Bigduke6

Now Michael, just remember, for sure there are substantial US corporations that added profit because of that deal. They certainly had their interests well-represented by the government; it's just the individual taxpayers that got screwed.

DT, I didn't read all the comments but I did read some. What I was talking about was officers directly under this woman's command, who put principle and the well-being of the sailors, over their personal careers, and resigned their commissions and then went public, and made as big a stink as possible, pushed the problem outside Navy channels, and generally did everything possible to get this woman out of command, as soon as possible. As far as I can tell, nothing like that ever happened. The trend seems to have been, either "suck it up and survive until the next assignment" or "complain within Navy channels, and when nothing happens just accept that." Which is not to say the officers under her command were complacent, but it is to say that none of them - as far as I can tell anyway - made a maximum effort to end, as soon as possible, this woman's s woman's command of a warship, for the sake of the sailors and the well-being of the Navy. I would call resigning one's commission, going public, and writing one's Congressman, making a maximum effort. I do not call griping in e-mails, or compaining to the IG and hoping, a maximum effort. That is perhaps sufficient for an enlisted soldier, but an officer - at least according to what the officers say - is held to a higher standard. Same deal as von Paulus and Stalingrad, really. This woman's immediate subordinates, just like von Paulus, were commanded by a dictator whose attitude and decisions were prejudicial to the well-being of the soldiers those officers commanded, and the military organization those officers were responsible for running. Given how bad things can get when a tyrant obtains military command, it is fair to ask, why is it that the officers supposedly sworn to protect the interests of the soldiers, and the integrity of the military organization, didn't resign their commissions when a tyrant was doing massive damage to the soldiers' (and the military organization's) well-being? I point this out in part because these days there is a great deal of very pious "we do everything for the troops, our soldiers are our number one priority, etc." in the modern military. Yet when faced with a difficult moral choice - in this case resign one's commission or put up with a tyrant commander - it seems that almost all officers in the modern military take the easier route, at the expense of the well-being of the troops. Still, the officers that accepted this woman and went on with their careers, appear mostly to have kept their careers. Can't really fault them on a personal level.

I dunno. Seems like an awful lot people served under this woman's command, and were glad to gripe to one another, but never tried to change the system. If she was in for a quarter century then think of all the officers that didn't resign their commissions (and end a career) and instead just suffered/excused her. Plenty of guilt to go around, I think.

I'm pretty sure this is the record for sustained armored movement on the Allied side, and possibly for any side, during World War Two. There may have been some blitzkrieg advances in the early days of Barbarossa that were comparable - but then again they may well have not been. As far as the Red Army is concerned, it's generally accepted that the record was by the Trans-Baikal Front, which crossed into Manchuria shortly after midnight on August 9, and by nightfall on August 9 had reached the foothills of the Greater Hsingan Mountains, and was still moving. This is a distance of 150 kilometers over generally roadless terrain, not by an armored division but the armored/mech elements of a full-up Tank Army (6th Guards). Considering that elements of 6th Guards did not start the day on the very edge of the Soviet border, and that once night fell there were probably 3-4 hours more of driving before midnight, I think it is quite reasonable to conclude they almost certainly covered more than 101 miles in a 24-hour period. But just for the record, the way the Soviet histories trot out the data is 150 kilometers from the border to the foothills of the Hsingan, in about 18 hours. in any case, 6th Guards Tank Army did they stop. Four days into the campaign they had covered 700 kilometers, or roughly 470 miles, when they were effectively at their end of their supply tether, and had driven behind and completely cut the communications of the entire Kwangtung Army. They bypassed where possible - and given how open the theater was that was most of the time. The great bulk of the Kwangtung Army was never engaged. Where the Japanese fought back, the firepower advantage was heavily on the Soviet side. I would say the result speaks for itself: 700 kilometers in 96 hours. I would say that 6th Guard Tank Army's performance in Manuchuria more than gives 3AD and Maurice Rose quite a run for their money, but of course Ross worked for Patton and he had much better PR. Here is a useful linkie: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1986/RMF.htm The 3AD claim they were the first to invade German territory since 1810 is hogwash, the Russian Army advanced fairly deeply into East Prussia during 1914. The 3AD claim they were the first to capture a major German city is questionanable, the 1st Baltic Front captured Memel (after a seige) in late January '45, two months before 3AD captured Cologne. Memel was part of East Prussia, but of course had been taken from Lithuania not so long before.

