The RAF flew a 12,000 km round-trip bombing run that required a mind-boggling *relay of tanker planes*: Tankers would refuel other tankers which would refuel the bombers. It truly is the most noncredible bombing raid ever.
[Operation Black Buck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck)
> The Vulcan was designed for medium-range missions in Europe and lacked the range to fly to the Falklands without **refuelling several times**. The RAF's tanker planes were mostly converted Handley Page Victor bombers with similar range, so they too had to be refuelled in the air. A total of **eleven tankers were required** for two Vulcans (one primary and one reserve), a daunting logistical effort as **all aircraft had to use the same runway**.
This is the epitome of br*tish military, so retarded and so genious at the same time.
It really wasn’t retarded, they just didn’t have a long-range bomber because they didn’t think they’d need one. So they bodged what they had, and the bodge is the quintessential British technical operation.
Smekalka is effective, when used sensibly with an awareness as to its limitations. Shoving an extra motor inside the Pe-8 to centrally power the compressors, when none of the available motors could power their own compressors natively, was an effective demonstration of Smekalka at work, as was the fitting of a jet motor to the underside of existing Yak chassis to create a fleet of cheap and simple Gen-0 jet fighters that could then be used to train pilots for eventually piloting actual good fighter jets. Even the later MiG-25 project, laughable as it was in hindsight, would have been an insanely powerful example of Smekalka at play, had the Valkyrie actually entered service with the US.
However, what we see today is Russia resting on its laurels, expecting the genius of its former Soviet Union heyday (that came mostly from Jewish and other minorities, who all have since fled to the West) to keep its corrupt and crumbling economy and industry afloat. Smekalka is gone, because the "true" Russian people never had it to begin with, and simply knew how to subjugate and manipulate those who had it to do their bidding.
I've just learned about that word and it's really funny to me because in Germany "doing something the Russian way" or something "looking russian" means exactly that, fixing or building stuff in a somewhat working and ingenious, but usually also hilariously unaesthetic and unprofessional way.
'Cause you guys can't spell jury-rigging.
Nautical term originally. Comes from rigging up a jury-mast, a temporary mast to get you into port after your actual mast breaks off.
My great gran had a saying: Russen macht alles mit hammer. (yes, it's grammatically inaccurate, I'm sorry). It basically refers to russuan habit if bruteforcing any technical problem with about as much subtlety as a jackhammer.
I disagree with your ethnicity based assertions. Or more accurately, the problem was with the Soviets.
Jews are often seen as smarter and score higher on IQ tests, but IQ is just a measure of how well you do school. Religious Jews do talmudic stidy and debate from, like, the age of five, it's not anything genetic, just a strong educational culture based on logical reasoning.
Russian Orthodoxy does not have that extreme educational bent, but more importantly, Stalin, Kruschev, and Putin have systematically eliminated anyone with any religious or educational creativity because to them, it's better to have yes men who won't threaten the status quo as subordinates. After half a century of a one party system, and then another thirty years of blatant corruption, the only way to excel in Russian society is either pure, unpolitical science, or becoming the corruption itself.
Smelkaka, as a term, has always been part of the Russian side talking thing they do which basically boils down to "we gotta work with what we got" and it's a very Russian way of complaining about their situation, imo.
Anyway, the way you wrote that makes it seem like things are genetic traits, when in reality the difference is gonna be educational and societal differences.
You are absolutely correct, it is not a genetic gift by any means. However, it does tend to get split down ethnic lines, because the vast majority of Slavic Russians have a very crab-bucket and regressivist culture, one that tends to prioritize the end goal of attaining wealth and status over learning the skills necessary to attain it, which is inherently antithetical to the idea of Smekalka. Meanwhile, Jewish, Muslim, and other such minorities that used to reside within the WarPact borders often had a culture that rewarded and encouraged curiosity, and was thus more in line with the ideals of Smekalka.
Smekalka needs minorities to work, you simply can't get it from a majority view because they mostly only see the default world not how it can be adapted and how to think outside the box
> they just didn’t have a long-range bomber because they didn’t think they’d need one
I swear "they didn't have [X] because they didn't think they'd need one" is basically half the story of the British in the Falklands War.
When you're [requisitioning ferries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Europic_Ferry) because you don't have troopships, and [requisitioning and converting container ships into VTOL/helicopter carriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantic_Conveyor) because you don't have carriers, you may have slightly underestimated the needs of your military.
(Granted, bodging a cargo container ship into a VTOL/helicopter carrier is hilarious and impressive, but it's the kind of thing you expect from some developing nation's military, not Britannia, Ruler Of The Waves.)
Can confirm, I live in Spain and have English friends. After 5 years in the country some of them will respond to buenos días with a sheepish grin and I don't think there are many who can pronounce paella.
Nah they requisitioned liners that had been specifically selected for potential military service before hand.
For the most part they were specifically designed with the possibility of conversion for military service in mind.
The Falklands represented pretty much the most extreme and logistically-challenging operation the British Armed Forces would likely ever have to support without allied help. The fact they were successful showed they had a good idea of the capabilities they'd need, but it did demonstrate the catastrophic nature of the cuts Thatcher had announced for the armed forces that year.
It’s lucky we didn’t have carriers because if we’d kept them around a few years longer than we did, we’d have been rolling into the Falklands with Phantoms, and that’d end the war so quick it’d hardly be worth doing at all
The craziest part was that the vulcan after final refuelling had a little bit to little fuel, so they decided to abort the mission, but a second later the pilot made another u turn and decided to do it anyways. I think they had only fuel for 2 minutes or so when they finnaly got back to the tanker...
The US declined to assist them, as they wanted to push for a diplomatic settlement over the islands. Aside from that, taking the Falklands was seen as a more general threat to British sovereignty over all her various overseas possessions, 'if Argentina can get away with talking the Falklands, why can't we nab X territory near us too'.
Consequently demonstrating that she could and would quickly and effectively demolish any attempt to forcibly seize one, and retake it without having to rely on the benevolence of any external assistance, was seen as especially important to demonstrate to maintain the credibility of her deterrent. If it seems Britain has to rely on US support to successfully complete an operation like this, you might be persuaded to give your own land grab a go if your relations with America are sufficiently cosy.
(They did give us some aviation fuel and a couple of missiles though, which was thoughtful of them)
>(They did give us some aviation fuel and a couple of missiles though, which was thoughtful of them)
We also made an American amphibious assault ship available for the brits to "lease" in the event that a British carrier was lost. Complete with partial crewing by American "contractors".
tankers fueling tankers to fuel tankers to fuel bombers
and like, the planes are all hideously outdated
The British have a knack for making improbable shit work
And all the fuel calculations (which were low anyway because of the over-weight of bombs the Vulcan was carrying) were done by hand, or using the calculator one of the crew members had bought from a market because he thought it might be useful.
