When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view.
Lord Denning perfectly expressed the far right view on hanging (it's almost always hanging in particular) when he said that if the Birmingham Six had been hanged "we" wouldn't have had all those bothersome campaigns to get them released, and "the whole community" (of obnoxious c***s, presumably) would have been "satisfied" (his word).
Margaret Thatcher called Denning "probably the greatest English judge of modern times".
Tories love all the "make people hang at the end of a rope until they die and then their tongues loll out and they cream their pants and all the social workers and people who don't salute the king and don't own businesses can FOAD" stuff.
The man you admire so much prefers poisoning and throwing out of windows to hanging, as methods of execution.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Keen my butt, once in they will do their usual about turn and start stuffing their pals into it. Been saying that for 100 years so far.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Does the argument against it rest on the possibility of miscarriages of justice?
Not exclusively.
I feel the government shouldn't execute its citizens when they are already in custody and not a clear and present risk to the population.
Yes, that's my position.
And mine. It is wrong for the state to take their life. However, I'm not opposed providing the prisoner with means to end their own life. Assisted suicide if you like.
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
Nearly everything donated to Ukraine by various countries is either obsolete by Western standards or ammunition that was reaching its sell by date.
Across the NATO countries, this is being used as an excuse to clear out the stuff that is nominally still on the books, but in actuality needs to be replaced. Looking at you, AS90….
That used to be the case, but increasingly isn't. Denmark recently agreed to send all its Caesar artillery systems, some of which were very recently delivered. This leaves the Danish army with no 155mm artillery, only a few mortars.
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
No it’s just the executive wanting to decide . Even some Leave politicians are moaning about that and say it goes against the point of Brexit .
Who cares what they say it does. It is a democratic act by a democratically-elected government. Don't like it? Vote in another one.
You might not be able to. There was talk some years back of the govt of the time wanting to abolish 5 yearly elections. I am sure we covered it here on PB.
Would it be democratic for the elected govt to decide to cancel elections? After all, they are an elected govt....
Government introduces Act to abolish elections Challenge in Courts Government passes laws to override courts Government passes law to abolish elections Civil uprising
Or something.
No idea.
The laws of logic dictate that there can be no final answer to "who guards the guards" - which is what this boils down to; since whatever the first answer is, it needs another set of superguards over them and so on ad infinitum.
Practicality suggests that the answer is 'the army and the crown'. Those who swear loyalty oaths in this country do so to the crown, not government or parliament.
They swear loyalty to the monarch (named), and to the said monarch's heirs and successors. Not to the crown.
So if we expect the small minority of monarchist oath-swearers to honour their oaths, it's up to the rest of us to sort things out.
Bunch of thick diddy's , I would not piss on royalty if they were on fire. A bunch of nasty parasites.
I asked ChatGPT to “comment on the British royal family in the style of the poster malcolmg from politicalbetting.com” but sadly it seems not to have included this site in its training material.
Lee Anderson is what right wingers who have never engaged with working class people think all working class people are like. Ian Lavery is the Labour equivalent.
That's precisely the problem. Posh right wingers deciding, apparently based on anecdotal evidence from some BBC talking heads in Burnley, that the working class are uniformly rough bigots who hate foreigners and want a return to family values. (Just as, to be fair, posh lefties long ago decided they're all an oppressed mass seething with revolutionary fervour).
Well it was the working class who delivered Brexit, in large part to reduce immigration.
If only the middle class had been able to vote in 2016 then Remain would have won the EU referendum
And yet Remain won among people with actual jobs. You know, the "working" part.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
I always assumed he was simply expressing his support for Izard using the ladies' toilet, an admirably woke stance.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view.
Lord Denning perfectly expressed the far right view on hanging (it's almost always hanging in particular) when he said that if the Birmingham Six had been hanged "we" wouldn't have had all those bothersome campaigns to get them released, and "the whole community" (of obnoxious c***s, presumably) would have been "satisfied" (his word).
Margaret Thatcher called Denning "probably the greatest English judge of modern times".
Tories love all the "make people hang at the end of a rope until they die and then their tongues loll out and they cream their pants and all the social workers and people who don't salute the king and don't own businesses can FOAD" stuff.
The man you admire so much prefers poisoning and throwing out of windows to hanging, as methods of execution.
? Who is that?
I am opposed to the death penalty.
The only case where I might wobble a bit would be if it were introduced for vivisectionists, even retrospectively, in such a way that it was absolutely clear that it would never be introduced for anyone else - but sadly that is a fantasy.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The basic problem is that Lee Anderson can get the swivel-eyed loons all excited but Sunak can only disappoint them. There are no votes for the Tories in that. Only more ammunition for Reform.
I don't agree with Lee Anderson on everything but I'm not sure I have a problem with him being represented in the party.
He represents a point of view that is worth airing and debating (as we are doing today) and I don't see that as a bad thing.
It's what parliament is for.
That is exactly the argument some Labour MPs made when they voted for Corbyn
To be party leader, not exactly the same thing really!
He is climbing up the greasy pole. Seven years ago, Sunak was a brand new MP, today he is PM. Who is to say where Lee Anderson will be in a couple of years?
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Replace? Another upgrade to Challenger 3.
I don't think there is any tank from the Western hemisphere that first came out later than 40 years ago.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
I agree with you politically 100%, but two tips:
* it's not the police or CPS who decide either guilt or sentence * Lee Anderson is an obnoxious c***, not a moron - he seems to be doing all right for himself, and he correctly jumped ship to the party where being such a massively obnoxious c*** is considered an asset.