You know Michael, you keep talking like that, the guys in the black helicopters might come for you one day. Them words is seditious, they is.

I think the really creepy part about this is, that a group of American educators whose job it is to educate children, went along with the idea. These are professional teachers, they are entrusted with the future of the country. If people like that don't have a problem with turning a remote camera on in another citizen's home, then I am not very optimistic about their ability to teach the next generation about, you know, the importance of the bill of rights. Which to me is even scarier than sneak pictures taken by remote cam in some one's home.

That said, and Gunner makes alot of a valid points, there are two things that might be worth remembering about Ukraine's elecion. 1. More than 3,300 international election monitors, and something like 300,000 local election monitors, watched the vote from end to end. The EU, OSCE, Russian government, whoever you want, they've pronounced the actual vote as essentially clean. It's true the choice of candidates sucked, but the election itself was free and fair. 2. The candidate that lost - Yulia Tymoshenko - was in power from 2005, and the prime minister of the country from 2007. During that time the economy has shrunk by about 20 per cent, and the Tymoshenko government has promised alot, and delivered very little. The guy that won, Yanukovych, had a pretty easy campaign pitch: "Vote for me, I wasn't in charge when your life really sucked, and the government lied to you about how they would fix it." This is not to say things are wonderful in the former Soviet republic Ukraine, but the as for the election one can argue a politician that failed to deliver the goods to the voters, and happened to be in office during a serious economic downturn, got punished at the polls. Which is not something that is going to happen in Russia, Belarus, or any of the Central Asian republics. As to the cops getting grabby now that Yanukovych is in charge, well we'll see. The media is pretty free here, and if the cops go nuts it's going to come out. Right now, there isn't alot of noise about cops extorting goods from small business, as compared to the traffic cops, who are routinely written up as corrupt. Just my two kopecks...

Sergei, Fair point, but my response is: the German army was so professional, that killing off lots of its small unit leaders had little effect on its overall professionalism, especially in the early stages of the west European campaign. This is not only the professional standards of the officer corps. This is a policy of limiting transfers between regiments, maintaining almost no super-elite units, being willing to put the highest-quality people into the combat arms, and systematically using the guys that survived the last disaster, as the core for the rebuilt unit. I would argue all that makes for extremely competent NCOs. And it was German army officers, with their standards of auftragstaktik - something the other armies only managed to implement in select forces like the paratroopers and commandos. I would further argue that in the Anglo-Saxon armies, the expansion and willingness to transfer experienced leaders up or laterally, and maintaining big elite formations, plus of course not being obliged to fight the Russians since 1941, left the Allies with very diluted units: sure there were a few combat-experienced leaders in them, but not enough to prevent the unit as a whole from making bonehead mistakes once it went into combat for the first time. Michael, A few Allied units with a great deal of combat experience, and command pyramids of relatively long-standing, for instance US First Infantry Division, I would call the exception that proves the rule. I would say that for every unit the allies fielded like 1st Infantry, there were by Normany five or more like 90th Infantry Division: green as grass, for practical purposes completely untried in combat. Fair point that across the Allied force, the men with useful actual combat experience and in command of small combat arms units were more than a few hundred. But however thousand they were - at a guess ten thousand or so - they were a drop in the ocean when part of an army whatever it was the Allies put together for the Northwestern European campaign.

