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very true frazzled, there is only one army that has never had anyone surrender...MY SPEEHS MAREEENS


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and they just die

Monty python nuff' said

Not a great nation, just extremely lucky:
1. The Normans conquered the island in 1066 and thereby saved it from squalid isolation (c.g. Ireland).
2. Blessed with coal which allowed it to industrialize without sacrificing arable land to grow timber for fuel (c.g. China, Japan).

olympia wrote:

Albatross wrote:Wait, because British servicemen/women were captured by the Iranians, then released completely unharmed about a fortnight later, Britain has 'slipped' as a great nation?

Were captured? Now a rewrite without the passive voice: they were craven and they surrendered. A far cry from the men who won Trafalgar!

Craven!?

Deciding to allow yourself to be captured depends entirely on the circumstances.

Before I got to Sierra Leone, 11 Irish guards were captured. We rescued them, but we had to obliterate a village (I forget, but i think we killed about 110 rebels) we also lost a SF trooper in the assault, and the lads had enjoyed a jolly good raping at the hands of their chums in the WSB.

After this, everyone was briefed fully, that the all important ROE was to be relaxed, and that if you were ever in fear for your life or at risk of capture you were cleared to go full auto on the mother fethers. Capture was absolutely not an option.

Funny thing, nobody got captured again.

Now, in this situation, being as I know a few of the lads involved, one was a Captain, another was a high ranking Naval officer. And the lads underneath him had served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and a few might have even been over zapping the lads you probably look up to in the IRA. The reason they allowed themselves to be taken, will have been simply that it was the correct decision to make on the ground. It's happened a few times, the Iranians use it for propaganda purposes, nobody gets hurt, everyone gets home and they even buy you a new suit. No issues, no sizeable diplomatic problems.

If the Green Berets decide to brass up an Iranian patrol boat, successful or not, it would cause needless death on both sides, a diplomatic shitstorm of epic proportions, and will no doubt affect our efforts in other theatres and have sizeable ramifications.

The men will have been instinctively leaning towards their triggers, that's what happens during these circumstances, its a natural human response. But pros don't let adrenalin make any decisions for them, they are well trained, they do what they are told for a reason.

In short, the men did the correct thing, and followed orders. And they WILL have been orders. You don't go on patrol "willy nilly" and grab a bag of grenades then nip out for a sail like on some sort of nautical version of Gears of fething war. You sort your gak out because you are a professional.

Its well known what went on to anyone who has a clue, you clearly get your knowledge of war from Black Library books and video games.

I can forgive this, I can forgive ignorance and stupid posts on the internet, but I cant forgive someone as clueless and crass calling your betters "Craven"

Captain Chris Air RM was captured that day, I bet he can run faster, shoot better and bench more than you ever will be able to. He's clearly much smarter as well, passing a gruelling year long selection course with a huge training bleed and rising to the rank of Captain in one of the worlds most elite regiments, the same one that gave the very same green berets to the fine well motivated chaps of the US special forces back in WW2.

Dont worry though, Ill get his email address and you can write him a grovelling apology for daring to criticize a man that could no doubt punch your face off with consummate ease.

Good post, mattyrm, but at this point you're just feeding a troll. olympia's clearly got a serious distaste for Britain and a very strong opinion about it too. I wouldn't be surprised if he is just posting these things to rile people up. Neither would I be surprised if he truly believed them. Either way, his posting style makes it clear he's not ready to listen to reason.

Yeah sorry, I wrote that before I saw the last one.

The lads just taking the mickey I think!

Some awful thin skin for the populace of the greatest nation ever!

Trolls gotta troll.

Your our big wave breaker, and for that, we love you.

No danger.

olympia wrote:Some awful thin skin for the populace of the greatest nation ever!

Ive not got thin skin, I only realised you were visibly taking the piss a post back.

I dont think the UK is the greatest nation ever either...

Maybe if it was just Yorkshire, I don't much like the people in the other counties.

Have you ever met a Geordie?!

olympia wrote:Not a great nation, just extremely lucky:
1. The Normans conquered the island in 1066 and thereby saved it from squalid isolation (c.g. Ireland).
2. Blessed with coal which allowed it to industrialize without sacrificing arable land to grow timber for fuel (c.g. China, Japan).

