Martin

Martin

  • Commented on A fistful of tropes
    Water Support Techs are unsung heroes... MilSF with a dose of reality as to how small-scale it all really is. No superheroes, just mostly-competent people making best effort, sometimes succeeding in the most unexciting ways, and occasionally getting it all...
  • Commented on A fistful of tropes
    I'd suggest a Sci-Fi epic which fights the Great Man of History trope, with a focus on the reality that is the success of cooperation, and people doing "their bit" unrecognised... but "Rogue One" (IMHO one of the best Star...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    My sister thought Jackson retconned some LGBTQ representation into the way Sam looked at Frodo in the movies, and I can kind of see it There was no need - just reread between the lines in the appendix/epilogue to LOTR...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    odd constitutional echoes, such as the fact that we have a Royal Navy but we a British Army (loyal to Parliament, and not under royal command) Not quite… the Army swears an attestation oath to be loyal to His/Her...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    And as for Farage, he would do the job for 20 fags and a bottle of beer. That would be the Farage who enjoys his chauffeur-driven Range Rover, or his flights to/from Brussels on private jets? He’s as successful...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    What about Ezer Weizman? Francesco Cossiga? Christian Wulff? Even ceremonial Presidencies are attractive to the power-hungry...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    So… an 86-year-old Joe Biden or 82-year old Donald Trump would be just a bit too old in January 2029, in your view? (Reagan was 77 by the time he left office, and AIUI too old by then). I also...
  • Commented on Fuck the Monarchy
    Elizabeth Windsor is dead. Her successor is a snobbish, reactionary seventy-six year old multi-billionaire. He's so divorced from the ordinary lived experience of his subjects that he reportedly can't even dress himself. Just... nope. Any source making that claim, should...
  • Commented on WTF
    That sounds(?)(!) like good news. Yup, I'm once again a member of the Defence-Industrial Complex (OGH probably knows where). I was working for a fintech firm, but they end-of-lifed our point of sale product; and we were pretty much the...
  • Commented on WTF
    Yup, I dropped off for a while because I changed jobs early this spring - and now spend a lot less time in front of an internet-capable PC I've also moved from "individual contributor" (for almost all of the last...
  • Commented on WTF
    The rifleman's job is to carry ammo for the LMG. The LMG gunners job is to prevent the enemy advancing... It depends on your infantry doctrine, and associated equipment. There are two schools of thought: Belt-fed light MG in every...
  • Commented on WTF
    ...maybe. There was The numbers came from a study by S L A Marshall, which he published in his book "Men Against Fire" (link). His methodology has been challenged, but many former soldiers have said "yeah, sounds about right". Even...
  • Commented on WTF
    Anyway. One skilled rifleman with a 1914-era British bolt-action rifle could lay down as much fire as a platoon of 1630s arquebusiers, with greater accuracy, while staying out of their range. (I suspect modern assault rifles or PDWs would be...
  • Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
    But I'll bet kids that grow up with a silver (or gold) spoon in their mouth have a lot less motivation than their parents. I rather suspect that it depends on the parents (whether they own a silver spoon,...
  • Commented on The impotence of the long-distance trillionaire
    Sadly it was the "slightly richer" kids that were the problem. Too true... The Army is ironically a good class mixer [1]; it meant that I have a friend who is rich, as in "inherited several thousand acres in the...
  • Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
    I'm guessing everyone here can figure out why he bought it. Yup. Did he have a metal tin to keep it in, or was he unaware of EMP? (Few people knew about it, back then) I'm getting less nervous about...
  • Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
    No undisciplined programmers exist on Slashdot, where everyone is a much better than average programmer and they never make mistakes. Ever. I've grown to love smart pointers over the last two decades, to the point that I get twitchy when...
  • Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
    I've worn a cycle helmet since the late 1980s, when a friend managed to break his helmet during a road accident... and survived without significant injury. That was early-twenties me convinced (a work colleague tried to persuade me that helmets...
  • Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
    The amusing thing about conspiracy theorists on the subject of 77th Bde is that they give it so much more credit than the rest of the British Army does… cynical, moi? Another example is the hangar at Macrihanish which the...
  • Commented on Holding pattern 2022 ...
    Greg@1570: "Military Bands" - yeah, well, see MacDonald Fraser on the fighting qualities of Scottish regiment bands - especially as one of their instruments is often regarded as a weapon (!) You're confusing two separate constructs... Military bands have clarinets,...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    Not necessarily; take a look at your local war memorial, many in the UK say “1914-1919”. Our regiment had the battle honour “Archangel 1918-1919”, fighting in support of the White Russians (the Bolsheviks being seen as a puppet regime of...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    They get their intelligence assessments from the various national agencies. Of course, none of the EU now have access to “Five Eyes”, so… if the French or German foreign intelligence agencies insisted that the US / UK assessments were incorrect...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    perhaps because the whole invasion MAKES NO SENSE Unfortunately, it makes perfect sense (to Putin) - it just turned out to be a massive miscalculation; in the same way that Saddam Hussein thought that he could grab Kuwait, and the...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    I know that the British Army USED to send soldiers on week-long unsupported hikes in those conditions, and I am surprised that they had stopped by then (if that is the claim). The British Army (and Royal Marines) do/did lots...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    Despite claims of the 'modernists', wool remains the best material for cold, wet conditions, when there is no chance of getting dry, because it is the only one that remains insulating when wet. Nope, not the only option for a...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    The story went that immediately after the mobilisation notice, every Marks&Spencer across the south of England was sold out of their green heavyweight tights (being the classic building-site substitute for thermal underwear, and a lot cheaper than Helly Hansen). The...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    My mistake - for clarity, I should have said "These were the days before Goretex outerwear was on general issue to troops". There's a Goretex factory in West Lothian, right in the middle of the recruiting area of my first...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    I saw pictures of the terrain on the television, which the talking heads described as very rough going, and fell about laughing. It was almost identical to north British moorland, on which the British army trains, and I knew they...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    Plus Hackett's book was entertaining, but it doesn't fit in with what I was taught about the Soviet Union's strategic doctrine for invading western Europe, where their initial advance relied on nuclear and chemical strikes to open holes through...
  • Commented on Behind the Ukraine war
    I've always assumed that the nuclear option is, well "The Nuclear Option". If you launch, you launch everything you have in the hope of destroying the ability of the enemy to launch a counter strike If you go back to...
Subscribe to feed Recent Actions from Martin

Following

Not following anyone

Specials

Merchandise

About This Page

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Propaganda