Sometimes I wonder whether the bocage was a bit of an excuse. I mean, here you have these Allied Armies, and overall they are pretty much completely green, maybe here and there a few individuals and small units have been in combat, but by and large you have this massive organization that really has never actually fought a ground war for real. This especially goes for the combat arms small unit leaders, the sergeants through captains. There were tens of thousands of these men in the Allied forces, and at best, my guess, a few hundred had actually commanded soldiers under fire sometime before. On the other side, you have one of the premier armies in history - the Wehrmacht. The idea of a combat inexperienced small unit leader is not only inconceivable, it is pretty much practically impossible. The German organization has, in contrast to the Allies, not been growing in size since 1941; no, it's been shrinking bit by bit, that tendency almost totally thanks to the Red Army. To have been in a unit that suffered 10 per cent casualties (a situation considered horrific today) was in the 1944 Wehrmacht almost unthinkable: almost EVERY ONE in combat arms, with a campaign under his belt, had seen much worse, and quite possibly experienced it. Moreover, by this time the German army has been honing defensive tactics and weapons for a good year of constant combat, and again in contrast with modern "wars", this is full on conventional combat lasting days or even weeks, and involving every combat arm possible. The Wehrmacht in Normandy wasn't an army of supermen, of course they had draftees and foreigners and plenty of war-weary soldiers. But the organization by that time had no other choice but to be competent with their tactics and weapons, as the alternative basically was getting killed or captured on the Eastern Front. Hindsight makes it pretty clear that, in any kind of balanced engagement of forces, the Wehrmacht was superior to the Allied combat units opposing them. Just the fact that the Germans were not making beginner mistakes, and the Allies had no choice but to do just that, too many green small unit leaders, pretty much guaranteed an Allied bloodbath - until the Allies either got competent themselves, or by just throwing lives and materials at the Germans eventually ran the Germans out of combat power. At the time, the refrain of the Allied soldiery was along the lines of "No fair, the Krauts have better tanks and no one told us about the bocage." Which was reasonable - as the alternative to blaming gear or terrain would have been admitting openly that alot of them were going to get maimed or die, before the small unit leaders in the Allied war machine acquired enough combat experience, to fight the Germans on something even generally approximating equal terms.

Damian, I would be interested to see your information on that. As far as I know, the general Soviet policy was to equip tank brigades not with the tank the Soviet tankers chose, but whatever tanks fit best into the production plan. The Tank Armies, to give an example of the most elite ground force the Soviets fielded, were mostly equipped with T-34, but in some of the Tank Armies (4th Guards, for instance, if I recall correctly) some but not all of the tank brigades received Sherman. The Soviets certainly considered most western tanks not suitable for long-term fielding in the Tank Armies, for instance the Lee or Churchill. I contend the T-34 tank is great because: It was designed to run maybe 1,500 - 2,000 km. with practically no maintenance, after which it was either supposed to be destroyed or major overhauled. It was equipped, for most of the war, with a cannon fully capable of defeating a German medium tank of the time, at normal combat ranges. It was simple to operate, meaning shorter training times for crews. It was mobile as hell, the Soviets traded weight for operational speed. It ran on diesel, and was designed to carry enough fuel in drums to cover a single operational leap (maybe 300 - 400 km. in several months of campaigning, or again the 1,500 - 2,000 motor clock kilometers. Its engine was designed to drink motor oil, making lubrication superfluous to a substantial extant. And the Soviet solution to motor oil supply was, if the T-34 carries three fuel drums, two are diesel, one is motor oil. Simple! Sure the T-34 never could duke it out with Tigers, yes it is uncomfortable as Hell, definately it is a pain to keep running past 2,000 or so km. on the clock, no the optics are not up to German standards. But so what? Would it have been an intelligent design decision for the Soviets, to make Panthers instead of T-34s? How many fewer Soviet tanks would there have been? Could the Soviets have managed, arguably, the most effective armored operations in history (the Volga to the Spree in about 18 months, and the opposition is the Wehrmacht), if they had several times less tanks, but tanks with more comfort and better soft systems? The reason the T-34 was the best tank of the war was because its designers understood not just the priorities of tank vs. tank fighting, but what you need to convert industrial capacity into large-scale maneuver operations. The Soviet tank designers avoided a classic trap the German tank designers fell into: Listening to the tankers and concluding that what the tankers want - almost always a bigger more expensive and comfortable tank impervious to everything - is always the best way to win the war. That kind of machine comes at a cost, and WW2 makes crystal clear that even if the German armor technical edge over T-34 in tactical capacity was substantial, it didn't have a prayer of dealing with the Soviet operational advantage. Time and again the Germans would concentrate their armor, win a battle here or there, get great armor vs. armo kill ratio, and in those places the panzers were not, the Soviet armor would go tearing into the German rear areas. I suspect the Russian approach with the T-50, at least in their ideal plan, is roughly along the same lines. The plane is not going to be designed to compete with the F-22 in a single plane vs. plane dogfight, but rather in air combat where the F-22 is outnumbered, and among other threats is opposed by a Russian plane that is relatively difficult to detect, and at least as maneuverable; and at the same time is excellent at penetrating the opposition air space. I know if I was a Russian air war planner I would love to have a plane that could hunt down AWACS - maybe this plane is the ticket.

