earthquake, but admitted that New Orleans was certainly 'unique'. In Japan, the authorities were aware that a major earthquake was likely, and managed to get aid to the area reasonably quickly. Stockpiles were distributed without fuss and rapidly. Secondy, there was an abundance of Civil Obidience. People were helping each other out, there was very little looting or crime, even local Yakuza gangs were helping to distribute aid! NO on the other hand. They knew a hurricane was coming and fucked up badly. No contingencies, and muddled and slow response and no comms. People the other side of the world watching TV knew more about the situation that the authorities! Finally, the ugly side. As opposed to Kobe, NO is decending into Civil War. People are looting, raping without restraint, and firing at anything that moves. Sniping at hospitals, and firing on military helicopters? You would think it was Baghdad! Police and national guard units have labelled parts of the city 'no go' areas! Criminal thugs now apparantly own the streets! Could someone explain why in the case of Kobe, everyone stuck together and got to work, and civil law didn't break down, whilst in NO, rats are eating bodies, and the city has turned into a war zone?

I fail to see how he is threatening your economy in such a way as to require overt action on your part. His country owns the oil. They choose to sell it to you. They can also choose not to sell it to you. Its as simple as that. An economy that has geared itself for total reliance on other countries oil, shouldn't go around pissing other countries off! To be honest, it should try to be as nice as possible. Do you have any idea what would happen if the Middle East stopped supplying the US? Economic meltdown. Whats to say they wish to stop selling to the US? What do you do? Go in and steal it? Talk about undermining your principles. As for Alaska oil, the predictions are optomistic, and even if they yeild resonable finds, they would only last 2-3 years at current usage rates. That doesn't factor in that it would take at least 5 years minimum to get peak production from the sites.

Its a series developed for BBC2. Have not seen it yet though.

I believe the design is supposed to reduce sound levels for people who live on the flightpath, not in the aircraft.

Its seems that innocent man who was shot, had his Visa expire. This may explain why he ran from the police, fearing he may be deported. To be honest, it was a pretty foolish action for him to undertake. He must have been aware of the tension in the area, and to run from armed police is obviously going to draw attention to you. Its very unfortunate that this man was shot, but I believe that the officer who pulled the trigger did nothing wrong. Perhaps some blame lies with the intelligence he received, but as far he was concerned he was covertly following a suspected terrorist who when confronted ran into a tube station and onto the train. Its tragic that this has happened, but what happens if in a similar situation, the hesitation of a armed officer causes the deaths of 50+ people he was trying to protect? Seems everyone loses, despite the situation.

See here I hope that wasn't some poor bastard at the wrong place, and the wrong time. They certainly were not taking any chances, seems they executed the guy in front of everyone.

I didn't know the National Coal Board ever had any weapons, I think you mean NBC Â The latest I heard this morning are that 3 are thought to have been of a similar size to the previous bombs, while the fourth was smaller and appeared to have been contained in a plastic box. Typo, although I'm sure the NCB have stockpiles 5 miles down in some mine in Wales!

No signs of NCB weapons. However, it seems the bombs were the same design and composititon as the weapons used 2 weeks ago, a acetate compound. THankfully, someone seemed to have dropped the ball on this one, and they all failed to detonate. Seems the bombers legged it in fear once the realised they were not going to Allah, and didn't want to get torn to pieces by angry londoners. Good new out of this is that no-one died, and possibly the only casualty was a bomber blowing his hand off with a half arsed attempt at a bomb. The police now also have a stack of forensic evidence to play with. Feel sorry for that guy walking near Downing street with a rucksack on his back. Lots of agitated armed police men shouting and pointing guns at you can't be fun.

Yes, the Mail on Sunday is not what I would call a good paper. Trashy tabloid would suffice.

I think the attitude of the public on the street summed it up... "We've seen it all before" I got text messages off my friends such as 'Fucking terrorists have made me late for work!' It was nice to see people acting calmly and sensibly, instead of running around like headless chickens. I'm watching Condoleeza Rice bleating on about how now Brits know how the US feels! We've had 50 bloody years of it, just from different enemies. We'll deal with it as we always have..... Sensibly.

I was in London today, trying to get to one of our offices. We got within 1 mile, then the police locked down the entire area. I have been driving for 12 hours today, and to be honest, if I hadn't been alerted to the situation I wouldn't have thought anything was amiss, people were just getting on with their day as best as they could. Edit - Never seen so many unmarked police cars in my life. Literally, the BMW next to you could at any moment switch on hidden lights, pull out, and whizz off. One thing I did notice on the drive back, was the amount of policemen with registration scanners. Looks like they were cataloging every car leaving London.

Well the Eurofighter was designed to go up against massive packs of Soviet thrust vectoring Flankers, but that's a thing of the past as well. (The Soviets that is) F16's would have been a good idea in the 80's. Many RAF pilots never forgave the MOD for not purchasing them when many other NATO countries were.

1. The gun will be fitted to all 1st tranche aricraft. After that, all progressive tranches will not have the gun fitted, but retain the capabilty to have them fitted if needed. 2. The Typhoon would defeat a F15C hands down in BVR and WVR combat. The F15 has a cross section similar to a articulated lorry, whilst the Typhoon's is very small indeed. The Typhoon is late, overpriced, and perhaps lacking a definative role, but it is still an excellent aircraft. On paper, it will still out maneouver and engage the JSF easily. To be fair however, the JSF is designed for value per unit. I spoke with a Typhoon test pilot not to long ago, and he says it is a joy to fly. With the Brimstone coming into operation, and its integration with the Typhoons airframe, you have a very nasty anti armour standoff weapon. (Typhoon carries 18, can ripple fire them, then the missile themselves can choose their own targets, and use telemetry to ensure than two are not engaging the same target) Providing the Meteor goes into production any time soon, you also have a ramjet BVR missile, with a 60mile range, which can be guided in by other fighters. Nice. Do keep in mind though, that both variants of the Eagle are old airframes. I distinctively remember a gaggle of RAF Harriers mauling a element of Eagles at Red Flag a few years ago. Edit - With regards to the above mentioning the Tornado F3, its not a fighter. Its an interceptor. Two very different roles, and the F3 isn't too bad at the latter.

Well I only saw you. So please let it rest and not do it again. Oh for God sake you just dont know when to to stop, do you? I think your the one who needs to stop. Back to the cause of this spat. If English is not your first language, then its possible you misunderstood. If it is your first language, I suggest you focus on your context and grammer skills. For 3 bloody pages you have banged on about this! Notice how no-one else has even commented? Its because you are making yourself look foolish! Billybob even explained himself.... 5 times! Leave BillyBob alone. If anything your causing me offense with your spamming of 'wtf, he said Nazi' posts. Thank you.

D cup is all I can handle. C is my prefered 'spec'.

In reference to Miles post above, look at the IRA. How many Real IRA attacks were there when the IRA proper was started to talk about ceasing hostilities? Only take a smallg roup of nutcases to derail everything. (Note, people resonsible for those bombings are going to jail, and were not targeted by British helicopter gunships.... )