The US is always telling us it is the greatest. We are just mentioning the snot.

Sorry I just laughed at this. Very true but it was so damned funny.:D

Also you try and take just a little too much credit for ww2, according to saving privat ryan, there weren’t any Brits in Omaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry mate but there wern’t any Brits on Omaha beach. There were however Brits and Canadians (mostly) on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. According to Saving Private Ryan, the Brits were there on or at least close to D-Day, apparently though, according to Ted Danson, they were’nt a very imoprtant part of the whole operation and were largley ineffectual. But I know what you mean.

You’re apparently among those who prefer to neglect this material. Your choice.

Not quite I am just trying to read too many books all at the same time.

Apart from aviation and motorcycle periodicals I am also reading

The Science of Discworld 2 (Just finished part 1)

Operation Lightning Strike (a take on the X Files from a British military viewpoint, its a sort of Red Storm Rising with little green men. 🙂 )

Taliesin. (a semi historical fantasy novel involving the fabled Welsh bard and the lost continent of Atlantis)

All The Weyrs of Pern (of Anne McCaffery fame)

I have only just finnished Peter F Hamilton’s ‘Nights Dawn Trilogy’ which is a fantastic Space Saga set in the 26th century and once again written from a British viewpoint. Then I read his ‘Fallen Dragon’ novel which I have to say was even better than Nights Dawn if only because the ending was less……………….strange.

I am also in the middle of another Pratchett novel ‘Maurice and his educated rodents’ amongst others.

So my problem is one of trying to read too much at the same time
its a little habit of mine that I really must curtail. It isn’t helped by the close proximity of a little town on the Welsh border called Hay on Wye which is sometimes refered to as the second hand bookshop capital of the world. We go there at least twice a year. there is a place called ‘The pound bookshop’ because they sell new and used titles for £1 or less. The place is lethal for bookworms. My wife finds it easier, she has a photographic memory. I watched her read Raymond E Feist’s ‘The Magician’ in a matter of hours when we first met. I thought she was just speed reading but then she proceeded to quote whole paragraphs word for word from memory. Her mother reads even faster, Its a bit scary.

🙂

Overall I found just a few mistakes but thats what they were, simple mistakes, typos even. I have’nt read the whole thing yet I am trying to make it last. Did you get the Rafale supplement from a few years back? It might have been last year. If so did it meet your expectations?

Have you read the whole of the Silmarillion? I’ve leterally read bits of it. Is it worth persevering with? (Please excuse spelling I think it is a symptom of mind bending boredom, I want to go home now.) 🙁

How many is Portugal buying? 🙂

With Russia and China’s expressed intent on developing 5th generation fighters, can we say that the EU spent all its resources on couple of obsolete ideas, the only way it can keep its tech edge on the battle field(2015 onwards) is to buy american equipment, does not do much for the idea of a European force Iam afraid.

This might be interesting:

http://www.indiadefence.com/stealth.htm

The pictures might not show in this but it does look interesting:

http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/halo.htm

My point is that we have to deal with what we have now and we cannot and must not rely on the Americans for all of our defence requirements.

A few years back the USA wanted to sell Abrams tanks to the British Army although the Challenger 2 was nearing the end of its development and it was (and is) a perfectly good system. The Americans were going to sell the Abrams at a very low price and the MoD was interested. If it had gone through the British MBT development industry would have ‘gone under’. If this had happened in 20 years or so when the vehicles needed to be replaced and lets just say for arguments sake the Germans and the French had gone the same way there would have been very little choice perhaps but to buy new American equipment. At which point they (the Americans) could have asked any price had the requirement been important enough to fill.

It is one example of what would happen to the European defence industry and the thousands of jobs that go with it if we don’t do it for ourselves.

I have said this time and again. There is nothing obsolete about the Rafale or the Typhoon simply because they are not classic stealth designs. In the long run I can see a new Pan European stealth project and it might be based on HALO. When? I don’t know I doubt it will be before 2015, perhaps in 2020 but it will happen so long as we don’t beleive all the American hype and it will be just as good if not better.

Transall said:

Apparantly, Typhoon has both opponents and supporters who make exaggerated claims. I think it’s the latter who wrote that about the supercruising.

I assume then you don’t ‘read’ anything you just make it up as you go along? How do you discover what you know then Transall if you don’t read anything and you think those that do are perhaps a little naive and are being misled? Do you have a crystal ball? :confused:

The eagle can already do, all that is advertised by the Euro – fighters…

Thats debateable. I’m not saying its not true but I am saying it is debateable. Its not debateable however that it has a longer range and a heavier payload but thats not the whole story is it?

In any case whatever the Strike Eagle can do compared to the Typhoon it does it at twice the operating costs and you ain’t saving much on the unit price either, if anything. Also if you need to refuel it in mid air you will need a boom tanker to go with it (more expense) or you will have to pay for an upgrade so that it will accept fuel from a drogue tanker. The design is also 30 years old no matter how new the airframe is, it was designed in a different era.

Its never as simple as “its an F15, of course its better.”