Nice dot connect John. If the Russians incorporated the Rockwell design into the T-50, it wouldn't be the first time they did something like that, the Su-25 also is an airplane whose developement owes alot to a US design that eventually lost out to another aircraft (in this case, the A-10.) Of course, the Su-25 isn't a crappy plane, as I understand it. As for for the T-50's purpose, I think Damian is onto something, the Russians don't need a super-stealth aircraft that can penetrate any air defence, they need something that can threaten F-22. As a general point, I would be careful about denigrating the Russians' ability to design effective equipment. Besides the classic arguements - the AK and the T-34 - on the aerospace front the Su-27/30 is apparently roughly on the level of F-15, maybe even a little better. Here's why I think so: In 2008 the US Red Flag training center hosted a squadron of Indian Air Force Su-27/30, which are according to the Russians a generation 4.5 aircraft. The Indians naturally had a pretty unpleasant time fighting against the OPFOR, and there was a moderate stink in the Indian media when it came out that no, India's top airplane did not kick butt and take names, but in fact turned out to be meat for the OPFOR much more often than the Indian Air Force was comfortable with. But if you go through the news reports and comments, there is this great YouTube out there of an US Air Force colonel from Red Flag making fun of the Indians, it's clear the Indians' main problems were in organization, pilot skill, and ability to interface with the blue force ground control. Not the airplane per se. In computer terms, you might say the Indians' problem wasn't really the hardware (the Su-27/30 plane) but the software (people and support systems). So, the real question the people that might wind up fighting the Su-27/30; and now maybe the Su-35, has to ask is, not how good the Su-35 will be, how effective would a real-life air force be operating the Su-35, with that RL air force's support systems. The moment you ask that question, the threat of Su-35/T-50 to the US Air Force or NATO by third states, you know, Venezuela or Iran or Syria, is just laughable. Even if countries like that actually obtained a couple of dozen of those planes, they are so short of the people, ground control, training, and everything else that goes into effective air ops, that their ability to threaten the US/NATO air forces is a joke. You could equip Venezuela with Tie Fighters and the Millenium Falcon, they'd still get whomped in a war against the US. Against a second-tier opponent with a decent air defence network and people with some training and organization skil for operating it, for instance India or Pakistan or or Taiwan or Belarus, then the US/NATO would have to work harder, but to me it's pretty obvious the presence or absence of Su-35 wouldn't really influence the end result. A fight like that, it would come down more to whether the air defence network could or could not make stealth and stand off strikes too painful for the US/NATO to continue. That's a function much less of numbers of air superiority aircraft, but things like air defence missile quantities, passive detection networks, and how clever the US/NATO opponents get at early warning; this is things like the Serbian spies watching B-2s take off at Aviano, etc. Against Russia, well yes, Russian pilots have a pretty good tradition of combat flying, their organization is much more impervious to losses than US/NATO. Russian weapons historically are rarely absolutely inferior to US/NATO, usually roughly comparable, and every once in a while superior. The same goes for Chine, the Red Chinese have perhaps less of an air combat tradition than the Russians, but they certainly have more money, and possibly they are more efficient than the Russians at spending it. So given money for training of the entire air defence network, and the presence within that Chinese/Russian-operated air defence network of sufficient numbers of Su-35/T-50, yes indeed, I can see how all that put together could certainly deny Chinese/Russian air space to F-22, or at the very minimum inflict F-22 losses so that the US/NATO command would have to pull F-22 out. One of the problems with F-22 is it doesn't take many losses to make the plane too expensive to operate, when the damn plane costs 130 million dollars a copy. So yes, if the US/NATO expects a major war against Russia or Red China, and that war necessitates F-22 deep penetration into Russian or Chinese air space, and assuming the Su-35/T-50 actually gets fielded in quantities sufficient to scare F-22, i.e. as of present counts 500 or so Su-35/T-50 in either the Russian or Chinese air force, then - and only then - does NATO/US have a problem. Then - and only then - would it be possible to say, yep, hindsight shows us the US should have spent another 20 - 30 billion dollars to field another 150 or so F-22. I think the scenario of a full-on US/NATO war against China or Russia, even in the distant future, is a joke, a fantasy, and any one even preparing for that particular war is a fool not to be trusted with taxpayer money. And that's before you consider the fact: money spent on more F-22, is money not spent on infantry, bribes, and spies - which I think any reasonable person can see is what the NATO/US need more of, if they intend someday to win the war in Afghanistan.