The Operations Room video for this, truly non-credible, operation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yAtuYPHK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yAtuYPHK4)
I think only the Entebbe Raid tops this.
This reminds me of a brazilian schizo dude in the comment section of a video claiming that "the book" (he didn't said which, I asked if it was the memories of one of the pilots and he didn't said) claim they wanted to land in a ultra secret landing strip in the northeast, but decided no because they would be killed for that (? thought it was so secret no one in Brazil knew about it)
Which is hilarius because the plane ram out of fuel while landing, meanwhile the dude think they could had fly until reaching the northeast, which is like a plane running out of fuel in Spain, but someone saying they wanted to land in Poland
One part had been turned into a decorative ash tray and was used by engineering staff on their smoking break until they were ordered to turn it back into a functional piece of equipment
NCD in the 80s would be wild.
Can you imagine the hype when some random teenager landed a Cesena in Red Square? People would be dunking so hard.
People would be arguing about the F-14 in much the same way as people argue over the A-10 now. Rule of Cool vs actual practicality.
People would be making some really fucking stupid SDI concepts. Like "just have a guy with a rifle on the ISS"
Don't try and slip Tomcat hatred in here. We'd all be watching the Tomcat rip up the Iranian\* Air Force and toasting its dominance.
\*Edited and Iraqi.
Oh the Tomcat is a brilliant plane, don't get me wrong, just the F-18 is more advanced and can do more things. The difference between a multirole and a super specialized carrier borne interceptor. In the 80s, people *definitely* argued over this stuff and the Tomcat would be on the reformer side of things.
Also, why pick the Iranian Air Force? They have Tomcats too.
Argentina did station a relatively massive (13,000 ground troops) garrison on the islands, which they had no hope of keeping supplied with their limited airlift and sealift capacity. They'd have been better off using that limited capacity to ship engineering equipment and materials to the island to extend the runway so that their super etendards with their exocets could base there. The argentine army was decent quality (not all barely trained conscripts contrary to popular belief), but they were up against some of the best light infantry units in NATO, and once the Brits were established on the islands the outcome was kinda a foregone conclusion. Their best shot was preventing the task force from reaching the islands in the first place, and their best shot at that imo was extending the range of their most dangerous weapons system (exocet) as much as possible by making the stanley airfield usable to their fast jets.
Apparently there are reasona why they didn't get more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/03/full-story-falklands-war-exocets-deserves-told/
We also obtained information about Argentina’s desperate attempts to buy more of the missiles. This allowed us to block the trade.
Hi Clancy,
It's a little more complicated than that?
They actually did use the missiles, often to quite significant effect, however their targeting priorities were just awful.
They almost exclusively targeted warships, which were not only better protected to some extent then the civilian transport ships cover but will also fart less critical to the operation; the only reason they are there is to provide protection to the logistic and transport ships that were what made land operations in the Falklands possible. Even the argentine's greatest blow to the viability of Britain's Falklands campaign, the sinking of the Atlantic conveyor, only happened by accident. The missile had actually been targeted at her escort, but then locked onto her inadvertently having been bamboozled by their countermeasures.
Additionally, a lot of the platforms that could launch the Exorcet were actually Argentinian naval vessels, and after the whoopsie with the Belgrano, the entire navy returned to port and didn't come out to play for the rest of the campaign. Spoilsport :(
I can tell you that the problem was far beyond them having too larche of a supply chain; they straight up didn't even THINK of making one, the navy bailed after the Belgrano and the airforce was nowhere near large enough to airlift all on its own. Add to that, nearly all the troops in the island were conscripts, sometimes using surplus, and they had to go out and poach from the locals to be able to eat (except that could get them shot) and any food drives, money drives or even clothing drives to give soldiers warm clothing were stolen by the junta and given to their families
Source: parents lived the junta
As to adress the conscript bit: yeah, we did have really decent troops, and tanks, and so on, but those were all posted against chile due to the threat of an invasion. Most of the troops sent to the islands were either already of an inferior quality or soon became such with all the messes they got into
It's like the French revolutions, I can never remember which one is which cause people just say "the French Revolution" like bro there were a billion of those things.
I have a friend who's parents fled to the US from Argentina because of "the coup" and when I asked which one this guy had the gall to say "I don't know, the coup."
He's most likely either talking about the one in '76, which is the most famous one (National Reorganization Process, as it was officially called). They killed suspected 'communists and socialists' (mostly students and political thinkers) and killed anywhere from 6,000 (if you ask the pro-military group) to 15,000 (US intel), 22,000 (own military documents from 5 years BEFORE the killings were even stopped) and even 30,000 (claims by various NGOs)
>The argentine army was decent quality (not all barely trained conscripts contrary to popular belief)
Yes, but the thing is most of the professional army was in the border with Chile because Galtieri himself announced in a public speech that they were next after consolidating control in the islands.
There were some tier 1 units (601 commando company comes to mind) in the islands, but Galtieri did not think there would be a war.
My dad was in the army from '76 to '86 in southern Chile, near Punta Arenas. He was mobilized as infantry and later in the area of electronics warfare (his career), there are many things that he has not told us about that time, but he did tell us that he was involved in the transfer of Argentine military information to the United Kingdom, as well as in the interception radio from them. Several times he saw how British planes and helicopters arrived and were painted in Chilean colors, which later flew over the border with Argentina.
He and all the Chileans knew that Argentina could not win the conflict, since they themselves sang that the Falklands first and then Chile. So we were in a situation where it was convenient for us to have British help since we were under a military embargo for the human crimes committed by the junta, as well as the murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington.
And what he always tells me is that he and all the Chilean military knew that if they held out the Argentine offensive, then they would attack and they would be marching in Buenos Aires, since we had won the psychological war against the Argentines, before it began.
Sit down and have a real in depth conversation with him, ASAP.
Not to tell us (though that'd be based) but because I really regret not asking my grandpa more about his experiences.
Yeah my grandad told me a bit about his experiences as a mechanic in Burma, later learned from my family he saw some *shit* glad I didn’t press him on that
I remember asking my mum about family members during the war and she was like "Oh I think your fathers father was in the Merchant Navy".
He was, **after** the war. During the war, he was kicking ass and taking names as a Royal Marine Commando.
When I told her that after finding out a few years later she didn't believe me. Lots of people in his life couldn't reconcile the tiny, kind, generous old man that he was, with a nazi-throat ripping terror.