Lee Anderson is the Tories version of Jess Phillips. A gobby pr*ck who says crap for attention and to fire up a certain portion of the Party support.
Politics has always had these people and always will.
A Poster mentioned Peter Bruinvels and Terry Dicks. Exactly. Proves the point.
In 5 years time the public at large will have forgotten about Lee Anderson after his loss at the next election and won't give him a second thought.
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
Nearly everything donated to Ukraine by various countries is either obsolete by Western standards or ammunition that was reaching its sell by date.
Across the NATO countries, this is being used as an excuse to clear out the stuff that is nominally still on the books, but in actuality needs to be replaced. Looking at you, AS90….
That used to be the case, but increasingly isn't. Denmark recently agreed to send all its Caesar artillery systems, some of which were very recently delivered. This leaves the Danish army with no 155mm artillery, only a few mortars.
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
The Danish artillery only ever made sense as a part of a large force - NATO originally. So sending it to fight in Ukraine like that, is using it as intended. probably.
The Swedish arms industry is having good war, that's for sure.
It could be my memory playing tricks but I don't remember the Tory Party having so many of these ghastly low-rent Lee Anderson characters in the ascendency back in the day. Is it something to do with Brexit?
You must remember Terry Dicks, Dave Evans, and Peter Bruinvels, surely?
I do think the calibre of Conservative MPs has declined, in general, in my lifetime, although that's true of Labour MPs as well. (Since, most of the Parliamentary Liberal Party of the 1970's ought to have been put in prison, one can say that their calibre has improved a bit).
Well, yes, if I strain. But they were fringe, weren't they, not right in the dna.
Still, could be I'm succumbing to 'halycon days that never were' syndrome. A mythical time when beer was cheap, porches were clean, and Tories were wrong but civilised.
Ministers should delay a rise in the energy price cap to prevent a 20 per cent rise in bills from April, the personal finance expert Martin Lewis has said.
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Lewis argued that wholesale prices were likely to come down in the summer. He said there was a degree of desperation from “shivering” families struggling to deal with the cost of living.
The energy price guarantee limits bills for the average household to £2,500 a year but this is due to rise to £3,000 from April 1. The two-year guarantee was announced in the autumn but was scaled back by Hunt to end in March after the chaotic fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
The declining cost of wholesale energy prices means that bills are set to come down anyway from July. The Resolution Foundation said it expected the average bill to fall to £2,200 by October, below the present price guarantee.
Lewis described raising the guarantee as a “national act of harm” and urged Hunt to act before the budget on March 15. He said in the letter: “In practice, energy firms will need to know much sooner if the planned rise isn’t happening on April 1, or they are bound to have to communicate to customers that it is coming.”
I heard him on R4 this morning. Deeply unimpressed. His argument seemed to be (a) that the scheme had cost less than feared at the time of the last budget so why not ( the fact that wages are going up more in the public sector seems to have escaped him) (b) the charges will be down to the current cap by July anyway so there is no point in having an increase in the interim. Of course his certainty about this reflects his certainty about what prices were going to do when the price cap came in.
What we really need is to get prices back to market rates asap and bring this nonsense to an end. In fairness to Lewis he accepts that (correctly) he was never a fan of the price cap in the first place. If the poorly paid and those on benefits need more targeted help they should get it. This cap needs to be brought to an end ASAP.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Replace? Another upgrade to Challenger 3.
I don't think there is any tank from the Western hemisphere that first came out later than 40 years ago.
(Correction: Leclerc was 30 years ago ~ 1992).
There is a vague requirement/idea bouncing around for a replacement for Challenger. Which keeps getting stuck in the
- We want it airmobile. - Nothing vaguely well protected is airmobile - Design something - This is unprotected - Revise spec. - This is too heavy, we want airmobile
loop.
Meanwhile the AJAX bad joke trundles on. And that weighs about as much a s T55
BBC always seem to forget to make it clear the party he represented....simply referred to as O'Mara, Sheffield Hallam MP from 2017 to 2019 in this article.
I have to say 4 years seems pretty steep, especially when the eco-fascists seem to get £150 fines and a few hours community service for causing £10,000s of damage.
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
Nearly everything donated to Ukraine by various countries is either obsolete by Western standards or ammunition that was reaching its sell by date.
Across the NATO countries, this is being used as an excuse to clear out the stuff that is nominally still on the books, but in actuality needs to be replaced. Looking at you, AS90….
That used to be the case, but increasingly isn't. Denmark recently agreed to send all its Caesar artillery systems, some of which were very recently delivered. This leaves the Danish army with no 155mm artillery, only a few mortars.
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
The Danish artillery only ever made sense as a part of a large force - NATO originally. So sending it to fight in Ukraine like that, is using it as intended. probably.
The Swedish arms industry is having good war, that's for sure.
The one thing we should all be learning from this conflict, is that the various European/NATO countries should standardise much more on military equipment design, and then manufacture it locally.
Having two dozen different versions of the same kit helps no-one, when it’s all required to be sent to a particular front at the same time. That situation becomes even worse in a proxy war, when everyone is trying to give away and train others on their use.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
Who would Lee Anderson follow into the toilets?
