Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on January 16, 2008, 10:14:07 pm
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Wildlife interests aren't too happy about it (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sonar17jan17,0,738138.story)
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Ok, this is nothing but a big "**** you" by Bush, not only does the navy not need to do it there, it doesn't need to do it at all. There is no conceivable threat that justifies having a navy of this size. I wonder sometimes if Congress spends all that money on useless defense projects just so they physically can't spend any more on education and social services.
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But the US needs a massive Navy! Without it, who'll protect Ma, apple pie, and baseball? Who will protect the American way of life against a world that seeks to destroy it?
Hell, they should be using those whales as target practice!!
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We have 18 Ohio missile subs that can kill off pretty much 90% of China's population if we wanted to. That's all the navy we need. Any time some nation is acting up, we park an Ohio off their coast so they can see the captain wave at them with binoculars. Same level of intimidation, 1/500th the cost.
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Time to break out those head-mounted laser beams, if the Navy want a War, the Dolphins should give them one ;)
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Time to break out those head-mounted laser beams, if the Navy want a War, the Dolphins should give them one ;)
When the Dolphins win we can blame you.
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We have 18 Ohio missile subs that can kill off pretty much 90% of China's population if we wanted to. That's all the navy we need. Any time some nation is acting up, we park an Ohio off their coast so they can see the captain wave at them with binoculars. Same level of intimidation, 1/500th the cost.
But that would take American foreign policy back to the 'massive retaliation' lunacy of the 50's. It prevents any kind of scaled response, whereby even the smallest attack would require a massive response, or else the US would be seen as unwilling to commit in any situation.
They abandoned that doctrine for a reason. Although my previous post was dripping with sarcasm, the fact remains that the US needs a damn sizable Navy to ensure future force projection on a scale that can deter attacks and intimidate nations without firing a shot.
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Time to break out those head-mounted laser beams, if the Navy want a War, the Dolphins should give them one ;)
When the Dolphins win we can blame you.
Actually, the American Navy armed them in the first place, it seems to be a favourite habit of the American Armed forces actually, 'Sell other factions all our old weapons so we have an excuse to blow the **** out of them later'. :p
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We have 18 Ohio missile subs that can kill off pretty much 90% of China's population if we wanted to. That's all the navy we need. Any time some nation is acting up, we park an Ohio off their coast so they can see the captain wave at them with binoculars. Same level of intimidation, 1/500th the cost.
But that would take American foreign policy back to the 'massive retaliation' lunacy of the 50's. It prevents any kind of scaled response, whereby even the smallest attack would require a massive response, or else the US would be seen as unwilling to commit in any situation.
They abandoned that doctrine for a reason. Although my previous post was dripping with sarcasm, the fact remains that the US needs a damn sizable Navy to ensure future force projection on a scale that can deter attacks and intimidate nations without firing a shot.
If I'm a bully at a school, and I've been picking on a boy, and I learn this boy can now bring a loaded sawed off shotgun to school, I'm not thinking "what can I do to him that won't result in him shooting me in the face?". I'm thinking I'm going to stay the hell away from him.
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If I'm a bully at a school, and I've been picking on a boy, and I learn this boy can now bring a loaded sawed off shotgun to school, I'm not thinking "what can I do to him that won't result in him shooting me in the face?". I'm thinking I'm going to stay the hell away from him.
Or, you could keep hassling to a minimum level. You keep hassling the kid with the sawn-off, but just not enough to warrant getting shot in the face, which is a pretty big damn reaction. Let's also not forget that you know that there'd be big damn consequences if someone used a sawn-off shotgun at school, so you could use that against him.
Eventually, the kid will either shoot you and suffer the severe consequences, or just realize that it was a bad idea to make a threat that he knew he couldn't back up.
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Nuke them Wales. :D
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Whales! Not Wales, I'm pretty sure Wales has done nothing to deserve nuking, except, possibly inflicting the Male Voice Choir on the world....
Actually, no, you were right the first time....
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Are you referring to a specific group? Because if you're referring to the generic concept of an ensemble of male voices, A) you can't really credit one place with that invention, and B) FOR SHAME, MAN.
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:lol: Well, it was actually the Welsh miners that used to do the voice choir stuff that drove me up the wall, to be honest, they were popping up everywhere during the early 90's. I'd have given my right arm for, just once, one of them to sing 'Hi-Hooooo!' just for the hell of it.
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Ohhhhh I thought maybe you were talking about classical ensembles.
On another note, one could also conclude that Wales is actually being instructed, albeit sans a comma, to nuke a mysterious "them." Do you guys keep nukes in Wales?
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Well, mostly we use Wales to store spare Slate, Sheep and any mountains we couldn't squeeze into the Highlands or the Pennines ;)
Seriously though, Wales is Nuclear Free as far as I'm aware, most of our nuclear weapons are sub or ship based really.
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Well, mostly we use Wales to store spare Slate, Sheep and any mountains we couldn't squeeze into the Highlands or the Pennines ;)
Seriously though, Wales is Nuclear Free as far as I'm aware, most of our nuclear weapons are sub or ship based really.
the UK does not have nuclear weapons , they have nuclear devices that we can fire when we like, after this it becomes a little more complicated, we have to ask the American government very nicely to arm the guidance system !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Our ICBM's are American, our smaller Nuclear missiles are not, but they are still weapons ;)
I also have a feeling that even if the American government said 'No' the UK government is more than able to prime and launch those missiles.
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Our ICBM's are American, our smaller Nuclear missiles are not, but they are still weapons ;)
I also have a feeling that even if the American government said 'No' the UK government is more than able to prime and launch those missiles.
to my knowledge ( maybe this has changed in the last few years) all our missiles use the same satelite system , which is american , and we have to get permission to use this ............;;
so we have an independant system yes i agree but we cant target them without the permission of the american president
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I thought you gave your launch codes to the UN or something?
