Wisbech_lad

Chris G - what did you mean by "holohoax" on the closed thread? And looking for "historic" flag? And a sig that could be taken as anti-israeli.

Sure it does occur, then again I've seen plenty of war veterans talk about such instances and that was not the reaction, the reaction was fear and worry they would get crushed by this seemingly unstoppable force, there is no "business as usual" when you are the one on the frontline. The shock remains until the enemy finally looses one fight. And yes even without all the technology of today, this type of news DID travel all the way to nowhere land. </font>

No, no, no. Not friends. Friends would have intervened by now, in some revoltingly po-faced twelve step thingy. You know for your own good. Happy birthday, you old bugger.

What about a CMSF version of the Gamey Jeep Rush (Gamey BTR Rush maybe??) As Syrian player, buy scads of the cheapest crud vehicles you can, drive them at high speed at US positions. They all die, big time. Hope that US player has shot off most of the javelin & other AT stuff, then bring your T72's into play, and now with smoke cover from your Gamey BTR Rush. As for Peter Cairns being anti-american. Pah, he's Scottish and a SNP member. He's anti-everyone!

A somewhat better source: http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,780092,00.html Note however that Van Roden diavowed the Progressive magazine article, saying that it was written by Finucane, and much was made up. US Sebate (McCarthy) investigated - looking to embarass the army I believe and prove torture had taken place. That senate enquiry (to which van Roden testified) concluded that systematic torture did not take place. The BBC recently ran stuff on post WW2 UK interrogations. They were not nice. Kettler, you may want to search. Problem is that the holocaust deniers/ apologists love this stuff, because it gives them "moral relativism". The holocaust didn't happen, but even if it did, the Brits and the Yanks did nasty things too!

"a reinforced Bastard Double Culverin" Now - that's a good name for a cannon

Achilles is an M10 with a 17pdr. So yes, same chassis Does nasty, nasty things to opposing armour. Less effective against infantry...

Anecdote from my old biology teacher (who was a very interesting bloke - worked in OR during the war, and rose hip syrup project) Anyway, at the end of the war, UK soldiers demobbing were shown propaganda films on - basically - why it had been worth fighting - as part of their demob. So, as part of this, newsreels on KZ were shown. At one of the sessions shown, an enterprising left wing colleague of his decided to follow with a newsreel of recent advances in Soviet science. The veteran tommies fled, white, some vomiting, many swearing vengeance on a certain Dr Pavlov, whose experiments were highlighted. Torturing dogs still makes most people mad - doesn't mean that killing lab workers out of hand is justified (tho' the ALF says it is)

True, and I still have difficulty keeping a straight face when introduced to Americans who tell me up front that they are randy...

And - just to confuse Americans further - a hand shandy has quite a different meaning...

The Canadian Army universally calls them "meatheads". Not without good reason of course. Just what function they would serve in a tactical game is beyond me. </font>

Damn, sure I remember reading somewhere the ratios of accidents for British Army/ RAF for peacetime/ peacetime exercise/ deployment. Basically, goes up by quite a large factor, as fatigue and general wear & tear take their toll.

GasMask - thanks for the reply. US armed forces are - interesting. It is my observation that their is a bigger culture gap between US armed forces & civilians than exists in other countries. Whether this is a good or bad thing I am unsure. I.e. - as you point out, it is often very apparant if someone in the US was in the military. It is not so apparant for ex UK military.

At a tangent - what is the current thinking/ practise on repatriation after a tour in Iraq/ Afganistan? I.e. if serving in a combat unit, do you fly straight home, or is there a phase of "decompression" first? ISTR discussion that one of the factors behind higher PTSD rates of Vietnam vs WWII was that in WWII veterans went home slowly (by boat) - and that the almost instant repatriation now available gave no time to transition between very different worlds. For pure, unadulterated vicious warriors I give you the Brownies. Those girls could teach the Finns a thing or two.

It is sweet to see that spelling is obviously not considered a requirement to be elite. Maybe we should all have a jolly sing-song eh? "I believe children are the future - give them a sense of pride" Bugger, forgot the words. PS Bigduke6 was referring to the well documented & studied techniques of training combat soldiers. They haven't changed much since the Spartans...

Back to the original point (honour in combat) Because it works. The most successful strategy in repeated games (using "game" in the theoretical sense) is "tit for tat but start out nice" Basically - do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but don't turn the other cheek. ISTR a good anecdotal example from Jary 18th platoon, where they treat medically a wounded german officer, and the information gets back to his unit - who promptly surrender. Or in "By Tank to Normandy" where 1,000-1,500 germans surrender in one town because the UK commander agrees to let them march out with weapons, giving the german commander "face" Plus the insurance policy if you have to surrender. Note that the Germans, in the East, deliberately ordered "start out nasty", which started off a cycle of tit-for-tat.

Meh, If I were China I would forget the perils & uncertainty of invasion and declare an embargo/ blockade of Taiwan. Can't see many oil tanker owners deciding to run that one. And US/ Japan intervention less likely than if an invasion, especially as the legalities are "interesting" (Both US and Japan regard Taiwan legally as part of China. So if China decides to close Taiwan ports to foreign trade, it is a domestic issue, rather than interfering with freedom of the seas)

