Plywood armor plating

"Swingman" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

...

I think the media are finding that they can get ratings by catering to and cultivating the extremes. For the most part, I think their actions can be explained by simple greed for ratings. They basically slant the news so as to tell their viewers what the viewers want to hear.

It's interesting to watch the news as presented on the BBC World News or on SCOLA. Frequently a different take than our media.

I am too young to remember WWII or Korea (I was born three months after Kennedy was assasinated). But I am pretty sure that in today's polarized environment a really good moderate president (say Eisenhower IMHO) could never be elected.

As I understand the OP, he believes the gov't/military decided it is cheaper to replace personnel than purchase proper equipment.

As I understand your reply, you believe this is the product of a warped mind, and you do not believe our gov't/military could or would make such a decision.

Somewhere in this thread was mentioned the augmentation seen on Shermans in WWII, almost as justification for the inadequately prepared Humvees. That augmentation was needed because then, as now, the higher ups refused to prepare for the inevitable and sent woefully under-armed and under-armored tanks against the fearsome 88mm gun and thick armor the Germans deployed. The Brits called the Sherman the "Tommy-toaster".

The Sherman only prevailed by virtue of quantity, not quality. In other words: our side could afford to fill more body than their side.

Have you never heard the infantry referred to as "Mk I, Mod I Bullet Catchers"?

Ergo, I maintain you are in denial.

Actually, in terms of total eligible voters, only about a third of the people voted for Bush II. Guess Fox didn't carry that tidbit.

Hockey?

... and in terms of eligible voters, those who did not vote also made a decision -- to let the rest of the voters make the choice for them, thus, the OP's comment is still correct, the American people made a decision, the election is over. get over it.

Army General Richard Cody

Ya know, last I looked the 57 million who voted against Bush were Americans too.

One tally shows him winning by 3 milliion votes. Outta 120 million.

And he has the disctinction of having the highest percentage of votes cast against a sitting President in history. Not to mention a war pres.

And on, and on.

Seems like you mandate folks outta go look up the definition of said word.

Renata

How do we know what's "best," so we can buy it, and not waste time and money on intermediate products?

How do we fight the next war when we only know the last?

More to the point, how can we plan or purchase anything military without the press and Senator Lenin telling us we don't need it at all?

BTW, it wasn't just the Sherman which was vulnerable. One of my old Soviet tactics instructors fought at Kursk in the T34, and had nothing but respect for what an 88 could do to _any_ tank.

Ergo? ... more like "post hoc, ergo propter hoc".

Yet a few of them don't act like it as they are unable to accept the results of the election process.

Closer to 4 million.

Making false statements won't justify your inability to accept the outcome. Unlike his predecessor who had over 50% of the voters vote against him in both of his victories, at least Bush had less than 50% vote against him in his re-election.

What? More inaccuries?

mandate: A command or an authorization given by a political electorate to its representative.

Yup, that's what any elected president gets.

Since the previous president claimed a mandate with less than 50% of the vote, wouldn't you think that more than 50% of the vote is even more of a mandate?

- Doug

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:09:46 -0700, the inscrutable Mark & Juanita spake:

The fate of the entire world has been determined by non-voters and gullibles. Ironic, isn't it? I should have said "tragic."

I'll get over it when the global threats he has caused are gone, Mark, and not before. The world (including America) has become a less-safe place since GWB has been in office. Many Americans, myself included, are not too happy about that. I used to _believe_in_ the President of the United States. I love my country and will not sit quietly by while it gets trashed by an avaricious mob in D.C.

Oh, I changed the topic to OT while I was replying.

--------------------------------------------------------------- Never put off 'til tomorrow |

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Well, he can believe that, but I suspect that the real story is that the Humvee is the replacement for the Jeep and nobody expected them to need to be armored anymore than the Jeep was armored. Now it turns out that they're enough more capable than the Jeep that they're being used in ways that the designers never expected and it turns out that they _do_ need armor, but actually getting it in place is not going to be something that is going overnight.

While it is conceivable they could or would, it seems unlikely that that is the case in this instance. "Armor the Humvees" will be a lesson for the next round of procurement, meanwhile retrofitting armor in any systematic way is going to take time. First somebody has to decide just how good the armor should be, then issue RFPs, somebody has to produce a prototype, they have to test it (and they'll find out either that it's not good enough to provide adequate protection or that it's too heavy for the running gear and causes breakdowns or that when they have real soldiers try to field install it too many problems arise or something else major will be wrong with it) and so there will be another round or two while they fix the design, then the manufacturer has to tool up for production then it gets delivered. And all of this has to be approved by Congress first, which usually means a year or so of lead time during the budget negotiations. I've been inside this process (and totally frustrated by the delays over which I had no control) and it sucks but it's the way it is and so far nobody has been able to come up with a way to shortcut it that doesn't result in even more massive waste than the current system.