The bigger question is who would follow Lee Anderson into the toilets. I would give it ten minutes, at least.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
No idea. If so, it shows the issue: with the factory closed, there's no way to easily make replacements. You know, the sort of thing we need if there's a hot war in Europe. Good job we haven't got one of those on our hands...
Malmesbury's idea of giving the contract to JCB makes some sense...
The basic problem is that Lee Anderson can get the swivel-eyed loons all excited but Sunak can only disappoint them. There are no votes for the Tories in that. Only more ammunition for Reform.
I don't agree with Lee Anderson on everything but I'm not sure I have a problem with him being represented in the party.
He represents a point of view that is worth airing and debating (as we are doing today) and I don't see that as a bad thing.
It's what parliament is for.
I don't think anyone is questioning his right to be an MP - that's entirely a matter for his constituents. It's Sunak's choice to appoint him deputy chair of the party that's at issue. Saying his views should be represented in Parliament doesn't really address the argument.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
Who would Lee Anderson follow into the toilets?
The bigger question is who would follow Lee Anderson into the toilets. I would give it ten minutes, at least.
He reminds me of Mr Cartwright in the Inbetweeners.....
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
Who would Lee Anderson follow into the toilets?
The bigger question is who would follow Lee Anderson into the toilets. I would give it ten minutes, at least.
"A Tory MP told the Guardian: “Lee needs to remember he is a politician not a comedian, and perhaps Eddie needs to remember he’s a comedian not a politician.”"
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
No idea. If so, it shows the issue: with the factory closed, there's no way to easily make replacements. You know, the sort of thing we need if there's a hot war in Europe. Good job we haven't got one of those on our hands...
Malmesbury's idea of giving the contract to JCB makes some sense...
Not necessarily JCB. But having actually worked with their products, they have the following capabilities.
- Cut metal to a fraction of a mm. - Weld metal so it stays together and doesn't warp like a banana. - Make a number of things the same size and shape, to the mm. - Design and build a tracked vehicle that doesn't endanger the user with excessive vibration and noise.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
It's most certainly B. I'm afraid 'speaking your mind' often means chuntering ignorant bigotry. It's nothing to be proud of imo. Far more admirable is to exercise some quality control of what comes out of your mouth. Filter what's in your mind for the best stuff and speak that.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
It was pretty egregious. He was sitting at home doing F all for his MP salary (which we can be duly grateful for) but decides that is not enough so he fabricates some invoices so he can claim expenses in addition. For the work he wasn’t doing.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
Surpassed by technology. Drones and AI will render the technology as redundant as aircraft carriers.
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
And a third - he's insinuating that trans people are perverts. That's where my money's going.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
No idea. If so, it shows the issue: with the factory closed, there's no way to easily make replacements. You know, the sort of thing we need if there's a hot war in Europe. Good job we haven't got one of those on our hands...
Malmesbury's idea of giving the contract to JCB makes some sense...
Not necessarily JCB. But having actually worked with their products, they have the following capabilities.
- Cut metal to a fraction of a mm. - Weld metal so it stays together and doesn't warp like a banana. - Make a number of things the same size and shape, to the mm. - Design and build a tracked vehicle that doesn't endanger the user with excessive vibration and noise.
Dark arts to the builders of AJAX, apparently.
I went into the JCB factory a few times as a kid. My sister recently posted a signed picture of Noel Edmonds standing on a JCB that we got at a launch event. I've a signed model JCB 3CX somewhere...
It was an impressive place for a kid. One of the main things that impressed teenage-me was the cleanliness; cutting steel to fine tolerances, but the air was clear. The paintshop was also fascinating.
But seriously: why not give the contract to companies like them, at least for the non-bangy parts? And once they've done the production run, they can go back to making 3CXs and rubber ducks. Then get the bangy parts from elsewhere, and get them to mate the two.
Getting rid of Liz Truss was not an example of democracy. A majority of Tories voted for her and she was then removed by MPs who put a placeman in - you might recall that the Tory members were not asked to vote again. The public did not vote. No re-election happened.
Whatever Truss's replacement was, democratic it wasn't.
The problem is with the system then, and whether it is democratic enough.
Our system allows Prime Ministers to be replaced mid-Parliament, and Truss and Sunak are hardly the first to come to the Premiership without a GE win, though I think is Truss the first to come to power without a GE win AND not be allowed to fight the next one?
I suppose an interesting question would be, do you consider Brown, Callaghan and Home to be democratically elected? All three became Prime Minister, and for all three, at the first opportunity the voting public disagreed with their assent and removed them.
And what of Major, and May. In one case, Major became PM without a GE, and his appointment was validated two years after appointment. In the case of May, after being appointed she asked the public and got a 'mewh' answer..... Her party failed to secure a majority.
In reality, GE are a chance to pick your local representative, but many people rock up and vote 'Labour' because they live in Bootle and are tribal.
Question for the older PBs..... before party names were allowed on the ballot paper, did you get many people in the polling booths shouting to the election officials, "Who's the Labour chap again?"?
OK this food is incredible. Asia is leaving the West behind
Maybe. I wouldn't swap for my lunchtime bacon buttie....
Mate. You would
The chef here is the first Indian woman EVER to win a Michelin star. Given the barriers to female success in Asia she’s got to be effing brilliant. And she is. She trained under Gordon Ramsay and did 2 years at Noma. This food is something else. She’s taken all she’s learned and married it to Mumbai and Kerala. It is phenomenal
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
Nearly everything donated to Ukraine by various countries is either obsolete by Western standards or ammunition that was reaching its sell by date.