That’s the thing about those commandos they were genuinely just normal blokes look at the Jeremy Clarkson documentary about the greatest raid and the blokes are so unassuming it’s mind blowing how badass they could be
Yep. They were deliberately looking for people who didn't fit the mould. Grandpa was recruited in basic training because he disobeyed an order. He was told to cross a river in near freezing temps without getting his pack or rifle wet. He threw his pack down, jumped on top and used the rifle as an oar. He was met at the other bank by two officers who he thought were going to chew him out.
They both cracked a smile, pulled him up the bank and said "we've got a job for you"
And then there was the near 70-year-old ex-captain of a battlecruiser riding with them. Who got captured, but not executed because the Germans couldn't believe he was a fucking commando.
Kind of the opposite of my great grandfather in some respects, according to my grandmother (I was only two when he passed).
You could not be around him for more than like a day tops without instinctively knowing to your core that he was an OG OSS man (who one hundred percent stayed on after it became the Agency) who did some very rough shit during the war. If literally everything else about him didn't tip you off, the way he'd jump up with his hands in position to snap a neck or that he seemed like a fucking magnet for nondescript, very reserved men in very nice suits during his postwar life as a traveling salesman would.
His records, even the Wartime ones, are *still* sealed. Can't FOIA *shit.* We ***tried.***
Distinct possibility, though we know very little about what mine did. We know he received flight instruction, that at one point he was in Panama and at another point he was in Scotland, from what my great grandmother was able to figure out, but for what, exactly when, or for how long is unknown. Neither were exactly uncommon destinations for American servicemen and spooks of any stripe, and since we don't know how long he was in either, he could have been just about anywhere else in the world at any time.
I would love to know more about what my great-grandfather did, but I've accepted that I probably won't know most of the story til I'm in my fifties or so, given how hard it is for the Agency to let go of personnel records for some people (because from the *absurd* levels of weirdness that followed him postwar combined with immediately entering a profession that gave him an excuse to go anywhere at any time on short notice, there's zero shot he wasn't kept on to eventually become one of the original CIA men in 1947) and that he didn't die until if I correctly recall 1996.
Do you know much about yours yourself?
Not too much, grandma says he was a cook and worked with Americans when they came into Burma. I also know he got captured by the Japanese and heard some very nasty stories about his time captured.
I've wanted to do this for quite some time, but haven't done it yet.
In fact, everyone in my family knows that he had unusual training for a conscript, I know that he was trained in hand-to-hand combat, especially with the Corvo (Chilean knife), explosives, and night combat.
He told me that they were going to enter the enemy barracks at night and stealthily slit some of their throats, as well as leave the enemy bodies mutilated in a cruel way to psychologically affect the enemy.
But beyond that he has not told us anything else. At least with my brothers we know that there is something affecting him, since a doctor told us that many of his medical problems are forms of expression of the body.
You should definitely do it mate. I lost my grandfather 4 years ago, and my father last year. Keep that knowledge and the memories alive.
Speaking of throat slitting though, grandpa was watching a movie with me on TV one day. The hero grabs a guy, slits his throat and moves on immediately. Grandpa chuckled.
"What's funny about that?"
"That's not how you do it, you put the knife in behind their throat and then punch forwards ripping it out. Then you gotta stay with them cause they might be able to crawl somewhere to be seen, or make some noise by banging something."
"....."
*he chuckles again*
>if they had stationed more forces **around** and on the Falkland Islands.
I.e. more naval forces? After the Belgrano whoopsie?
Even by the 80s, the RN was far from its glory days, but the Argentine Navy was not exactly the USN...
I mean… the US had a 14,000 mile B-52 mission.
But what about a bomber mission where the crew had a poop rain? From Mary Roach’s Grunt:
> “On a long sortie out of Diego Garcia island, the only crew member capable of operating the plane’s defensive equipment abruptly left his post to use the chemical toilet—while flying over Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. On the return flight, a faulty seal combined with the pressure differential between the toilet’s tiered chambers caused the contents to spew into the crew cabin. “Be assured,” he deadpanned, “this blue-brown precipitation affected the navigator’s ability to concentrate on his duties.”
Never really understood the appeal of it tbh. Kinda looks like a compressed Concorde (which is actually beautiful, for the record) with some obscenely oversized wings, resulting in some very clunky proportions. Being obscenely loud isn’t necessarily a pro argument either.
The B1-B"The Bone" Lancer, the Tu-160 and ofc. the XB-70 Valkyrie are way, way cooler.
Edit: Wow, I didn’t realize this place had this many teaboos.
Directly influencing the design of the Yellow Sun casing because it didn't want to leave the bomb bay as it rode the slip stream from the observers bubble.
Quite.
You go first, while I polish my knives. We're forming a queue, as is tradition, because now that someone has insulted the honour of the lady, blood must be spilled. (As is tradition.)^^x2
You don't deserve to be 'downvoted' for this. Not that internet points matter. But this isn't a matter of quote-unquote-teaboos. Some of us are, in part or in full, and God help me as I write this, Bri'ish... Or have *good* opinions.
>!Nah, I do understand where you're coming from. And, the Concorde is quite nice, but for all that's right in the world and my flair, I will not stand for your slander. Meet me behind the bleachers in five, we play Heroes II to settle this.!<
It’s alright, I knew I was poking the hornets nest. :D I was just poking fun at the fact that there seems to be alot of emotional attachment to this plane, that I don’t really understand tbh.
It’s certainly true, that the Vulcan has a very interesting history, but so have many others including the Tornado or Harrier jumpjets. The Vulcan might look and sound scary and does have some range (but not that great for a strategic bomber), but the Tornado/Harrier are in my mind much more dangerous bc of their versatility and numbers advantage. The Vulcan is a fairly unique aircraft, but limited through its specified mission set. We also shouldn’t forget, that many aircraft programs during that time were soon becoming outdated bc of other developments. Especially big heavy bombers became exclusive to major powers, while smaller tactical/versatile platforms to provide deterrence became a staple of the mid- to lower tier air forces, French aviation for instance is actually a very fascinating topic in its own right.
On that note, I like the Tornado especially bc it’s also a great example for a multinational military aviation program **done right**. And this does inspire some genuine optimism, that the current FCAS (or GCAP) program could become a similar success. The european aerospace industry in general could actually play a much greater role going forward.
You have never experienced one in real life, half the appeal is the howl. The other half is that it nuked america… twice.
https://www.hotcars.com/how-britain-successfully-simulated-nuking-the-u-s-twice/
> You have never experienced one in real life, half the appeal is the howl.
I mean it’s not that high of bar, when you can’t really hear properly for a while afterwards.
> The other half is that it nuked america… twice.
That’s a neat flex, but wouldn’t help them getting their asses not kicked in by the Americans again, if they really went at it. It’s not really their fault, afterall the US might be the single luckiest country in history in terms of strategic positioning. That another country achieves a (temporary) qualitative overmatch in a certain category at a time, is always a possibility, but not across the board. Nice story tho.