That's - in a single sentence - two conditionals (bolded) depending on an event in the future (also bolded), and the future event depends on Russian officials keeping their word. My opinion, this plane getting off the ground is not exactly the end of the Free World as we know it. Looks kinda cool though.

I think if you asked the average Iraqi whether he trusts his government, you would not get a "yes". If the measure of success in these wars, is how responsible the government the Americans installed is to the citizens' needs in these countries, then it's not so easy to call the situation in Iraq a success. Arguably the government in Iraq these days is so splintered, and so corrupt, and so obliged to use force to stay in power, that Iraq is a breeding ground for Islamic extremists really mad at the West for installing a secular government, or giving autonomy to the Kurds, or allowing the Shia to step all over the Sunni, or allowing the Sunni back into the army, among other grievances. I would say the major problem is not Afghanistan, but the idiotic assumption that Afghanistan can be made over into a functional nation state. But then maybe I'm just grumpy, and everything will turn out peachy.

I think the funny part is how a substantial portion of a major nation now views an important facet of own history, through the prism of a cartoon.

Ali-Baba, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think you'll agree it all depends on how you define corruption. I would bet a bazillion US tax dollars that the only thing that has changed in Iraq, is the distribution of the slush money. During Saddam's reign, it went to his own personal accounts, and those of his relatives and friends. Oil for Food is a great example. Today, the black book payments go to any one who is dishonest and can get their grubby mitts on the cash flow, starting with government ministers who can sign on the dotted line to spend state (and US aid) money, and ending with the vendor, be he ever so greedy. If every one of these detecto devices cost 40K, then probably 90 - 95 per cent of the price went to payoffs and overseas accounts. This little gizmo actually is an excellent illustration, of what happens when you throw large amounts of money at a problem via a corrupt system - almost always, you just enrich the corruption. The ironic part is, of course, that the more you pay into a corrupt system, the more profitable it becomes for the corrupt people to stay corrupt; and that of course fosters insurgents who find support of the average people, who are sick of paying taxes that solve none of the country's problems, and instead just make corrupt officials even richer. [sarcasm]But fortunately Iraq is a thriving Jeffersonian Democracy, so soon the will of the Iraqi people will be felt in the ballot box, and Iraqi state corruption will soon be a thing of the past, and the insurgency will wither in the face of massive public support of a responsible and efficient Iraqi state.[/sarcasm]

Somehow I think the Iraqis were thoroughly corrupted before Democracy got there. Although Ali-Baba for sure is dead on, these things for sure got bought by the Iraqis because crooked businessmen starting in England and going through who knows how many middlemen, and a healthy ring of Iraqi government officials, colluded to defraud the general public. I bet the prevailing highly-sophisticated counterinsurgency - "MUST...STOP...IEDs!" - had a lot to do with freeing up the 58 million bucks to buy these things. Gotta wonder how much, er, bang for the buck could have been gotten, if that money had gone to bribe the bombers to just stay home and eat hummus.

Wouldn't it be cool if the A/I could handle that? It shouldn't be hard to program, the game counts when the available rounds are gone, it makes the tank cease fire, a .wav comes - "Gotta get more shells!" - and then the game counts however much time the developers decide that should take. The player's job is to get the tank off the firing line or whatever, until there are more reader rounds, which of course should have its own .wav "Up!", "Let's get some!", "Show me the bad guys NOW!" or whatever.

War Correspondent: Locates supposedly impossible to find snake by politely asking neighbors where snake lives. Interviews snake in fluent reptile. After interview as a matter of courtesy warns snake the US military is definately coming and will try and kill it unless snake changes its ways. Snake cites Che Guevera and allegedly unique snake national history allegedly making snake society impossible for US military to defeat. US military arrives, snake is smashed as are many of the snake's neighbours. Correspondent interviews survivors, who now are fighting to avenge the snake. Blackwater mercenary: Opens fire on snake after snake looks at Blackwater convoy in agressive manner. Snake and bystanders killed. Mercenary collects paychecks for several more months until rotating back to US to face murder charges filed by anti-war activists. Mercenary appears on right-wing talk shows, writes book. Pakistani ISI operative: Subsidizes snake for decades, among other assistance providing enhanced poison and fang sharpeners. When US becomes worried about snake, obtains massive US funding for collecting intelligence on and helping fight against growing snake threat. Skews info sent back to US on snake so snake stays alive; no need to kill the golden goose.