Across the NATO countries, this is being used as an excuse to clear out the stuff that is nominally still on the books, but in actuality needs to be replaced. Looking at you, AS90….
That used to be the case, but increasingly isn't. Denmark recently agreed to send all its Caesar artillery systems, some of which were very recently delivered. This leaves the Danish army with no 155mm artillery, only a few mortars.
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Korean, then. Which is likely to be standard fir quite a bit of Europe.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
Boris Becker only got sentenced to 2.5 years and served 8 months.....
Seems like the Russians may have had another disaster in their attempts to launch a counter- attack. After nearly a month of punishing attacks, it looks like the Ukrainians may have turned things around a little.
All those poor civil servants who can't handle a long stares and implied micro-aggressions...tell that to Zelensky and his team, who works under real life threatening danger every day.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
And a third - he's insinuating that trans people are perverts. That's where my money's going.
That’s your insinuation.
Meanwhile, at election time, 10m carefully-targeted Tory Facebook ads will run in the Red Wall constituencies, with Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson very prominent, arguing that people like you and him should be voting for the government to continue, rather than Sir Kneel and the wokerati of Islington.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
Boris Becker only got sentenced to 2.5 years and served 8 months.....
As a general rule, for a sentence under 4 years for non sexual offences, you'd only expect to serve a quarter of your sentence in prison.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
I'm quite supportive of the "send all Challengers to Ukraine" option, then get into a JV with Poland and other Northern countries as we have been doing, with the idea of getting a chunk of all the replacement business for Leopards that countries may be reluctant to buy from Germany in the future due to the farrago.
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
Nearly everything donated to Ukraine by various countries is either obsolete by Western standards or ammunition that was reaching its sell by date.
Across the NATO countries, this is being used as an excuse to clear out the stuff that is nominally still on the books, but in actuality needs to be replaced. Looking at you, AS90….
That used to be the case, but increasingly isn't. Denmark recently agreed to send all its Caesar artillery systems, some of which were very recently delivered. This leaves the Danish army with no 155mm artillery, only a few mortars.
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Korean, then.
Depends on what we want.
Korean would be turning our backs on the Heavy MBT concept.
Merkava would upset all the right people. Buy into Carmel?
One advantage would be that this would lead, naturally, to Namer IFV. Which would make the airmobile types heads explode.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
Boris Becker only got sentenced to 2.5 years and served 8 months.....
As a general rule, for a sentence under 4 years for non sexual offences, you'd only expect to serve a quarter of your sentence in prison.
My point was he got less for a multi-million pound defrauding of the taxman, and he had previous conviction as a tax dodger, plus he continued his obfuscation right until the very end.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
Surpassed by technology. Drones and AI will render the technology as redundant as aircraft carriers.
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
That arguments been made for generations - look at Duncan Sandys' cuts to fighter aircraft in the 1960s, because missiles made them obsolete. Guess what? We still have fighter aircraft.
We're seeing BMPs and tanks be lost at frightening speed in Ukraine. Yet both Russia and Ukraine want more of them. Why? Because although they're vulnerable, although they're lost, they're useful. It's better to have them than not to have them. If you lose one tank, but gain ground that would have not been possible without losing that tank, then you've gained. True, it's better not to lose the tank, but it did its job.
And that's the sad fact: tanks, and their crews, are disposable - just as infantry are. You don't want to pointlessly waste them, but they're pointless if you don't use them when needed.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view.
Lord Denning perfectly expressed the far right view on hanging (it's almost always hanging in particular) when he said that if the Birmingham Six had been hanged "we" wouldn't have had all those bothersome campaigns to get them released, and "the whole community" (of obnoxious c***s, presumably) would have been "satisfied" (his word).
Margaret Thatcher called Denning "probably the greatest English judge of modern times".
Tories love all the "make people hang at the end of a rope until they die and then their tongues loll out and they cream their pants and all the social workers and people who don't salute the king and don't own businesses can FOAD" stuff.
The man you admire so much prefers poisoning and throwing out of windows to hanging, as methods of execution.
I admire Nestor Makhno, famous son of the Zaporozhe region. We could do with a movement like his right now.
Getting rid of Liz Truss was not an example of democracy. A majority of Tories voted for her and she was then removed by MPs who put a placeman in - you might recall that the Tory members were not asked to vote again. The public did not vote. No re-election happened.
Whatever Truss's replacement was, democratic it wasn't.
The problem is with the system then, and whether it is democratic enough.
Our system allows Prime Ministers to be replaced mid-Parliament, and Truss and Sunak are hardly the first to come to the Premiership without a GE win, though I think is Truss the first to come to power without a GE win AND not be allowed to fight the next one?
I suppose an interesting question would be, do you consider Brown, Callaghan and Home to be democratically elected? All three became Prime Minister, and for all three, at the first opportunity the voting public disagreed with their assent and removed them.
And what of Major, and May. In one case, Major became PM without a GE, and his appointment was validated two years after appointment. In the case of May, after being appointed she asked the public and got a 'mewh' answer..... Her party failed to secure a majority.
In reality, GE are a chance to pick your local representative, but many people rock up and vote 'Labour' because they live in Bootle and are tribal.
Question for the older PBs..... before party names were allowed on the ballot paper, did you get many people in the polling booths shouting to the election officials, "Who's the Labour chap again?"?