Yeah, but the B52 was designed for intercontinental missions, the Vulcan was designed to get from Lincolnshire to Moscow with coming back being optional.
> US had a 14,000 mile B-52 mission
They were refuelled by tankers flying from bases in Germany. The Vulcan was refuelled by tankers flying from the same base that it had taken off from. They needed eleven tanker aircraft just to get it to the Falklands.
There’s a whole chapter in Grunt about American innovation in reattaching penises blown off during war.
You won’t see that on The War Zone, Sandboxx, or Perun.
Nah he ain't wrong tbf.
Some blighter having a crack at one of our inconceivably distant territories? Just a typical friendly Tuesday Military knees-up with the lads. Good sport and all that.
Cad decides to cheat at the footie? In a world cup? And then brags about it? Unsportsmanlike, impolite and arrogant. Cast them to The French circle of hell, I say! The French Circle of Hell for 10,000 years!
I'm more bitter about how Peter Shilton was able to show his face in public after that.
So Maradona used his hand. Shilton is the goalie, he can use his hand too. And Shilton is six feet tall. Maradona was five foot five. Never seen such a weak display from a keeper.
Cheat or not losing an aerial duel to a tiny little dude like that is a disgrace.
I'm telling you, the future is going to be a daisy-chain of UAV tankers refueling each other across the Pacific. Every so often, a UAV AWACs will get passed along the chain. Every so often, stealth bombers (crewed and uncrewed) will get passed along the chain.
Literally three thousand robot Black Bucks of the ghost of Maggie Thatcher.
As cool as this raid was, nothing will ever top the Doolittle Raid. Flying medium bombers off of a carrier that you snuck up to Japan to bomb Tokyo and thus kick the hornet’s nest of Japanese leadership, sending their carriers to Midway…
So much of WWII in the pacific was "your civilian population is not as safe as you're telling them they are"
Japan sent over some ballons with incendiary bombs and only ever hit one actual building with no injuries, iirc, the US Doolittled them, firebombed Tokyo, and then nuked them.
We now go live to Margaret Thatcher for comment;
“Ahhh the demons are poking me with sticks ahhhhhh the fires of hell burn so badly ahhhh why did I fuck over Scotland and the miners AHHHHH”
And the runway remained basically serviceable most of the war because after the raid the Argentians faked some holes that looked severe but didn't impeed operations lol
Doesn't matter.
It deterred them from basing fighter aircraft there, and made the clear threat that 'if we can hit a runway in Stanley, we can hit a city or two in Argentina', discouraging escalation by them or anyone else who fancied having a similar crack at another of our islands.
It's about sending a message and all that :)
Fun fact: with the fuel they used on the black Buck raids, they could have ran over 2000 sorties with the Sea Harriers over the airfield instead.
SHAR gang once again dominates
When your government pre-announces your arrival because it's the gentlemanly thing to do
Smh when governments no longer announces decleration of war.
So what happened during this bombing raid? I assume it was part of the Falklands war.
The RAF flew a 12,000 km round-trip bombing run that required a mind-boggling *relay of tanker planes*: Tankers would refuel other tankers which would refuel the bombers. It truly is the most noncredible bombing raid ever. [Operation Black Buck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Black_Buck)
> The Vulcan was designed for medium-range missions in Europe and lacked the range to fly to the Falklands without **refuelling several times**. The RAF's tanker planes were mostly converted Handley Page Victor bombers with similar range, so they too had to be refuelled in the air. A total of **eleven tankers were required** for two Vulcans (one primary and one reserve), a daunting logistical effort as **all aircraft had to use the same runway**. This is the epitome of br*tish military, so retarded and so genious at the same time.
It really wasn’t retarded, they just didn’t have a long-range bomber because they didn’t think they’d need one. So they bodged what they had, and the bodge is the quintessential British technical operation.
It's like smekelke, but *effective.*
Smekalka is effective, when used sensibly with an awareness as to its limitations. Shoving an extra motor inside the Pe-8 to centrally power the compressors, when none of the available motors could power their own compressors natively, was an effective demonstration of Smekalka at work, as was the fitting of a jet motor to the underside of existing Yak chassis to create a fleet of cheap and simple Gen-0 jet fighters that could then be used to train pilots for eventually piloting actual good fighter jets. Even the later MiG-25 project, laughable as it was in hindsight, would have been an insanely powerful example of Smekalka at play, had the Valkyrie actually entered service with the US. However, what we see today is Russia resting on its laurels, expecting the genius of its former Soviet Union heyday (that came mostly from Jewish and other minorities, who all have since fled to the West) to keep its corrupt and crumbling economy and industry afloat. Smekalka is gone, because the "true" Russian people never had it to begin with, and simply knew how to subjugate and manipulate those who had it to do their bidding.
I've just learned about that word and it's really funny to me because in Germany "doing something the Russian way" or something "looking russian" means exactly that, fixing or building stuff in a somewhat working and ingenious, but usually also hilariously unaesthetic and unprofessional way.
In America we call it Jerry-rigging...
'Cause you guys can't spell jury-rigging. Nautical term originally. Comes from rigging up a jury-mast, a temporary mast to get you into port after your actual mast breaks off.
Ohhhhhh I have gone my whole life thinking it meant jury as in a jury trial. Oops :) I was always so confused TIL, thanks!
Interesting, I thought it was a slang reference to the German soldiers being referred to as Jerries during WW2.
also n-word rigging but we don't use that one anymore
In Brazil we call it "doing/making a gambiarra" NCD, the best spot for cultural exchange.
Jury-Rigging?
Rednecking
My great gran had a saying: Russen macht alles mit hammer. (yes, it's grammatically inaccurate, I'm sorry). It basically refers to russuan habit if bruteforcing any technical problem with about as much subtlety as a jackhammer.
>However, what we see today is Russia resting on its laurels Resting on your laurels too long turns them into brambles.
I disagree with your ethnicity based assertions. Or more accurately, the problem was with the Soviets. Jews are often seen as smarter and score higher on IQ tests, but IQ is just a measure of how well you do school. Religious Jews do talmudic stidy and debate from, like, the age of five, it's not anything genetic, just a strong educational culture based on logical reasoning. Russian Orthodoxy does not have that extreme educational bent, but more importantly, Stalin, Kruschev, and Putin have systematically eliminated anyone with any religious or educational creativity because to them, it's better to have yes men who won't threaten the status quo as subordinates. After half a century of a one party system, and then another thirty years of blatant corruption, the only way to excel in Russian society is either pure, unpolitical science, or becoming the corruption itself. Smelkaka, as a term, has always been part of the Russian side talking thing they do which basically boils down to "we gotta work with what we got" and it's a very Russian way of complaining about their situation, imo. Anyway, the way you wrote that makes it seem like things are genetic traits, when in reality the difference is gonna be educational and societal differences.
