Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Max™]

Yeah, the poly pipe lengths were always contenders, but the bokken ones are ridiculous, the biggest gouge on it was when I was clearing back some of the thorns in the brush on the other side of the fence next door and discovered an old bent over metal fence post.

*CLONG*

It's not even a mm deep looking at it now, but I was alarmed because it was such a sudden shock (it was all covered over in fallen vines and brush which usually just gives) and that usually means broken stick, this stick don't care. I loves it.

[Parsely]

This is dead interesting, listening to you talk about sticks. Tell me more about sticks.

[Amperzand]

There are a bunch of beavers near my house, so if I walked along the waterfront or the edges of the swampy bits I could be all-but-guaranteed a nice, almost-straight stick, neatly severed at the ends and cleared of all bark in an attractive pattern. I sure went through a lot of them, willow shoots being willow shoots, but it was very convenient.

[Max™]

There are a bunch of beavers near my house, so if I walked along the waterfront or the edges of the swampy bits I could be all-but-guaranteed a nice, almost-straight stick, neatly severed at the ends and cleared of all bark in an attractive pattern. I sure went through a lot of them, willow shoots being willow shoots, but it was very convenient.

Oh god I loved finding a bunch of beaver shorn branches, little bastards are not just cute, but handy!

[Amperzand]

Exactly!

[Sergarr]

So, LCS program is getting axed and converted into de-facto conventional frigates.

Gone is the emphasis on modular systems and crewing, a complicated manning arrangement that would have three crews rotate between two hulls and mixing the two different types of hulls in East and West coast homeports.

Instead, the Navy will divide 24 planned LCS into six divisions of four ships each – three divisions of Freedom-class ships based at Naval Station Mayport, Fla. and three divisions of Independence-class LCS based at Naval Station San Diego, Calif. – commander, Naval Surface Forces Vice Adm. Tom Rowden told reporters on Thursday.

Each of the divisions will be tasked, crewed and equipped with a specific LCS mission – mine countermeasures (MCM), surface warfare (SuW) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Each hull will be manned by two crews – blue and gold – like the service’s nuclear ballistic and guided missile submarines.

Some people are quite vindicative of that result:

PARIS --- After spending billions of dollars, the US Navy has finally abandoned the Littoral Combat Ship concept, saying it will turn the first four LCSs into training ships and that all future vessels will be equipped for a single combat mission.

Although deliberately worded to minimize its import, the US Navy statement below is a clear acknowledgement that the LCS concept has been an abysmal failure.
But, even as it looks to mitigate the disastrous effects of having ordered a dozen LCS at once, before checking whether they performed as claimed (they have not), the Navy makes no mention of having found the technical faults which have struck four LCS ships this year.

In the statement below, the Navy announces it is abandoning the LCS’ most prized objectives (interchangeable mission modules; innovative but complex crewing arrangements) which were supposed to turn inexpensive small ships with small crews into potent combatants in coastal regions.

By turning the four Littoral Combat Ships it has commissioned to date into training ships, the Navy is also admitting they are operationally worthless.

So the LCS concept is a total failure, and the billions of dollars spent so far have been wasted, despite each one having cost about half a billion dollars.

[mainiac]

Trust the US to figure out how to make a cheap, simple concept complex and expensive. 

[Culise]

Trust the US to figure out how to make a cheap, simple concept complex and expensive. 

Hey, Dolly Parton said it best: it costs a lot of money to look this cheap. ^_^

[Strife26]

Trust the US to figure out how to make a cheap, simple concept complex and expensive. 

USA USA USA

[Zangi]

As an armchair general...
I fail to see the benefits of giving aid(for humane/any reason) when sieging an enemy entrenched with a civilian population.  I am of the opinion that giving the civilians aid also means giving the enemy aid.  They could take the aid directly from the civilians, end up directly getting some of that aid, and/or they simply have less people to provide for.

I guess a 'ceasefire' is fine... as long as nothing gets in or out.
Another topic is the stuff in the news about letting enemy combatants leave.  They shouldn't be allowed to leave to fight another day, they can end up reinforcing/taking some other place, where the same thing can happen all over again.  Their surrender should be unconditional.


Prompted by all the news condemning siege conditions in the MiddleEast/Aleppo/wherever.  Plus, you could say my ethical/moral compass is very wide.

[Erkki]

Giving aid and making sure you control what is photographed, filmed or interviewed and when can be great for publicity.

[Sheb]

Unless you're trying to starve them out, giving aid greatly helps the civies and won't help them that much, unless you're including bullets in your aid package.

As for letting them leave rather than forcing unconditionnal surrender, it's usually because it's much easier to negotiate a deal where they leave, so you don't have to spend as much time hunting them down in a city, killing people.

[Strife26]

Unless you're trying to starve them out, giving aid greatly helps the civies and won't help them that much, unless you're including bullets in your aid package.

As for letting them leave rather than forcing unconditionnal surrender, it's usually because it's much easier to negotiate a deal where they leave, so you don't have to spend as much time hunting them down in a city, killing people.

Yep. It's important not to win your siege and lose the war, especially when public opinion in the appeal to citizenry and real countries is a major part of the war.

[smjjames]

Unless you're trying to starve them out, giving aid greatly helps the civies and won't help them that much, unless you're including bullets in your aid package.

As for letting them leave rather than forcing unconditionnal surrender, it's usually because it's much easier to negotiate a deal where they leave, so you don't have to spend as much time hunting them down in a city, killing people.

Yep. It's important not to win your siege and lose the war, especially when public opinion in the appeal to citizenry and real countries is a major part of the war.

Except Assad evidently doesn't care about public opinion very much.

[Strife26]

Unless you're trying to starve them out, giving aid greatly helps the civies and won't help them that much, unless you're including bullets in your aid package.

As for letting them leave rather than forcing unconditionnal surrender, it's usually because it's much easier to negotiate a deal where they leave, so you don't have to spend as much time hunting them down in a city, killing people.

Yep. It's important not to win your siege and lose the war, especially when public opinion in the appeal to citizenry and real countries is a major part of the war.

Except Assad evidently doesn't care about public opinion very much.

Depends on what sort of public opinion, but yeah.