You normally had “tellers” standing outside who would give you a card with the right name on it to help.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
After the expenses scandal, the sums were larger but jail sentences were around 1 year.
Something has made a difference - perhaps the raised expectations and setting up a charity for th purposes of extracting money. Need to see the sentencing remarks.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
Boris Becker only got sentenced to 2.5 years and served 8 months.....
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
After the expenses scandal, the sums were larger but jail sentences were around 1 year.
Something has made a difference - perhaps the raised expectations and setting up a charity for th purposes of extracting money. Need to see the sentencing remarks.
McGabble got 6 months I think, and served 4. He was submitting false receipts for £10k's, fake subscriptions and services, falsely claiming his garage was his office.....I don't think he had even had an mitigating factors around being a drug addict with mental health problems.
There were some very lucky MPs who had rental agreements that looked extremely dodgy to say the least, no contract, no receipts, paid to mates.
Then get the bangy parts from elsewhere, and get them to mate the two.
That seems to be where an awful lot of joint projects come to grief...
"Sure, we can build you some trains. What do you mean your tunnels aren't big enough?"
I'd say exactly the opposite: all projects are smaller parts put together. The vast majority of the time, they fit together well, in part because of standards.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
And a third - he's insinuating that trans people are perverts. That's where my money's going.
I agree. There is a deeply unpleasant edge to the comment.
How can there be so many EU laws on the books that it is impossible to review them all? We were told for years that the EU was simply an economic community and that there was very little intrusion into UK life. Remainers also argued that all these EU laws were appropriately scrutinized with democratic oversight.
It sounds like politicians and Remainers were lying about all of this.
"How can there be so many EU laws on the books that it is impossible to review them all?l
We were members for 43 years. That's why. I didn't say it was impossible to review them all. I said it was impossible to review them all in the absurdly short time the Government has decided on. The Bill also envisages laws disappearing without there being any review at all, something which is unprecedented. Laws fall into disuse but disappearing from the statute book without any sort of review by anyone - no.
We were told for years that the EU was simply an economic community and that there was very little intrusion into U.K. life."
No. It was precisely because of this that euroscepticism grew. Also many of these laws do relate to the economy. Though quite how the economy and U.K. life are different is a mystery. The former is a large part of the latter.
..."all these EU laws were appropriately scrutinised with democratic oversight
They were scrutinised and with more democratic oversight than their removal will be.
It is the Leavers who are lying - and what a big dangerous lie it is - about wanting to give power back to the people. That lie will come back to bite them hard one day. A great pity that so much damage will have been done in the meanwhile.
You and I know very well that this timelime will not be stuck to. Nothing in government ever is. Think about how many extensions there were to actually leave the EU. The point of this deadline is to actually instill a sense of urgency in the civil service. If you gave a three year deadline the Europhile bureaucracy would just twiddle their thumbs.
And there was barely any democratic scrutiny at all when this - apparently insurmountable - body of law was coming in. The entire Europhile nexus of lawyers, activists, civil servants and MPs will be scrawling through EU law trying to find outrages to post on Twitter and send to the Guardian this time, so scrutiny will be there.
All this doommongering is just like when we actually voted to leave and mass unemployment was predicted around every corner. When actually nothing happened and Remainers had to wait for a global pandemic and the results of deficit spending for our economy to hit trouble, so they could finally blame Brexit.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
After the expenses scandal, the sums were larger but jail sentences were around 1 year.
Something has made a difference - perhaps the raised expectations and setting up a charity for th purposes of extracting money. Need to see the sentencing remarks.
McGabble got 6 months I think, and served 4. He was submitting false receipts for £10k's, fake subscriptions and services, falsely claiming his garage was his office.....
The mere fact of him being an MP, should be the most massively aggravating factor in sentencing.
Elected officials should be held well above the standards expected of everyone else.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
£52,000 worth of fake invoices is an aggravating factor.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
Boris Becker only got sentenced to 2.5 years and served 8 months.....
As a general rule, for a sentence under 4 years for non sexual offences, you'd only expect to serve a quarter of your sentence in prison.
My point was he got less for a multi-million pound defrauding of the taxman, and he had previous conviction as a tax dodger, plus he continued his obfuscation right until the very end.
It's the abuse of trust that is another aggravating factor for my ex MP.
Twitter suffered a significant outage on Wednesday soon after introducing a 4,000-character limit for tweets.
Elon Musk said there were multiple “internal and external issues with the app simultaneously” as thousands of people reported being unable to tweet or follow users.
The site had just extended the 280-character limit for tweets to 4,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers in the United States. It is unclear whether this caused the technical problems.
Musk told his staff: “Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up,” according to a leaked message.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
It's most certainly B. I'm afraid 'speaking your mind' often means chuntering ignorant bigotry. It's nothing to be proud of imo. Far more admirable is to exercise some quality control of what comes out of your mouth. Filter what's in your mind for the best stuff and speak that.
I think B is understating it. It's the sort of unfounded bigotry against sexual minorities being abusers that has caused historic lynchings. The guy should be investigated over it.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Two possible takes:
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
And a third - he's insinuating that trans people are perverts. That's where my money's going.
That’s your insinuation.
Meanwhile, at election time, 10m carefully-targeted Tory Facebook ads will run in the Red Wall constituencies, with Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson very prominent, arguing that people like you and him should be voting for the government to continue, rather than Sir Kneel and the wokerati of Islington.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
Bloody hell. I thought he had might get twelve months, but four years? That is a very long time, unless I have much misunderstood the charges.