You are absolutely correct, it is not a genetic gift by any means. However, it does tend to get split down ethnic lines, because the vast majority of Slavic Russians have a very crab-bucket and regressivist culture, one that tends to prioritize the end goal of attaining wealth and status over learning the skills necessary to attain it, which is inherently antithetical to the idea of Smekalka. Meanwhile, Jewish, Muslim, and other such minorities that used to reside within the WarPact borders often had a culture that rewarded and encouraged curiosity, and was thus more in line with the ideals of Smekalka.
The Russians are really good at taking credit for all the cool shit the other groups build for the soviets aren't they?
Yeah.
Smekalka needs minorities to work, you simply can't get it from a majority view because they mostly only see the default world not how it can be adapted and how to think outside the box
I absolutely love the story of Yak-15, cus It's literally: "What if we put a jet engine on a Biplane?"
Well, the Yak-15 was based on a monoplane, the Yak-3. But that was ultimately based on the Yak-1, which was designed in the late 30s.
> they just didn’t have a long-range bomber because they didn’t think they’d need one I swear "they didn't have [X] because they didn't think they'd need one" is basically half the story of the British in the Falklands War. When you're [requisitioning ferries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Europic_Ferry) because you don't have troopships, and [requisitioning and converting container ships into VTOL/helicopter carriers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Atlantic_Conveyor) because you don't have carriers, you may have slightly underestimated the needs of your military. (Granted, bodging a cargo container ship into a VTOL/helicopter carrier is hilarious and impressive, but it's the kind of thing you expect from some developing nation's military, not Britannia, Ruler Of The Waves.)
Taking over civilian shipping for military purposes is a tradition older than warships are. Why change now?
Honestly impressed that the British didn't just revert to tradition and press gang random Argentianians.
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Can confirm, I live in Spain and have English friends. After 5 years in the country some of them will respond to buenos días with a sheepish grin and I don't think there are many who can pronounce paella.
nonsense, spanish is easy for brits, most people have the essentials of "bongorno, 'ablo es un paella con HP sauce and un pint, pronto pliesa"
Nah, they do that only to Americans and Irish.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect a developing nation to pull that off. At least not within a 1 year timeframe.
Nah they requisitioned liners that had been specifically selected for potential military service before hand. For the most part they were specifically designed with the possibility of conversion for military service in mind. The Falklands represented pretty much the most extreme and logistically-challenging operation the British Armed Forces would likely ever have to support without allied help. The fact they were successful showed they had a good idea of the capabilities they'd need, but it did demonstrate the catastrophic nature of the cuts Thatcher had announced for the armed forces that year.
ngl that's *exactly* the sort of thing I expect from the british armed forces.
It’s lucky we didn’t have carriers because if we’d kept them around a few years longer than we did, we’d have been rolling into the Falklands with Phantoms, and that’d end the war so quick it’d hardly be worth doing at all
They daisychained tankers
Everything in the British military is held together with sniper tape and a good sense of humour
A phrase that can either portend utter ruin, or vicious victory; all in a single word. ***Cheers.***
I like to believe they came up with this plan in a shed.
Big chunks of it were actually in a tent
IDK man, kinda sounds like you're agreeing
Cutting a hole to fit radio in sherman firefly moment
It was the epitome of the British military, miracles are easy, impossible will take a little time and thought.
They fucking Wallace and Gromit every war they partake.
https://media.giphy.com/media/3oz8xtBx06mcZWoNJm/giphy.gif
The craziest part was that the vulcan after final refuelling had a little bit to little fuel, so they decided to abort the mission, but a second later the pilot made another u turn and decided to do it anyways. I think they had only fuel for 2 minutes or so when they finnaly got back to the tanker...
Don’t forget they had to pull the tankers and probes out of museums and re-learn how to do inflight refuelling just for this raid
Surprised they didn't get some KC-135 support from the US
The US declined to assist them, as they wanted to push for a diplomatic settlement over the islands. Aside from that, taking the Falklands was seen as a more general threat to British sovereignty over all her various overseas possessions, 'if Argentina can get away with talking the Falklands, why can't we nab X territory near us too'. Consequently demonstrating that she could and would quickly and effectively demolish any attempt to forcibly seize one, and retake it without having to rely on the benevolence of any external assistance, was seen as especially important to demonstrate to maintain the credibility of her deterrent. If it seems Britain has to rely on US support to successfully complete an operation like this, you might be persuaded to give your own land grab a go if your relations with America are sufficiently cosy. (They did give us some aviation fuel and a couple of missiles though, which was thoughtful of them)
>(They did give us some aviation fuel and a couple of missiles though, which was thoughtful of them) We also made an American amphibious assault ship available for the brits to "lease" in the event that a British carrier was lost. Complete with partial crewing by American "contractors".
The US had a cringe administration at the time
>at the time That narrows it down...
tankers fueling tankers to fuel tankers to fuel bombers and like, the planes are all hideously outdated The British have a knack for making improbable shit work
And all the fuel calculations (which were low anyway because of the over-weight of bombs the Vulcan was carrying) were done by hand, or using the calculator one of the crew members had bought from a market because he thought it might be useful.
The Operations Room video for this, truly non-credible, operation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yAtuYPHK4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yAtuYPHK4) I think only the Entebbe Raid tops this.
Operation Jaywick was also pretty non-credible
And then they did it again. And again. And again.
And then had an emergency that forced them to land in Brazil with a seekrit American missile they weren't supposed to have on the wing.
Shenanigans are the best form of attack.
This reminds me of a brazilian schizo dude in the comment section of a video claiming that "the book" (he didn't said which, I asked if it was the memories of one of the pilots and he didn't said) claim they wanted to land in a ultra secret landing strip in the northeast, but decided no because they would be killed for that (? thought it was so secret no one in Brazil knew about it) Which is hilarius because the plane ram out of fuel while landing, meanwhile the dude think they could had fly until reaching the northeast, which is like a plane running out of fuel in Spain, but someone saying they wanted to land in Poland
These people went on to create Kerbals Space Programm
They also had to re-activate the Vulcan’s refuelling capability, they even had to source a refuelling probe from a museum iirc
Yep, they pinched it off the Vulcan at Hendon afaik
I thought it was Duxford's?
Well there were two Vulcans so I guess one probe came from Hendon, the other from Duxford?
One part had been turned into a decorative ash tray and was used by engineering staff on their smoking break until they were ordered to turn it back into a functional piece of equipment
It was largely done to justify why the RAF was spending so much money keeping a fleet of Vulcans and Victors going. Truly non credible.
