Affentitten

Well you could argue that the Wirraways were actually filling a gap that obviously existed. At least for the sortie or two that they lasted. But I think Australia gets the Semple award for some of our shore based defences. During the hysteric months some of the Australian organisation that went into defending Sydney made Britain's Home Guard look like an elite fighting force. You had stuff like beach defences being funded and installed by local community groups and councils. So you'd have 10 metres width of concrete anti-tank structures at the top of a beach and just hope the Japs didn't drive around the side of them. Or land at the completely undefended beach (apart from some chicken wire) 200 metres away.

I'm surprised nobody has given credit to NZ for their innovations. Like the Totally crap tank

Probably another experiment. Not sure how credible the Wiki article is, but it said they did some experiments that didn't bear much fruit. I love the idea of airdropping a tank in neutral gear and it gently rolling to a stop!

I agree to an extent. The point of having all this accounting anyway is just so that you can have a real currency. Once you start wiping out previous debt then you quickly degenerate into Weimar / Zimbabwe style trillion dollar notes.

Unfortunately the Nebelwerfers were not as sympathetic.

And we shouldn't forget German innovations like anti-matter generators, flying discs with Panther turrets etc. Serious Brit contributions would also have been some of the specialised ordnance like the earthquake bomb concept for penetrating hardened structures. Also Penicillin. At least that one was about saving lives!

Well I am a little bit biased, because I had a relative in the 1st Airborne (Arty). But I think about one of the worst jobs in the world must have been crash landing a Hamilcar glider into a field with 7 tonnes of tank strapped below and behind you. Ditto a Horsa with a jeep or howitzer behind your head and only plywood as protection.

The bit where they strap "tankettes" under the bombers? ie. not tanks. Just the crappy Soviet equivalent of a Bren carrier. Or you mean the bit where they have to ditch the actual tank because of the drag? Tank lands safely of course. Yes, I read that. The tank that even to get it up in the air they have to strip it of "armament, ammunition, headlights and leaving a very limited amount of fuel". So they are gliding in a mobile metal box. Once.

That's why I linked to it. Are you back on the drugs?

I think the particular problem might occur when you are fighting a war that is in part based upon religous differences.

So the Soviets developed the "Theoretically airportable tank, assuming we had an aircraft capable of delivering it".

The Locust

Some would hold the view that there were only a few good fighter pilots. The rest just made up the numbers and provided the kill scores for the good pilots.

Pah. Black Widows are pussies compared to the Sydney Funnel Web. Which is aggressive as well as potentially fatal. I have one living in the corner of the window just above me computer monitor. It keeps the flies and moths and stuff under control.

They had matchlock BB guns?

And what about the reptiloids?

Yes. And? The quote for me is all about that word 'freedom' that is easy to bandy around. And that oince we admired these low tech resisters for their quaint IEDs.

Thought this quote was a good one: "To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom. Their courage teaches us a great lesson-that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors." President Ronald Reagan - March 21, 1983 http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/32183e.htm

Besides the Pink ladys I love pineapples and tangellos. Don't get to eat much pineapple these days as it seems to irritate the kids' mouths and the Mrs has braces on her teeth and the acid gives her a bit of a galvanic reaction. She say's it's a bit like licking one of those 9V batteries.

I'm not a big fan of red delicious. One of the most inapt names ever! Granny Smith is still a stalwart here, that's for sure and is also about the lowest priced apple. You can get a bag of lower quality ones for <$1. I'll keep an eye out for the others. I think I may have seen Jazz already but now known what it was.

What do you guys pay for a kilo of (decent) apples then? Here Grannys are about $2.99 a kilo. You'd run up to about $5 a kilo for something like Pink Ladys (but they'd be very good ones).

And us Southern hemisphere dwellers don't know how lucky we are in terms of our food quality, availability and price. Eating high quality fresh produce is an epensive proposition in Europe, for example.

Unfortunately I think that becomes a history question rather than a sport one! Just as an AAR, only one team got the NZ world cup question right (and they had 2 Kiwis on their table) because most people were thinking of Spain.

Personally when I started reading the story I was at first intrigued by how that one girl I was seeing last year in the blue Ford over there was throwing the ball out along the back line and then that Stalingrad campaign map was awesome.

Yes I know. It's just interesting to see that divide illustrated in graphical violence.