It was pretty egregious. He was sitting at home doing F all for his MP salary (which we can be duly grateful for) but decides that is not enough so he fabricates some invoices so he can claim expenses in addition. For the work he wasn’t doing.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
Surpassed by technology. Drones and AI will render the technology as redundant as aircraft carriers.
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
That arguments been made for generations - look at Duncan Sandys' cuts to fighter aircraft in the 1960s, because missiles made them obsolete. Guess what? We still have fighter aircraft.
We're seeing BMPs and tanks be lost at frightening speed in Ukraine. Yet both Russia and Ukraine want more of them. Why? Because although they're vulnerable, although they're lost, they're useful. It's better to have them than not to have them. If you lose one tank, but gain ground that would have not been possible without losing that tank, then you've gained. True, it's better not to lose the tank, but it did its job.
And that's the sad fact: tanks, and their crews, are disposable - just as infantry are. You don't want to pointlessly waste them, but they're pointless if you don't use them when needed.
Halfway through I gave that a like. But then took it away when in last paragraph you were using up real people like I use eggs in my toad in a hole. 😟
Thanks for the Challenger 3 answer to my question though.
Twitter suffered a significant outage on Wednesday soon after introducing a 4,000-character limit for tweets.
Elon Musk said there were multiple “internal and external issues with the app simultaneously” as thousands of people reported being unable to tweet or follow users.
The site had just extended the 280-character limit for tweets to 4,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers in the United States. It is unclear whether this caused the technical problems.
Musk told his staff: “Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up,” according to a leaked message.
When asked on Talk TV about the possibility of Eddie Izard becoming an MP, Lee Anderson commented: "if he does get elected and I'm still here, I shouldn't be following him into the toilets."
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime'). Should we not expect more from our representatives?
It's most certainly B. I'm afraid 'speaking your mind' often means chuntering ignorant bigotry. It's nothing to be proud of imo. Far more admirable is to exercise some quality control of what comes out of your mouth. Filter what's in your mind for the best stuff and speak that.
I think B is understating it. It's the sort of unfounded bigotry against sexual minorities being abusers that has caused historic lynchings. The guy should be investigated over it.
I sort of agree - but that tends to foster 'free speech martyr' appeal so on balance I'd leave it be.
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
Surpassed by technology. Drones and AI will render the technology as redundant as aircraft carriers.
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
That arguments been made for generations - look at Duncan Sandys' cuts to fighter aircraft in the 1960s, because missiles made them obsolete. Guess what? We still have fighter aircraft.
We're seeing BMPs and tanks be lost at frightening speed in Ukraine. Yet both Russia and Ukraine want more of them. Why? Because although they're vulnerable, although they're lost, they're useful. It's better to have them than not to have them. If you lose one tank, but gain ground that would have not been possible without losing that tank, then you've gained. True, it's better not to lose the tank, but it did its job.
And that's the sad fact: tanks, and their crews, are disposable - just as infantry are. You don't want to pointlessly waste them, but they're pointless if you don't use them when needed.
I'd argue its because we're in a transitional period.
The tank (as a function) will continue - but if you could take out the crew, you could create a much lower profile.
I believe we're seeing a similar process in aviation. Keep your pilots trained at great expense safe and sound as drone operators in Arizona.
But it will create a significant gap in speed and performance between old and new generations. (G forces where pilots black out will no longer form part of the operational envelope etc).
We've seen it before - the Royal Navy had to replace its fleet after the 1850s, and again after the Dreadnought.
All those poor civil servants who can't handle a long stares and implied micro-aggressions...tell that to Zelensky and his team, who works under real life threatening danger every day.
If you are a. incapable of recognising the possibility of bullying and b. in a position of authority, it's an odds on banker of a bet that you are yourself a bully.
And what a bizarre argument. If I slap you in the face, is it OK for me to respond to your complaints with Tell that to the citizens of hiroshima in 1945?
"Video reportedly of destroyed/abandoned armored equipment from Russia's 155th Naval Infantry Brigade on the Vuhledar front. It shows 31 armored vehicles, including ~ 15 tanks (including T-72B3 and a T-80BVM) with the remainder BMP, MT-LB, and others."
That's got to hurt. Allegedly it is (or was) one of Russia's better units.
The Ukranian estimate for Russian tank losses, is now just about equal to its estimate for the number of tanks in Russia at the start of the war - 3,300.
Oryx have 1688 (of which destroyed: 1000, damaged: 79, abandoned: 65, captured: 544).
Russia must be scraping the bottom of the tank boneyard at the moment, trying to find anything they can make serviceable. There’s thousands more scrapped tanks out there, but most are from the Soviet-Afghan war, old T-62s. They haven’t been making a lot of new ones, and perhaps they’ve been able to repair a few that were thought killed in battle.
Imagine how the Russian troops and tank battalions, in their half-century-old relics, are going to feel when modern NATO tanks start turning up on the other side?
T-62, Chieftain, Challenger 1
British tank design went down a slightly different path than most. The Russians wen to light MBTs rapidly. British designers remember the Tigers and went with the Conqueror heavy tank to go with the lighter Centurion. Then the L7 105mm gun came out and meant that a Centurion could do both jobs.
The Chieftain was born at a time when some thought that armour was finished - HEAT and finned dart projectiles were seemingly unstoppable. So some designers went ultra light, with little armour. Chieftain went massively the other way - almost back to Conqueror style.