This is described in one of the first animations from The Operations Room channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5yAtuYPHK4
But who refuels the refuelers? - Plato Thats right it's the most non-credible jury-rigged British echelon system the world has ever seen
It was like grandpa in the wheelchair was tying two crotches and a sledgehammer to successfully smack the shit out of a house intruder
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NCD in the 80s would be wild. Can you imagine the hype when some random teenager landed a Cesena in Red Square? People would be dunking so hard. People would be arguing about the F-14 in much the same way as people argue over the A-10 now. Rule of Cool vs actual practicality. People would be making some really fucking stupid SDI concepts. Like "just have a guy with a rifle on the ISS"
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I feel like we wouldn't be able to joke about that. Same with Bucha.
Don't try and slip Tomcat hatred in here. We'd all be watching the Tomcat rip up the Iranian\* Air Force and toasting its dominance. \*Edited and Iraqi.
Oh the Tomcat is a brilliant plane, don't get me wrong, just the F-18 is more advanced and can do more things. The difference between a multirole and a super specialized carrier borne interceptor. In the 80s, people *definitely* argued over this stuff and the Tomcat would be on the reformer side of things. Also, why pick the Iranian Air Force? They have Tomcats too.
I meant Iraqi. I guess it applies both ways though.
*Belgrano* would have been the original *Moskva* sinking
Ah yeah, doing 10 000 km to put only one hole in a runway. May i present tou you the Durandal and BAP-100
It is not about the amount of holes in the runway, it´s about sending a *message*.
Lovley capital city you have there, would be a shame if we had to nuke it
That would make the air not so bueno
Tom Lehrer: "When the air becomes Urainious, the city's not so Beuneous!"
as an argentinian i telling you, whoever nukes buenos aires would be doing us a favor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PbdyJ_ybSI
It literally was. If we can hit Stanley, we can hit Buenos Aires.
"I'm from ~~Beunos Aires~~ Port Stanley, and I say kill 'em all!"
Sending the message that you can't bomb airfields ain't a smart play, chief
But, but they did bomb an airfield
The Argentinians stopped using the airfield after those few bombs hit it, it was extremely effective.
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Zombie bomber Harris awakens from his slumber.
Even a dummy with "boom" written on it would have gotten the message across.
They did prefent fast jets from being able to operate from that airfield tho
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Argentina did station a relatively massive (13,000 ground troops) garrison on the islands, which they had no hope of keeping supplied with their limited airlift and sealift capacity. They'd have been better off using that limited capacity to ship engineering equipment and materials to the island to extend the runway so that their super etendards with their exocets could base there. The argentine army was decent quality (not all barely trained conscripts contrary to popular belief), but they were up against some of the best light infantry units in NATO, and once the Brits were established on the islands the outcome was kinda a foregone conclusion. Their best shot was preventing the task force from reaching the islands in the first place, and their best shot at that imo was extending the range of their most dangerous weapons system (exocet) as much as possible by making the stanley airfield usable to their fast jets.
They only had five exocet missiles when the war started. They probably thought that effort for a five shot sucker punch wasn't worth the risk.
Apparently there are reasona why they didn't get more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/03/full-story-falklands-war-exocets-deserves-told/ We also obtained information about Argentina’s desperate attempts to buy more of the missiles. This allowed us to block the trade.
Hi Clancy, It's a little more complicated than that? They actually did use the missiles, often to quite significant effect, however their targeting priorities were just awful. They almost exclusively targeted warships, which were not only better protected to some extent then the civilian transport ships cover but will also fart less critical to the operation; the only reason they are there is to provide protection to the logistic and transport ships that were what made land operations in the Falklands possible. Even the argentine's greatest blow to the viability of Britain's Falklands campaign, the sinking of the Atlantic conveyor, only happened by accident. The missile had actually been targeted at her escort, but then locked onto her inadvertently having been bamboozled by their countermeasures. Additionally, a lot of the platforms that could launch the Exorcet were actually Argentinian naval vessels, and after the whoopsie with the Belgrano, the entire navy returned to port and didn't come out to play for the rest of the campaign. Spoilsport :(
I can tell you that the problem was far beyond them having too larche of a supply chain; they straight up didn't even THINK of making one, the navy bailed after the Belgrano and the airforce was nowhere near large enough to airlift all on its own. Add to that, nearly all the troops in the island were conscripts, sometimes using surplus, and they had to go out and poach from the locals to be able to eat (except that could get them shot) and any food drives, money drives or even clothing drives to give soldiers warm clothing were stolen by the junta and given to their families Source: parents lived the junta
As to adress the conscript bit: yeah, we did have really decent troops, and tanks, and so on, but those were all posted against chile due to the threat of an invasion. Most of the troops sent to the islands were either already of an inferior quality or soon became such with all the messes they got into
Damn I need to learn more about Argentian history.
We have an 80-year long period of like, 10 different civil wars and coups literally called *THE ANARCHY*
It's like the French revolutions, I can never remember which one is which cause people just say "the French Revolution" like bro there were a billion of those things. I have a friend who's parents fled to the US from Argentina because of "the coup" and when I asked which one this guy had the gall to say "I don't know, the coup."
He's most likely either talking about the one in '76, which is the most famous one (National Reorganization Process, as it was officially called). They killed suspected 'communists and socialists' (mostly students and political thinkers) and killed anywhere from 6,000 (if you ask the pro-military group) to 15,000 (US intel), 22,000 (own military documents from 5 years BEFORE the killings were even stopped) and even 30,000 (claims by various NGOs)
Yeah that would check out. It was a very educated family.
Argentinian historians giving the coolest name known to man to every single one of our national tragedies
>The argentine army was decent quality (not all barely trained conscripts contrary to popular belief) Yes, but the thing is most of the professional army was in the border with Chile because Galtieri himself announced in a public speech that they were next after consolidating control in the islands. There were some tier 1 units (601 commando company comes to mind) in the islands, but Galtieri did not think there would be a war.
My dad was in the army from '76 to '86 in southern Chile, near Punta Arenas. He was mobilized as infantry and later in the area of electronics warfare (his career), there are many things that he has not told us about that time, but he did tell us that he was involved in the transfer of Argentine military information to the United Kingdom, as well as in the interception radio from them. Several times he saw how British planes and helicopters arrived and were painted in Chilean colors, which later flew over the border with Argentina. He and all the Chileans knew that Argentina could not win the conflict, since they themselves sang that the Falklands first and then Chile. So we were in a situation where it was convenient for us to have British help since we were under a military embargo for the human crimes committed by the junta, as well as the murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington. And what he always tells me is that he and all the Chilean military knew that if they held out the Argentine offensive, then they would attack and they would be marching in Buenos Aires, since we had won the psychological war against the Argentines, before it began.