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I seem to remember the UK discussing giving up their membership to the Nuclear Club a few years back.
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I thought you gave your launch codes to the UN or something?
i dont thhink we ever had them , and if we did at the flik off a switch ( so to speak) they would stop going on there merry way ,i think are nukes were more related to NATO than the UN
I seem to remember the UK discussing giving up their membership to the Nuclear Club a few years back.
yip but that was b4 the sudo socialists realised they were christian democrats
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Ok, this is nothing but a big "**** you" by Bush, not only does the navy not need to do it there, it doesn't need to do it at all. There is no conceivable threat that justifies having a navy of this size. I wonder sometimes if Congress spends all that money on useless defense projects just so they physically can't spend any more on education and social services.
The reason for the bloated defence budget is because of major lobbying efforts by the coperations involved in the Military Industrial Complex. Eisenhower warned us in his farewell address that if we weren't careful, something like this would happen. We were not careful, and the Prophecy of Eisenhower has in fact come to pass, and many of us don't even realize it. This is beyond partisan politics, and it is a danger to everything we grew up believing.
We all need to ask ourselves why we fight. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3405669348838274375)
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Many of the missiles are locked into targets iirc, however, if we wanted to change them to be wholly accurate then yes, we'd need to use the American positioning system, which requires permission, however, it's theoretically possible to use GPS, which isn't nearly as accurate, but only to a factor of a few hundred metres, when you're talking about Thermonuclear Warheads, I'm not sure a few hundred metres will make much of a difference.
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Many of the missiles are locked into targets iirc, however, if we wanted to change them to be wholly accurate then yes, we'd need to use the American positioning system, which requires permission, however, it's theoretically possible to use GPS, which isn't nearly as accurate, but only to a factor of a few hundred metres, when you're talking about Thermonuclear Warheads, I'm not sure a few hundred metres will make much of a difference.
mmmmm with out trying to sound like im pushing this to its extremes, but last time i looked gps wasnt freeware, as far as i understand its still owned by the american military! so if they refuse to let u fire on the iirc, i think they mite just stop the gps at he same time, the uk has no real independent nuclear weapon
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If America turns off the GPS entirely, it also loses it's own ability to target missiles, track troops etc, they could try to lock the system, but there's no such thing as a 100% safe lock. Turning it off entirely would pretty much cripple both Armies.
I should clarify here that what I'm talking about is, basically, hacking, there's nothing legal or acceptable about it, and I vastly doubt it would ever be done, but I wouldn't be surprised if the facilities are in place already. The only way the American Military could make the GPS available to civilians was to make the 'civilian version' less accurate, however, that problem was overcome in a matter of weeks.
Trident etc are American designed delivery systems, it's true, but the UK own a great number of them, with UK made warheads. In fact, Parliament decided to start renewing our Trident delivery systems with more modern nuclear subs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_missile
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If America turns off the GPS entirely, it also loses it's own ability to target missiles, track troops etc, they could try to lock the system, but there's no such thing as a 100% safe lock. Turning it off entirely would pretty much cripple both Armies.
Not true.
There is an "encoded" GPS system setting, because it was developed during the Cold War, and the US knew the Russkies might want to use it too. Its use has been considered before; for example, during Gulf One, but it's never been activated. However the US does have the ability to turn the GPS system off for the rest of the world.
However saying that the UK doesn't have the ability to retarget their missiles on their own is ludicrious. One of the reasons they have an independant nuclear deterrent was in case the worst-case scenario somehow came about and the US was knocked out before it could reply, so those missiles can be targeted, launched, and do their thing under the circumstances that the US no longer exists. Besides, for accurate targeting with a circle of error inside 20 meters on a Trident, all you really need is the precise launch posistion; they use inertial guidance. If worse comes to worse you could just launch them from dockside.
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Exactly my point really, the UK has it's own collection of Nuclear Weapons, and our nuclear capability is not, or need not be, reliant on American Targeting systems, it's not as if Cities are famous for their mobility, so as long as you have co-ordinates for launch and target, you don't really need in-flight monitoring, the missile can sort itself out. Those that DO use GPS aren't as 'secure' as people think, but from what I recall, most of the American ICBMs in the UK are hard-targetted on locations in Russia anyway.
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Not to mention that missiles using GPS and sat-nav would never get there anyway since they'll be directed down a one way street and give up after being told to turn right at the next available opportunity.
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But, we like waving our big dic.... NAVY in the face of other nations!
Sarcasm, in case someone doesn't catch it.
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Compensating? :p
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Exactly my point really, the UK has it's own collection of Nuclear Weapons, and our nuclear capability is not, or need not be, reliant on American Targeting systems, it's not as if Cities are famous for their mobility, so as long as you have co-ordinates for launch and target, you don't really need in-flight monitoring, the missile can sort itself out. Those that DO use GPS aren't as 'secure' as people think, but from what I recall, most of the American ICBMs in the UK are hard-targetted on locations in Russia anyway.
Default setting, as it were; back in 1999 a Russian SSBN captain was quoted as saying his missiles' targets had not been changed since 1982; so until they point them somewhere else...
I know that the Trident system is designed to allow storing several sets of target coordinates in memory, though, and you can keep more aboard the sub and change them out underway. Ohio captains have been quoted before as saying they can launch at any nuclear-capable nation in the world within three minutes of recieving a launch order, and most of that time is spent turning keys. (Yes, even South Africa and Isreal. I've heard, though not officially, they even have solutions for Taiwan, which has never admitted having nuclear weapons but probably does.)