Heavy enough to take my Honda and the wifes Citroen out of the school run business!. That kind of being the point!.

It doesnt need to be the Siberian Steppe to necessitate a rough terrain capable vehicle you know!. I’d advise you to find your nearest public slipway and amaze yourself at the shower of numpties who tow 20ft vessels on the back of Mondeo’s and Volvo estates and are so suprised when, after reversing down the slope to dip their trailers, suddenly dont have the traction to get themselves back up the ramp!.

Personally I’ve had tears in my eyes watching the entertainment – the look of unabashed shock on the faces on the incompetent pillocks is always the same too!. Though, using a friends venerable C-reg Range Rover Vogue, we were usually willing and able to lend a hand. I say ‘were’ because thanks to looney-tunes bandwagon riders convinced of the crimes of all 4×4 drivers his car tax bill has now got to a similar level as the insured vale of the Range Rover so he’s had to put it off the road…in a final irony!.:mad:

Somebody once said the greatest aid to road safety would be to mount a big metal spike in the centre of the steering-wheel of every car!

That was Jeremy Clarkson and he was following the theory that if everyone was forced to drive a less-safe car driving standards would improve measurably. The point was that this would be a darwinian process whereby the bad drivers would get found out and, probably, killed.

The side issue he neatly avoided, of course, would be the equal loss of life amongst pedestrians and ‘safe’ drivers whilst the dangerous element purged themselves spectacularly from society.

OK !! I understand your use for a 4×4. But how many people really use an off road vechicle for its intended design ? What do you deem the sticks ? Most drivers of these vechicles have never used low or high ratio gears. Its laughable.

By the sticks I mean muddy fields and wet, slippery, gravelly slipways i.e terrain that an average family car would have an issue with. Your assumption that ‘most of these drivers’ have never used their vehicles 4WD features is entirely baseless…the heavy snow we had earlier this year saw all sorts of people utilising their 4×4’s for exactly the purpose they were intended. There was a magnificent effort from the parents in my eldests school (a small secondary in rural Oxfordshire) that saw parents with ‘Chelsea Tractors’ pulling duty getting kids to and from school before the snow closed it.

You may say thats a ‘one off’ and perhaps it is…but it was a damn good job they were there!

Is that the Landrover Defender ? Great for off roading and Green Lanes, but just cant see why people have to drive them round London ! like i say if you put the average London Land Rover owner on an Off Road test, they would be clueless.

So is this what this is all about then?. 4×4’s being driven in London?. Isn’t that more properly an issue of addressing the traffic chaos in London more than deriding 4×4 owners nationwide?.

Then there is the small issue of whether someone might exist, who lives in a city/town environment, that regularly has a need to drive out into the sticks. Should they perhaps be forced to leave their big hulking 4×4’s in edge of town car parks and then be made to drive Micra’s into town to their homes???.

Ludicrous!.:mad:

This is absurd…bad driving is the preserve of the 4×4 owner?.

Around where I live the white Transit is almost a weapon of mass destruction. I have been forced into evasive maneovers that a Spitfire pilot would be proud of in the course of avoiding unannounced, high-G, launches out of side roads and mysterious faith-based lane-changes. Do I blame the Transit van for this?. Do I label everyone who drives such a vehicle as a rabid monster no, of course not, these people are doubtless equally as deadly in their Subarus or Volkswagens.

What the complainants generalist rant fails to cover is that, outside of very specifc geographic areas i.e Kensington & Chelsea, the 4×4 is a vehicle often chosen for a purpose and offers a capability set not easily replaced any one other vehicle type.

I live in Reading and I’m just in the process of changing my ‘town-sensible’ Honda Civic for a Mitsubishi L200 Warrior. Guess that makes me the antichrist eh?.

The fact that I will be using it as a tow vehicle for boat trailers, plus I have an inexplicable but recurring need to carry loads that do not fit into the Honda, which currently means the hiring of a van every couple of months, PLUS usefulness for lending the occaisional hand with the wife’s business AND the ability to ensure that the dog doesnt have to stink up the interior next time he bloody jumps in a stagnant pond when we go walkies out of town, makes absolutely no difference I guess.

Noooo surely the only reason to own a 4×4, and pay the premium for doing so, is to take up the reins where Mad Max left off and get on the nerves of the moaning masses!. My is that a bandwagon I do see on the horizon….must jump on it!!!.:mad:

Tall mast with heavy radar mount atop it. Going to mess with the stability of the hull if the fineness ratio is too high…beamier hull definitely the way forward here!. Check out how wide the T45 is in the beam if you want a suprise too!

Oh by the way cool crew produced videos like that have now been banned by the MOD. Shame really as videos like these ones are a benefit to recruitment in my opinion.

Got to be said some of the best stuff you ever saw on Youtube were the clips made by 1435, 801sqdn etc and I agree that, for recruitment, showing that side of forces life is critical.

Problem is though for every teenager that sees an air loadie doing his ironing in the back of a Herc and thinks its something he quite fancies a crack at you get a Colonel Farquar-Farquar Smith Rtd or a ‘Concerned of Croydon’ on to the ‘Man at the Ministry’ whinging about how things weren’t like that in his day or moaning about the expenditure made to keep youngsters clowning around on taxpayers money. Double edged sword!.

Its got to be restated though, and its been said before, that air loadie is an effing legend!.

All valid point. I agree that Arg has let the ball drop and not used the time since 82 to update. (a bit similar to the UK in this regard i must say). But they still have options available to cause trouble. For example, causing a non-hostile naval blockade…then lifting it once the UK gets there. Or suddenly amassing forces as if preparing for a fight and then not fighting. The list goes on. They will not be able to retake it, but over a few years, can use some of these tactics to drain the UK. The fact that they have not, nor have they updated their weapons means they dont intend to fight over the falklands anytime soon.

The point i was getting at was that it would be wrong to assume an all out war next time around. They may play it smarter then that.

Kaduna,

The concept of a ‘non-hostile naval blockade’ amused me greatly :-)!. Again, as stated, the actions of a belligerent Argentina would have a diametrically opposite effect to that you are presuming. With a real threat to point to the UK Defence establishment would have a real stick to beat the Treasury with. Ironically the best course of action, for Argentina, is for them to go out of their way to downplay their interest in the Falkland Islands and hope for even more myopic, stupid, British politicians to pull apart the island defences and the rest of the UK armed forces and leave the door open for them.

Luckily for us, because relying on the stupidity of british politicians is quite a high-percentage bet, Argentina is not likely to let the Malvina’s issue drop and, with publicised abrogations of political agreements, they are being just contrary enough to keep this one on the front burner. Argentina 0 – UK 1 (Argentine own goal).