Challenger was an upgrade on that.
As awareness of the effectiveness of modern, complex armour spread, other NATO countries moved in the same direction. Very heavily armoured tanks - M1 etc...
Do we have a new tank in the pipeline to replace challenger 2?
Challenger 3. Smoothbore, with other minor alterations.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
Surpassed by technology. Drones and AI will render the technology as redundant as aircraft carriers.
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
That arguments been made for generations - look at Duncan Sandys' cuts to fighter aircraft in the 1960s, because missiles made them obsolete. Guess what? We still have fighter aircraft.
We're seeing BMPs and tanks be lost at frightening speed in Ukraine. Yet both Russia and Ukraine want more of them. Why? Because although they're vulnerable, although they're lost, they're useful. It's better to have them than not to have them. If you lose one tank, but gain ground that would have not been possible without losing that tank, then you've gained. True, it's better not to lose the tank, but it did its job.
And that's the sad fact: tanks, and their crews, are disposable - just as infantry are. You don't want to pointlessly waste them, but they're pointless if you don't use them when needed.
Halfway through I gave that a like. But then took it away when in last paragraph you were using up real people like I use eggs in my toad in a hole. 😟
Thanks for the Challenger 3 answer to my question though.
Apologies for that, but I think it's important. Early on in this war, a lefty acquaintance of mine said that the Russians were just getting rid of their old tanks. Not only was that factually incorrect, it ignored the three or four people who were often dying when those tanks were destroyed. Were they 'old' as well?
War is people. Which is one of the reason I'm in the lets-end-this-quickly camp, rather than the lets-denude-russia-with-a-long-war camp. Because the latter costs Ukrainian blood.
Comments
So, is this a) the authentic voice of harmless working class lads' banter, or b) the sort of comment that should be way beneath an elected Member of Parliament? I'm plumping for b) (though to be clear the police were right not to follow up his stupidity as a 'hate crime').
Should we not expect more from our representatives?
Similarly the IFVs being sent by Sweden are new kit, still being manufactured and sold to other countries. There are other examples. We are a considerable distance into reducing European defence capability, and not much urgency to replace it.
One is that Izzard is a comedian, so a joking reference to cross-dressing is unlikely to be offensive *to him* (as opposed to a bunch of activists on Twitter)
The other is that Izzard identifies as a woman, so why would a male MP follow him into the (women’s) toilet?
I am opposed to the death penalty.
The only case where I might wobble a bit would be if it were introduced for vivisectionists, even retrospectively, in such a way that it was absolutely clear that it would never be introduced for anyone else - but sadly that is a fantasy.
The entire C3 project seems to be a bit of a hot mess; it's almost as though the government felt that tanks were the past (tm). To make matters worse, they're not rebuilds, but existing C2 modernised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_3
https://twitter.com/Archer83Able/status/1623446072202006529
I don't think there is any tank from the Western hemisphere that first came out later than 40 years ago.
(Correction: Leclerc was 30 years ago ~ 1992).
Politics has always had these people and always will.
A Poster mentioned Peter Bruinvels and Terry Dicks. Exactly. Proves the point.
In 5 years time the public at large will have forgotten about Lee Anderson after his loss at the next election and won't give him a second thought.
The Swedish arms industry is having good war, that's for sure.
Still, could be I'm succumbing to 'halycon days that never were' syndrome. A mythical time when beer was cheap, porches were clean, and Tories were wrong but civilised.
What we really need is to get prices back to market rates asap and bring this nonsense to an end. In fairness to Lewis he accepts that (correctly) he was never a fan of the price cap in the first place. If the poorly paid and those on benefits need more targeted help they should get it. This cap needs to be brought to an end ASAP.
- We want it airmobile.
- Nothing vaguely well protected is airmobile
- Design something
- This is unprotected
- Revise spec.
- This is too heavy, we want airmobile
loop.
Meanwhile the AJAX bad joke trundles on. And that weighs about as much a s T55
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-64577552
I have to say 4 years seems pretty steep, especially when the eco-fascists seem to get £150 fines and a few hours community service for causing £10,000s of damage.
(I'm trying to remember the song that had "step away from the ???? and calm down" in it, from thirty or so years ago? The KLF?
Having two dozen different versions of the same kit helps no-one, when it’s all required to be sent to a particular front at the same time. That situation becomes even worse in a proxy war, when everyone is trying to give away and train others on their use.
Malmesbury's idea of giving the contract to JCB makes some sense...
It's Sunak's choice to appoint him deputy chair of the party that's at issue. Saying his views should be represented in Parliament doesn't really address the argument.
The people running the Army got obsessed with air mobile and decided tanks are obsolete. they couldn't actually get them killed off, so they tried starving the tank units - no budget for anything.
The best option is probably to license a foreign hull design to go with the new turret and learn to build tanks again. At the same time, research advanced power trains. Once the shock issues are dealt with, an all electric tank would have some rather interesting capabilities. A hybrid too, though less so.
This guy clearly has serious mental issues but jeez, he doesn’t help himself.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/64581621
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/oct/26/tory-mp-under-fire-for-transphobic-comments-about-eddie-izzard
- Cut metal to a fraction of a mm.
- Weld metal so it stays together and doesn't warp like a banana.
- Make a number of things the same size and shape, to the mm.
- Design and build a tracked vehicle that doesn't endanger the user with excessive vibration and noise.