Uh, were the "higher ups" _aware_ that the 88mm antiaircraft gun could be used in a dual role? Did it even _exist_ when the contract for the Sherman was let? Bear in mind that the Sherman was a _vastly_ better tank than anything that the Germans took into Poland or France--for that matter the French Char-B was better than the German tanks during the invasion of France. Are you suggesting that when it was determined the hard way that the Sherman was inadequate that production should have been halted while they waited for a new design? So that instead of fighting the Germans with crappy tanks our guys would have been fighting them with _no_ tanks? If not, what _do_ you think should have been done but was not that was technologically feasible without a ground up redesign? And could that change have been gotten from concept to field delivery in less time that a new tank design?

Note by the way, that the US was not the only outfit that found that their tanks needed more armor--look at some of the German field expedients--concrete poured over the steel for example.

Uh, as far as body count goes, consider that unlike the US, the Russians had the best bloody tank in the whole bloody _world_, and look at _their_ losses. There is more to success on the battlefield than quantity or superiority of hardware. If that were not the case the Germans would have hit the Maginot Line and bounced.

I maintain that you are ignorant of the realities of engineering design, production leadtimes, and military procurement.

Note that the Sherman lesson _was_ learned--I've seen no complaints about the adequacy of the armor on the Abrams. And the Humvee lesson will be learned too.

Renata wrote: : Ya know, last I looked the 57 million who voted against Bush were : Americans too.

No they weren't! They were colluders with the enemy, however GWB and Cheney define that!

: One tally shows him winning by 3 milliion votes. : Outta 120 million.

An absolute MANDATE!

: And he has the disctinction of having the highest percentage of votes : cast against a sitting President in history.

He is MUCH better than that! He had the largest number of votes cast against him of any elected president in US history! Go, W! Yay! You are indeed DUH MAN!!!!

Right, Doug and Mark?

-- Andy Barss

: Making false statements won't justify your inability to accept the : outcome. Unlike his predecessor who had over 50% of the voters vote : against him in both of his victories, at least Bush had less than 50% vote : against him in his re-election.

Out of everyone who cared to vote, Clinton won.

Out of everyone who cared to vote, Bush II won by the slimmest margin in recent history.

Yeah, he has a mandate all right.

One to pay attention to everyone, not just the *very* slim majority that elected him, and/or the Protestant religious fanatics.

-- Andy Barss

So, since the vote didn't agree with your viewpoint, those who didn't agree couldn't have reached the conclusion they did through logical or rational thought, could they? It isn't possible that through reasonable deduction, they decided that "peace through strength" might be a reasonable route to sending a message to future would-be attackers. Nope, they had to have been gullible and deluded.

The global threats *he* caused? He'd barely been in office 9 months when the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor was launched against us. The training camps in Afghanistan had been in operation for years before he took office. Homicide bombers were launching attacks on Israel long before Bush was in office. Enron and the MCI debacle were hatching well before the election of 2000, so the accusation of "avaricious mob" hardly seems to carry much weight when applied to the present administration. The first attack on the WTC happened during the previous administration, the debacle in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole -- appeasement and ignoring the situation sure wasn't working and wasn't making the world any safer.

Army General Richard Cody

Andy, Andy, Andy! And we pay _you_ to "educate" out children? What a waste of our taxpayers dollars :-(

To give the benefit of the doubt, he used the wrong term. Bush II obviously did not have the largest "percentage" cast against him. What he DID have was the largest actual number of votes cast against a sitting Pres.

Another fact not likely to have appeared on Fox.

Correct strictly as dictionary definition. In the political arena however, a mandate refers to a sizable margin of victory. Although of late mouthpieces of both parties have been using the term regardless despite slim victories.

Nor the other damned lie (statistic) on the other networks.

In our ignorance we're regressing to "fundamentalism" of the sort that rejects all other opinions save the interpretation by our priestly classes. I for one would rather not have Dean or Michael Moore as my theologian - nor Dan Rather as my pontiff.

Hope for greater understanding no longer lies in schools, as evidenced by recent events, because they're more concerned with orthodoxy than education.