Interesting thread, better than the usual we have on this subject. My views (mostly from Kershaw) - Hitler attacked USSR to defeat UK, thinking USSR would be easy. This was obviously wrong, but was a delusion shared by German High Command too. Pressure was growing domestically to demobilise - Hitler was under the gun to an extent that he had to use the Wehrmacht or face pressure to lose it. It was useless vs UK thanks to the RAF and RN, had swallowed up the Balkans, where else could it go...? Hitler, and the Nazi Party, had come to power partly on the back of what happened in 1917-19, when Germany collapsed on the home front before the military front - leading to the allegations of a "stab in the back". That, IMHO, is why they cared so much about the home front and morale. And, by and large, they succeeded. Yes, from a technical POV caring so much about domestic consumption looks odd - but Germans, in general, did not want war, and had to be tricked or bribed into it. So, oddly enough, the believers in war as civilisation and forge of a new master race (the Nazis) are fighting a non total war, vs the Allies fighting a total war. (and using total war techniques, UK home propaganda of 1940-45 is amazing stuff - they really pulled all the stops out to educate & convince people that this war really was worth fighting) When it came a matter of national survival (as it had been for UK from Dunkirk onwards, or USSR from Barbarossa) there was little/ no difficulty in full mobilisation. (arguably the allied bombing helped, in giving Germans the same "blitz" mentality as UK in 1940)

Heh, the up and coming generation of "little emperors" - especially the urban ones - aren't exactly skinny either! That might be a problem in China. We have many ex UK armed forces in the firm, but I can't think of anyone I know who is ex PLA. AFAIK, the PLA is a career alternative for country bumpkins, no urban/ middle class family would ever want their only child to do something so demeaning (in chinese culture, being a soldier ranks very low - no warrior culture like Japan) Even the old guard (now almost all dead) who came to power via military command in the wars against the Japanese and KMT - their children didn't follow them into the PLA. None of the present crop of leaders has a military CV, but both Deng and Jiang kept their CMC chairmanship even after giving up other posts (Jiang is still CMC chairman, not Wen)

dbl post~

I work for an anglo-chinese company (controlling shareholders are in London & Beijing) A few comments. The 1979 invasion of Vietnam was a superb bit of politics by Deng Xiao Ping. 1949-1978, the PLA was very much a political army. The 1978 coup was co-ordinated by Beijing Military District. So Deng lets them attack against the Vietnamese. And they lose, badly. This is then used by the reformists to pursuade the PLA that economic reform is needed, to be able to afford a decent army, rather than conscripts. It is also no fluke that the thaw post Tiananmen Square came after GW1. The Chinese were shocked by GW1, and again Deng used it to pursuade the conservatives to take the foot off the brake again, and that a professional army is required (so, for example, police & internal security forces are now separate from PLA) I do believe that the PLA is strategically defensive, as opposed to US strategically offensive stance. (we will fight two expeditionary wars anywhere in the world is not a defensive doctrine!). The problem going forward now is that GW2 has shown that offense > defense. I.e. the PLA cannot sit back, they would have to aggressively attack the C3 of the opfor... On the bright side, this means that it will be some time PLA is confident in their abilities. The Chinese "geo-political" strategy is fairly clear (IMHO) They believe economics & quality of life are required to afford an effective military threat & to have a legitimate mandate from heaven/ the people, and will go a long way to acheiving goals anyway (e.g. re-unification with Taiwan, the hope is that in time the Taiwanese will welcome being a self-governing part of China, with defence & foreign policy from Beijing - the HK solution) There is considerable debate in China over democratisation, but it does look like the liberals have the upper hand. On a psychological level, my Chinese colleagues & friends have a subtly different view of wealth to Americans. Yes, conspicuous consumption is a big deal, but wealth also equates to safety, as has been shown time and time again last century, the rich could always get to safety, even at the height of the Cultural Revolution. At a national level, the govt also seems to believe this - that a rich China will be a safe China, both from internal unrest and external aggression. As for a conflict over resources - I think the Chinese see this as a question of economics, not military, but that a credible military is going to be required to back up free trade. (learning from the Opium Wars!) So, IMHO, China is going to prioritise economic growth over military for some time to come, mixed in with tentative political liberalisation. The danger may come from the US side - with a Buchanan/ Perot style demagogue coming to power on a "defend US standard of living by forcing others to sell stuff to us at below market price" platform which won't go down well with the Chinese. But that won't go down well with anyone... - the Chinese would be the least of your concerns, don't think the Canucks would be too impressed either at being asked to sell oil at below market value...

LtCol West, well of course USMC have to keep it simple - trouble is, what happens when they have more regiments than a marine has fingers... It was the Black Watch ISTR. "teeth" troops - ones that are dedicated to do the actual fighting, not in the logistical back up units, who should only be fighting if things have gone wrong... What you say of your personal experience is very interesting. I guess that is what the Brigadier meant when he said there was a bigger cultural division between the US army, and the US population, than in other countries. But, then again, very few (if any) other first world countries have been in conflict as much over the last 15-20 years. Then again, almost all of the ex-army officers I know were in either the LI, the Ghurkas, or the Guards. All three have a reputation of where well-connected young men go to be officers for a six year SSC, to discharge their debt to society or to honour family tradition - so it wasn't a career for them. Other than NI, only one saw combat (on secondment to the Omanis, fighting tribal rebels)

Military Review Article Got to love the cliched double barrel name - though as a Nigel he should of course be in the RAF. Army are Ruperts... Interesting point that the US army is maybe just too good and focused at what it is good at (destruction of the enemy) for the pacification phase. I guess the USMC is even more so? Two other points that interested me: - lack of experienced company commanders - large cultural gap between US civilians and armed forces. This second point, I can see now I think about it. Especially USMC and "teeth" troops seem to be changed for life. Whereas I work with a number of ex British Army officers, and it never occureed to me they had been in the army - they are no different from our other managers. Well, apart from shinier shoes! And friends who went into the armed services - their characters and opinions were not changed by the experience, and came out with same culture that they went in with. Maybe a product of UK class system being fairly strong in comparison?

Looks to me that those things float for the same reason helicopers fly. So ugly that the sea/ earth repells them

Agree with Sergei, Continental Europe should give them up. Get rid of the "Force de Frappe" and then let's renegotiate CAP. Muah ha hah hah hah