Dark arts to the builders of AJAX, apparently.
https://www.armadainternational.com/2022/10/abrams-x-next-generation-mbt-technology/
We're in the transition phase - I thought that was one of the triggers for the war now rather in 5 years when Russia's old gear (and military doctrine) becomes completely worthless.
Chinese might be making reverse calculations re Taiwan's hardware of course.
That's the kind of thing where the judge starts stretching out their throwing arm, and looks at the really really heavy books.
He is likely to only serve only 12 months, assuming he remains clean in prison, then after 12 months he should be eligible for HDC and spend 12 months on tag.
It was an impressive place for a kid. One of the main things that impressed teenage-me was the cleanliness; cutting steel to fine tolerances, but the air was clear. The paintshop was also fascinating.
But seriously: why not give the contract to companies like them, at least for the non-bangy parts? And once they've done the production run, they can go back to making 3CXs and rubber ducks. Then get the bangy parts from elsewhere, and get them to mate the two.
Our system allows Prime Ministers to be replaced mid-Parliament, and Truss and Sunak are hardly the first to come to the Premiership without a GE win, though I think is Truss the first to come to power without a GE win AND not be allowed to fight the next one?
I suppose an interesting question would be, do you consider Brown, Callaghan and Home to be democratically elected? All three became Prime Minister, and for all three, at the first opportunity the voting public disagreed with their assent and removed them.
And what of Major, and May. In one case, Major became PM without a GE, and his appointment was validated two years after appointment.
In the case of May, after being appointed she asked the public and got a 'mewh' answer..... Her party failed to secure a majority.
In reality, GE are a chance to pick your local representative, but many people rock up and vote 'Labour' because they live in Bootle and are tribal.
Question for the older PBs..... before party names were allowed on the ballot paper, did you get many people in the polling booths shouting to the election officials, "Who's the Labour chap again?"?
Here's the view of another Tory MP
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1623607688465620993
Which is likely to be standard fir quite a bit of Europe.
"Sure, we can build you some trains. What do you mean your tunnels aren't big enough?"
Meanwhile, at election time, 10m carefully-targeted Tory Facebook ads will run in the Red Wall constituencies, with Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson very prominent, arguing that people like you and him should be voting for the government to continue, rather than Sir Kneel and the wokerati of Islington.
Korean would be turning our backs on the Heavy MBT concept.
Merkava would upset all the right people. Buy into Carmel?
One advantage would be that this would lead, naturally, to Namer IFV. Which would make the airmobile types heads explode.
We're seeing BMPs and tanks be lost at frightening speed in Ukraine. Yet both Russia and Ukraine want more of them. Why? Because although they're vulnerable, although they're lost, they're useful. It's better to have them than not to have them. If you lose one tank, but gain ground that would have not been possible without losing that tank, then you've gained. True, it's better not to lose the tank, but it did its job.
And that's the sad fact: tanks, and their crews, are disposable - just as infantry are. You don't want to pointlessly waste them, but they're pointless if you don't use them when needed.
We could do with a movement like his right now.
Something has made a difference - perhaps the raised expectations and setting up a charity for th purposes of extracting money. Need to see the sentencing remarks.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/dec/15/boris-becker-freed-from-jail-uk
There were some very lucky MPs who had rental agreements that looked extremely dodgy to say the least, no contract, no receipts, paid to mates.
Tank Lego.
You just need good project management.
Oh... I see what you mean.
And there was barely any democratic scrutiny at all when this - apparently insurmountable - body of law was coming in. The entire Europhile nexus of lawyers, activists, civil servants and MPs will be scrawling through EU law trying to find outrages to post on Twitter and send to the Guardian this time, so scrutiny will be there.
All this doommongering is just like when we actually voted to leave and mass unemployment was predicted around every corner. When actually nothing happened and Remainers had to wait for a global pandemic and the results of deficit spending for our economy to hit trouble, so they could finally blame Brexit.
Elected officials should be held well above the standards expected of everyone else.
Elon Musk said there were multiple “internal and external issues with the app simultaneously” as thousands of people reported being unable to tweet or follow users.
The site had just extended the 280-character limit for tweets to 4,000 for Twitter Blue subscribers in the United States. It is unclear whether this caused the technical problems.
Musk told his staff: “Please pause for now on new feature development in favor of maximizing system stability and robustness, especially with the Super Bowl coming up,” according to a leaked message.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/twitter-outage-daily-tweet-limit-direct-messages-elon-musk-wfnzt7bnh
NEW THREAD
Electric power to tracks has a history - and it suggests that it needs to be built for it from the ground up.
Thanks for the Challenger 3 answer to my question though.
https://twitter.com/alx/status/1623455635500335105/photo/1
The tank (as a function) will continue - but if you could take out the crew, you could create a much lower profile.
I believe we're seeing a similar process in aviation. Keep your pilots trained at great expense safe and sound as drone operators in Arizona.
But it will create a significant gap in speed and performance between old and new generations. (G forces where pilots black out will no longer form part of the operational envelope etc).
We've seen it before - the Royal Navy had to replace its fleet after the 1850s, and again after the Dreadnought.
And what a bizarre argument. If I slap you in the face, is it OK for me to respond to your complaints with Tell that to the citizens of hiroshima in 1945?
War is people. Which is one of the reason I'm in the lets-end-this-quickly camp, rather than the lets-denude-russia-with-a-long-war camp. Because the latter costs Ukrainian blood.