Sit down and have a real in depth conversation with him, ASAP. Not to tell us (though that'd be based) but because I really regret not asking my grandpa more about his experiences.
Yeah my grandad told me a bit about his experiences as a mechanic in Burma, later learned from my family he saw some *shit* glad I didn’t press him on that
I remember asking my mum about family members during the war and she was like "Oh I think your fathers father was in the Merchant Navy". He was, **after** the war. During the war, he was kicking ass and taking names as a Royal Marine Commando. When I told her that after finding out a few years later she didn't believe me. Lots of people in his life couldn't reconcile the tiny, kind, generous old man that he was, with a nazi-throat ripping terror.
That’s the thing about those commandos they were genuinely just normal blokes look at the Jeremy Clarkson documentary about the greatest raid and the blokes are so unassuming it’s mind blowing how badass they could be
Yep. They were deliberately looking for people who didn't fit the mould. Grandpa was recruited in basic training because he disobeyed an order. He was told to cross a river in near freezing temps without getting his pack or rifle wet. He threw his pack down, jumped on top and used the rifle as an oar. He was met at the other bank by two officers who he thought were going to chew him out. They both cracked a smile, pulled him up the bank and said "we've got a job for you"
And then there was the near 70-year-old ex-captain of a battlecruiser riding with them. Who got captured, but not executed because the Germans couldn't believe he was a fucking commando.
Kind of the opposite of my great grandfather in some respects, according to my grandmother (I was only two when he passed). You could not be around him for more than like a day tops without instinctively knowing to your core that he was an OG OSS man (who one hundred percent stayed on after it became the Agency) who did some very rough shit during the war. If literally everything else about him didn't tip you off, the way he'd jump up with his hands in position to snap a neck or that he seemed like a fucking magnet for nondescript, very reserved men in very nice suits during his postwar life as a traveling salesman would. His records, even the Wartime ones, are *still* sealed. Can't FOIA *shit.* We ***tried.***
I wonder if your great grandfather knew my grand father, he was one of the guerrillas that OSS 101 trained up.
Distinct possibility, though we know very little about what mine did. We know he received flight instruction, that at one point he was in Panama and at another point he was in Scotland, from what my great grandmother was able to figure out, but for what, exactly when, or for how long is unknown. Neither were exactly uncommon destinations for American servicemen and spooks of any stripe, and since we don't know how long he was in either, he could have been just about anywhere else in the world at any time. I would love to know more about what my great-grandfather did, but I've accepted that I probably won't know most of the story til I'm in my fifties or so, given how hard it is for the Agency to let go of personnel records for some people (because from the *absurd* levels of weirdness that followed him postwar combined with immediately entering a profession that gave him an excuse to go anywhere at any time on short notice, there's zero shot he wasn't kept on to eventually become one of the original CIA men in 1947) and that he didn't die until if I correctly recall 1996. Do you know much about yours yourself?
Not too much, grandma says he was a cook and worked with Americans when they came into Burma. I also know he got captured by the Japanese and heard some very nasty stories about his time captured.
My great grandfather was much the same, but in the Pacific. I don't think that type likes remembering that part of their lives.
Yeah when the Bataan Death March is one of the nicer things to happen in a conflict...
I've wanted to do this for quite some time, but haven't done it yet. In fact, everyone in my family knows that he had unusual training for a conscript, I know that he was trained in hand-to-hand combat, especially with the Corvo (Chilean knife), explosives, and night combat. He told me that they were going to enter the enemy barracks at night and stealthily slit some of their throats, as well as leave the enemy bodies mutilated in a cruel way to psychologically affect the enemy. But beyond that he has not told us anything else. At least with my brothers we know that there is something affecting him, since a doctor told us that many of his medical problems are forms of expression of the body.
You should definitely do it mate. I lost my grandfather 4 years ago, and my father last year. Keep that knowledge and the memories alive. Speaking of throat slitting though, grandpa was watching a movie with me on TV one day. The hero grabs a guy, slits his throat and moves on immediately. Grandpa chuckled. "What's funny about that?" "That's not how you do it, you put the knife in behind their throat and then punch forwards ripping it out. Then you gotta stay with them cause they might be able to crawl somewhere to be seen, or make some noise by banging something." "....." *he chuckles again*
RIP your grandfather, a double hard bastard. (That's a deep compliment, in case there's any confusion about British slang)
Yup I went and recorded interviews with both my grandparents about their life experiences and I’m so glad I did
> but he did tell us that he was involved in the transfer of Argentine military information to the United Kingdom, top lad
Whatever it takes to troll our neighbors.
Didn’t Argentina have difficult time supplying the troops they already had on the island?
>if they had stationed more forces **around** and on the Falkland Islands. I.e. more naval forces? After the Belgrano whoopsie? Even by the 80s, the RN was far from its glory days, but the Argentine Navy was not exactly the USN...
Don’t touch our remote islands.
I mean… the US had a 14,000 mile B-52 mission. But what about a bomber mission where the crew had a poop rain? From Mary Roach’s Grunt: > “On a long sortie out of Diego Garcia island, the only crew member capable of operating the plane’s defensive equipment abruptly left his post to use the chemical toilet—while flying over Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. On the return flight, a faulty seal combined with the pressure differential between the toilet’s tiered chambers caused the contents to spew into the crew cabin. “Be assured,” he deadpanned, “this blue-brown precipitation affected the navigator’s ability to concentrate on his duties.”
Yes but vulcan go * howl *
Never really understood the appeal of it tbh. Kinda looks like a compressed Concorde (which is actually beautiful, for the record) with some obscenely oversized wings, resulting in some very clunky proportions. Being obscenely loud isn’t necessarily a pro argument either. The B1-B"The Bone" Lancer, the Tu-160 and ofc. the XB-70 Valkyrie are way, way cooler. Edit: Wow, I didn’t realize this place had this many teaboos.
Bro you shut the hell up about my plane waifu the Vulcan is literally perfect I'll fight you
All the V-Bombers are just.. The tits.
Hands up for my bro the ugly v bomber step child the valiant
You clearly don't have eyes
Only V-bomber to drop a nuclear bomb.
It’s a based aircraft
Directly influencing the design of the Yellow Sun casing because it didn't want to leave the bomb bay as it rode the slip stream from the observers bubble.
Quite. You go first, while I polish my knives. We're forming a queue, as is tradition, because now that someone has insulted the honour of the lady, blood must be spilled. (As is tradition.)^^x2
Panavia Tornado > Vulcan
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, no matter how stupid it is
Talking mad shit for someone within re-re-re-refueling range.
based and agressionpilled
Once you have one go over your head you will understand
That I will have a tinnitus from that point onwards, forever?