Shows you what I know. I heard somewhere he spoke good German, so I figured he was from Silesia or something.

Sergei, Yes, not surviving and going on to post would make any one's comments truly unique. As to the character "Ski", to my mind he doesn't always have to be physically massive, it's just that's sort of an ideal to shoot for. This is not real life we're talking about, whatever the script writer comes up with still has to adapt to available actors. Bronson for instance was an ethnic German, but that didn't fit the plot, so they made him an Engish-language challenged Pole, and the rest is cinematic history. The really critical thing here is to get not just the squad members right, but the NCOs and officers as well. Like, if the pixel soldier representing a US Major or higher in CM Normandy has .wav recordings sounding like any one in history but John Wayne, then the game is ruined. Think of it: Well Pilgrim, it sure does look like a Tiger over there...yep." "I ain't gonna open fire...I ain't gonna open fire...THE HELL I AIN'T! OPEN FIRE!" "Trumpeter! Sound the charge! Forward....Hoooooooo!"

Sergei, Heh. As it happens I arguably have seen the elephant, the problem is I'm still not sure if it was the trunk, tail, or...er...some other confusing pachydermal body bits. But more to the point, for my entire lifetime I have been exposed to hundreds if not 1,000s of movies never mind print media renditions of The Heroic US Melting Pot As Represented By The WW2 GI Squad, and knowing That Is What Makes America Great is way better than any knowledge of any elephant parts. (That's a Mickey Dolan reference BTW.) I suppose we could include the following .wav in the optional US squad members The Nordic immigrant - A blue-eyed blond fellow with an exagerrated Minnesota/Wisconsin accent. Very often tall and strapping as befitting his healthy upbringing. His parents are from "Scandinavia", and he is so clean-living he thinks girls are for cleaning the silverware, milk is a strong beverage, and "darn" is not a word for mixed company. His uniform is never dirty and besides being an excellent fighter and never complaining, he is always good for humorous relief when placed in a fighting position or near loot adjacent to the Brooklyn/Phillie tough guy, as the Nordic fellow is neat and clean and honest, while the inner city guy makes a mess and fails to respect private property. This would get a Finn into the squad, and so give our movie play in Helsinki, for all the ticket proceeds that would give. Like I say, BFI better be paying attention, this has become a critical thread.

Not so. For instance, you might have survived to run for President until the opposition decided to smear your medal-winning Vietnam service in river patrol boats. Excellent point about the "nice guy", definately he is on the "must" list. I hope BFI is paying attention to this game-making/breaking discussion, this is way more important than track tension.

I think it's time to make an exhaustive list. Each US WW2 Warner/MGM-approved Army squad must include one each: - Midwestern farm boy, always blond, can be the sniper - East coast inner city hustler, possibly a felon. Often from Bronx or Phillie - Texan/generic cowboy. - Italian, always from East Coast city, frequently speaks Sicilian - New York Jew, Brooklyn or less frequently Manhatten. Best educated guy in squad, very useful to inform audience historical background or whose portrait that is on the mansion wall. - Down deep Dixie boy, also a possible sniper - As noted earlier, a large and somewhat slow Slav named "Ski"; big guy, often carries the MG Each MGM-approved US infantry squad may in addition include - A son of southern gentry, Virginia or Kentucky; provides counterpoint to the other Southerner, who becomes poorer and more white-trashy. - An Indian. Most common tribes are Navajo and Cherokee; Ute, Apache, and Sioux possible. Always gets scout missions, obviously. - A high school athlete/valedictorian. Usually an unofficial squad leader and a positive character, but sometimes will crack under pressure if script writer chooses to demonstrate the obvious man is not always the hero. - A Hispanic, always a nice guy but often is in conflict with the poor Southerner. - A tinkerer/mechanic; often worked in an auto shop back home, can get anything running, can manufacture heaters, faux silk stockings, and other hard-to-obtain items from a bit of string and chewing gum, and whatever debris is lying around. Acts as American Ingenuity incarnate, allows the squad to perform depot level maintenance on captured Panzers, Mercedes staff cars, etc. - Rich man's son, spends movie learning about the lower classes - An ethnic German determined to prove he is just as American as the rest of the guys, is useful for interrogating prisoners. - Ivy league man who volunteered for the infantry, can survive to narrate movie in flashback. Can also fufill rich man's son role. Others are possible, depending plot demands and which actors actually got cast. Since CM Normandy will represent individual soldiers, I think BFI has no choice but to build in different voices for each squad member. I for one will feel very shortchanged if we get the same boring old .wav files dating back to CMAK. US Army NCOs also offer a rich choice of cliche characters, but that's another post, if not another thread.

