Affentitten

I assume it's a purpose built prop?

No. We got the usual. See Collins class subs and SeaSprite helicopters.

On one of our news channels the other day there was a piece about a Russian company who are selling inflatable military gear (like Scud launchers) as a means of fooling overhead imagery. Everything old is new again....... (Though there was some higher tech additions. Like in-built electric blankets to simulate heat signature.) Anyway, hiding a Skoda is minor compared to WW2 efforts like this: Lockheed factory

Of course displacement and freeboard are calculable. It would be pretty useless if you are putting portholes into a hull and they turn out to be below the waterline! You also need to be able to get the thing into your ports/wharves etc and address compatability with your oilers for RAS, other vessels that you may interact with and so forth. It seems like this is a fairly regualr example of a defence platform that has gotten burdened down with extra gear. There is probably a tendency not to watch total weight as closely on a ship project as say on a UAV, but everything adds up eventually....

Your machine is actually just about bigger than the car I bought Mrs Affentitten on the weekend.

I can't believe we found a country dumb enough to buy this stuff off us! For a country that is surrounded by oceans, Australia is crap at building ships.

Pfft. When you've had the EU bailing out your ****ty and inefficient lame duck mining industry for decades, there is no limit to how big you can build stuff.

I just can't believe it. An Australian naval project running over spec and requiring expensive retro-fitting? Unheard of.

But in effect, neither of these things happened, mainly due to the gigantic surpluses America had bullt up anyway. No point in returning Liberty Ships that would just be scrapped anyway. The whole reverse Lend Lease thing seems a bit of a face saver too. "Oh, so you want to send the US Army Air Force over here to carry out strategic bombing against Germany? Well, we'll be charging you a commercial rent on those air fields. And all those landing craft you've got tied up to invade Normandy? Here's your bill for mooring fees."

This is where I am getting it from: wiki/Lend_lease Lend-Lease (Public Law 77-11)[1] was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British West Indies. (so not in return for $$$) ................ A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to nearly $700 billion at 2007 prices) worth of supplies were shipped: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse Lend Lease comprised services (like rent on air bases) that went to the U.S. It totaled $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. Apart from that, there were no repayments of supplies that arrived before the termination date, the terms of the agreement providing for their return or destruction. (Supplies after that date were sold to Britain at a discount, for £1,075 million, using long-term loans from the U.S.) or from Citizendium Citizendium Lend Lease Lend-Lease was the system by which the U.S. gave its allies $50 billion in military aid in 1941-45 to help win World War II.[1]. There was no repayment required. $31 billion went to Britain, $11 billion to the Soviet Union, $3 billion to France, and $1.6 billion to China. ---------------------------------------- So in other words, the wartime amounts were partially repaid by putting a value on the lease of airbases, feeding the troops etc etc. There was no debt arrangement for this supply in terms of a balance sheet to be repaid. The Brtis paid off some gear that was still flowing in after September 1945, when the plan officially ended. But they certainly weren't paying off Shermans and oil barrels shipped during the war.

Sorry, but on my quick bit of research it seems that there was NO repayment of Lend Lease expected or given if we are talking about supplies etc sent during the war. It was only those shipments that were sent AFTER or in transit at the War's end that were to be repaid, and these were 'sold' at a value of about 10c in the dollar. That's what Britain has been repaying and the USSR too. Given the trifling amounts involved with Australia and so on, it's no surprise that it was waived. So yes, Britain did fully repay it's Lend Lease debts, but there were not technically wartime debts. It did not fully pay of its WW2 assistance from the USA, which was worth many billions of pounds more....but then, they were never expected to.

Well in the Australian case you also have longer term pay backs like us buying US aircraft, US ships etc.

It's mainly because MacArthur was made to look like an idiot by Australian troops. When the Australian militia retreated down the track, MacArthur couldn;t shut up about how when American soldeirs arrived, they'd show everyone how it was done, the Aussies were crap, Amewricans would wipe the floor with the Japs etc etc. And of course, when the Americans did turn up, woefully untrained for jungle combat and with officers trying to play by the West Point field manual, they were thrashed. the Aussies had to go back and help them out. MacArthur never forgave them for that and was almost assiduous in making sure that Americans and Australians never fought side by side again.

Aussies in North Africa = the pick of the volunteer crop, including many units and men with pre-war training in reserve formations, with an officer and NCO cadre of regulars / career soldiers. Aussies at start of Kokoda = militia conscripts, woefully trained, pathetically equipped, 2nd class in every respect as far as the AIF was concerned. Aussies at end of Kokoda = a good jungle fighting force, though many would never be fit to serve again because tropical disease had wiped out their helth. Aussies post-1943 spent most of their time in training camps because the Americans had no need for them. Just a couple of sideshows at the end of the war such as Balikpappan.

A joke told to me by a former Hurricane/Tomahawk pilot: If you're at a party, how do you know there is a Spitfire pilot in the room? He'll tell you.

And what is a control centre anyway in the 1940 context? A bunch of people with radios and telephones. Fairly replaceable.

Rather late in terms of affecting the outcome of the Battle of Britain too!

And the Luftwaffe were generally only dropping max 250kg bombs at that BoB stage, weren't they?

I note that Dave Arneson, one of the early D&D developers, has passed on to Elysium. He just managed to survive his arch-foe, Gary Gygax. I think we all owe people like Arneson a great deal of our current enjoyment of all sorts of games.

Maybe Honda needs to spend less money on developing cute humanoid robots for the sole purpose of Japanese cute factor.

It certianly proved cathartic to me in planning an attack on New Zealand.

FARK. So he had a time machine too?

For very severe crimes, you could even send people to NZ.

You see, what tipped me off was the phrase "You are advice to contact me". I mean, that's a grammar mistake. It made me suspicious.