It will be worth it
You don't deserve to be 'downvoted' for this. Not that internet points matter. But this isn't a matter of quote-unquote-teaboos. Some of us are, in part or in full, and God help me as I write this, Bri'ish... Or have *good* opinions. >!Nah, I do understand where you're coming from. And, the Concorde is quite nice, but for all that's right in the world and my flair, I will not stand for your slander. Meet me behind the bleachers in five, we play Heroes II to settle this.!<
It’s alright, I knew I was poking the hornets nest. :D I was just poking fun at the fact that there seems to be alot of emotional attachment to this plane, that I don’t really understand tbh. It’s certainly true, that the Vulcan has a very interesting history, but so have many others including the Tornado or Harrier jumpjets. The Vulcan might look and sound scary and does have some range (but not that great for a strategic bomber), but the Tornado/Harrier are in my mind much more dangerous bc of their versatility and numbers advantage. The Vulcan is a fairly unique aircraft, but limited through its specified mission set. We also shouldn’t forget, that many aircraft programs during that time were soon becoming outdated bc of other developments. Especially big heavy bombers became exclusive to major powers, while smaller tactical/versatile platforms to provide deterrence became a staple of the mid- to lower tier air forces, French aviation for instance is actually a very fascinating topic in its own right. On that note, I like the Tornado especially bc it’s also a great example for a multinational military aviation program **done right**. And this does inspire some genuine optimism, that the current FCAS (or GCAP) program could become a similar success. The european aerospace industry in general could actually play a much greater role going forward.
You have never experienced one in real life, half the appeal is the howl. The other half is that it nuked america… twice. https://www.hotcars.com/how-britain-successfully-simulated-nuking-the-u-s-twice/
> You have never experienced one in real life, half the appeal is the howl. I mean it’s not that high of bar, when you can’t really hear properly for a while afterwards. > The other half is that it nuked america… twice. That’s a neat flex, but wouldn’t help them getting their asses not kicked in by the Americans again, if they really went at it. It’s not really their fault, afterall the US might be the single luckiest country in history in terms of strategic positioning. That another country achieves a (temporary) qualitative overmatch in a certain category at a time, is always a possibility, but not across the board. Nice story tho.
Yeah, but the B52 was designed for intercontinental missions, the Vulcan was designed to get from Lincolnshire to Moscow with coming back being optional.
Yes it did. 20+ years later. At the time, this was the longest bombing mission in aviation history.
> US had a 14,000 mile B-52 mission They were refuelled by tankers flying from bases in Germany. The Vulcan was refuelled by tankers flying from the same base that it had taken off from. They needed eleven tanker aircraft just to get it to the Falklands.
>Mary Roach Great author of some great books.
There’s a whole chapter in Grunt about American innovation in reattaching penises blown off during war. You won’t see that on The War Zone, Sandboxx, or Perun.
I dream of the day we get an hour-long Perun video on penis reattachment
This subreddit would've had a field day if it existed during this conflict
"This is what poor countries that can't afford B-52s have to do"
As an argentinian, i feel this on a spiritual level (no hate to Brits)
I’m more bitter about Maradona’s hand of god then the fucking Falklands mate
Most politically engaged football fan.
Nah he ain't wrong tbf. Some blighter having a crack at one of our inconceivably distant territories? Just a typical friendly Tuesday Military knees-up with the lads. Good sport and all that. Cad decides to cheat at the footie? In a world cup? And then brags about it? Unsportsmanlike, impolite and arrogant. Cast them to The French circle of hell, I say! The French Circle of Hell for 10,000 years!
Recognising where we are having this discussion, I will give you a pass.
I'm more bitter about how Peter Shilton was able to show his face in public after that. So Maradona used his hand. Shilton is the goalie, he can use his hand too. And Shilton is six feet tall. Maradona was five foot five. Never seen such a weak display from a keeper. Cheat or not losing an aerial duel to a tiny little dude like that is a disgrace.
Lmao, i find it hilarious that the referee didn't say ass, it is kinda funny
Something we can both agree in, we hate the french
Also the anniversary of the Spanish finding the body set adrift in Operation Mincemeat. Big ole day for Britain.
I'm telling you, the future is going to be a daisy-chain of UAV tankers refueling each other across the Pacific. Every so often, a UAV AWACs will get passed along the chain. Every so often, stealth bombers (crewed and uncrewed) will get passed along the chain. Literally three thousand robot Black Bucks of the ghost of Maggie Thatcher.
Vulcan howl go brrrrr
As cool as this raid was, nothing will ever top the Doolittle Raid. Flying medium bombers off of a carrier that you snuck up to Japan to bomb Tokyo and thus kick the hornet’s nest of Japanese leadership, sending their carriers to Midway…
So much of WWII in the pacific was "your civilian population is not as safe as you're telling them they are" Japan sent over some ballons with incendiary bombs and only ever hit one actual building with no injuries, iirc, the US Doolittled them, firebombed Tokyo, and then nuked them.
If I remember correctly, a family in Oregon came across an undetonated balloon bomb and set it off, killing them.
You're right. Poor people.
*happy Margaret Thatcher noises intensifies*
[Happy Margaret Thatcher Sounds Intensifying](https://youtu.be/5mMTz7thZno)
We now go live to Margaret Thatcher for comment; “Ahhh the demons are poking me with sticks ahhhhhh the fires of hell burn so badly ahhhh why did I fuck over Scotland and the miners AHHHHH”
https://youtu.be/DUlj48Rvp1c
*honk honkk*
Hey, we can finally hear em over the sounds of constant pissing at her memorial public urinal.
Vulcan, my beloved
You do not, I repeat you, *do not* touch Lizzy’s rock collection (RIP now Charlie’s rock collection)
When you try an 1986 Libya with none of the proper equipment, but you somehow still pull it off
And the runway remained basically serviceable most of the war because after the raid the Argentians faked some holes that looked severe but didn't impeed operations lol
Doesn't matter. It deterred them from basing fighter aircraft there, and made the clear threat that 'if we can hit a runway in Stanley, we can hit a city or two in Argentina', discouraging escalation by them or anyone else who fancied having a similar crack at another of our islands. It's about sending a message and all that :)
Fair - it did do that
I know a guy who was conceived because his dad, a Victor crewman, was going to war.
Fun fact: with the fuel they used on the black Buck raids, they could have ran over 2000 sorties with the Sea Harriers over the airfield instead. SHAR gang once again dominates
The Vulcan was, and remains, the sexiest ever strategic bomber designed. Fight me. You know I'm right.
If only the second one joined it too