Of course he was. Commonwealth troops may have had many uses to Ike in furthering his career, but voting Republican in a US Presidential election wasn't one of them.

Vark, I think you are underestimating how militarized the Israeli economy is, and parallel to that, overestimating how viable the Israeli economy would be if it didn't have all this military money flowing through it. Conversion from a military-geared economy to a economic competition-based economy is neither quick nor easy; Israel right now is the world's 10th largest arms exporter. Could Israel's arms industry survive at anything like its present levels, if the IDF stopped buying equipment? How about traditional Israeli exports like high tech, medical equipment, communications, machinery, and so on? The US right now buys something like 40 per cent of all Israeli exports - if the US government were not particularly inclined to support Israel, and support the sale of Israeli products in the US, how much of those exports would be sold in the US in a peace? And then there is US aid, every year it's something like 2.5 billion dollars in outright grants, and another 4 or 5 billion dollars in low interest loan guarantees. The Israeli economy is something like 200 billion dollars; if the US cash spigot gets turned off, that's something like a 7 - 10 per cent overnight hit to the entire Israeli economy. You don't have to be a Nobel Economic prize winner to predict what would come next: fiscal contraction, interest rates through the roof, unemployment, widespread shutdown of capital-intensive business, depression. And that would of course force the shekel to tank, which in turn would make energy - of which Israel has very little of its own - all that much more expensive, which in turn would feed the depressionary cycle. You want an example of what happens to a country geared for war, when peace breaks out, just look at Russia 1991. That is the scale of economic shock a peace would, short to medium term, probably inflict on the Israeli economy. Now, long term, sure, conversion to a peace economy probably would do the Israeli economy a lot of good. Israeli society is flexible and economically-minded like Russia never will be. So all those career IDF soldiers, were they willing to retrain, they could start businesses or get jobs contributing to the economy. Maybe the people that make Kfir and Merkava, they could eventually score some start-up money and make short-hop jets and earth-moving equipment. The Germans and the Japanese in their day have very militarized economies, and if there is one thing post-WW2 has taught us, it is that cultures with strong work ethnics will eventually succeed economically. I have no doubt that eventually, given sufficient (probably Chinese) seed money, Israel's work force could make the Israeli economy quite as wealthy and efficient as say Finland or South Korea's. But to get to that long term result, the Israeli economy would have to be overhauled, and the decision-makers choosing that route would have to explain their choice to every single unemployed soldier, arms factory worker, security guard, and IDF civilian support business owner suddenly made destitute, because all of a sudden a peace broke out in the Holy Land. It seems to me, an Israeli politician choosing that route would, sign his own political death warrant. Add into that all the other imperatives for keeping the war going - it's Israeli territory, the Palestinians are terrorists, no compromise on Holy Land, we can't trust the Arabs, Jews will never again negotiate from a position of weakness, whatever you want - and to me it is really clear why the people making decisions in Israel, don't seem very motivated to end the war. The thing to remember is that it's not just the Israelis. The real problem of the conflict is that there are too many people on both sides who stand to lose, both politically but particularly financially, if a real peace breaks out. This naturally leaves a relatively small group of people - the Palestinians in their camps and the Israelis living within rocket range of the camps, or conscripted to be soldiers raiding those camps - out in the cold. Since the war goes on, life really sucks for those people. You could even argue that as the conflict goes on, life sucks also for lots of people at greater distance: all the millions of people harassed in airports because air travel now must be secured from Islamic terrorists, the US taxpayers forced to shell out big so US armies can invade Islamic countries, and of course political leaders in countries from Red China to Malaysia to Russia who because of the Palestinian Question and its downstream effects, have more trouble dealing with their home-grown irate Moslems. But the bottom line is a simple one. The people that could end the war, the decision makers in the Occupied Territories and Jerusalem, and the decision-makers backing them; that relatively small group of people have careers and personal livelihoods that depend on the Palestinian conflict continuing indefinately. The people that suffer from the war, for practical purposes, aren't making the decisions. So the war goes on.