Should I apply similar reasoning to the area of land that would become the US?
Discovered and settled by European powers, thereby saving it from squalid isolation. (c.g. Most countries in South America).
Blessed with industrial techniques first pioneered by Britain, thus making it the incredible power it is today.

I don't care how "lucky" certain things are, it's what we did with them that lead to Britannia conquering the largest empire yet seen.

Oh man... I would do terrible terrible things to Selma Hayek...woof...


Anyway, just throwing it out there, the sun never set on the British Empire because God didn't trust an Englishman in the dark

And rightly so, else they come in there with their musket and take your country, like they did all over the world.

dajobe wrote:also, going by your logic, William of Normandy invaded England in 1066 and ruled...so all of England's achievements are really FRANCE'S. And France was taken over by the Romans, who moved to italy From Turkey, who migrated there from East Africa a long time ago. So I declare...SOMALIA the greatest nation ever(by your reasoning AndrewC)

No, because I'm not claiming the successes of those two individuals as Great Britains, I'm just asking that Chaos stops using them as an illustration of the USAs greatness.

In my opinion the greatest nation seen by the world is the Egyptian. Will people still be talking about the British Empire 2000 years from now? I think not.

Cheers

Andrew

Why would they not?

I dont know, i bet that in 2000 years people will talk about the British Empire, it had a huge impact on the world with all of its colonies and many countries would be very different places without their interaction with the British during their colonial times.

Plus i do believe that the US military and Navy are an illustration of our greatness. No other country can truthfully claim to have such miliatry branches. Yes, china may have more people, but US is much more technologically advanced on the whole. Now in 20 years, i dont know, possibly not, but that is not the issue.

Yes. The British Navy and the British Army.

In 2000 years I shall be dead, and this tiresome flagwaving thread shall be dust.

(stops waving flag) WHAT...NEVER(starts waving flag again)

mattyrm wrote:In 2000 years I shall be dead, and this tiresome flagwaving thread shall be dust.

shingouki wrote:Trolls gotta troll.

No guys, be fair.

I've got to part company with you on this one.

I'm as loyal as the next Brit but really. No-one can look at the incident Olympia mentioned with the slightest bit of objective logic and argue that the previous 500 years of British national history have any significance in comparison.

dajobe wrote:I dont know, i bet that in 2000 years people will talk about the British Empire, it had a huge impact on the world with all of its colonies and many countries would be very different places without their interaction with the British during their colonial times.

Plus i do believe that the US military and Navy are an illustration of our greatness. No other country can truthfully claim to have such miliatry branches. Yes, china may have more people, but US is much more technologically advanced on the whole. Now in 20 years, i dont know, possibly not, but that is not the issue.

I believe that the technological advances and equipment used by the US military are a huge argument for the 'greatness' of the USA, I just don't think that the navy, definately, and the army, perhaps, should be used because the base is another countries success. Would the American Navy be in this form without Mr Jones? I don't think so, it could be vastly more successful, but more to the point it was successful then. Had the fledgeling navy been wiped out at the start then the USA would not exist in the form it does today.

Both those services were born as a result of conflict in which failure would have condemned the USA to history as a 'dream that never happened'. But that wasn't the case, the armed services prevailed and I would like to think that that was a reflection on the abilities of the founders, rather than just because they had them.

At one point the UK was the premiere nation. That honour now goes to the US. But I still think that the greatest nation the world has ever seen, please note the past tense, is the Egyptian. But then again I always wanted to be an archeologist.

Cheers

Andrew

I am sure it would have been a very different organization without Mr. Jones. but to take the credit from the whole organization just because the founder wasnt american would be as if you said that the greatness of the pharoahs of egypt could not be attributed to egypt because of ptolemy(a greek who became pharoah after alexander died)


i love roman/greek history

Greek/Roman history, you, you Philistine! Off to the sacred nile crocodiles with you!

{Attacks with Kopsh.}

Cheers

Andrew

lol, (paries attack with spatha).

AndrewC wrote:

dajobe wrote:also, going by your logic, William of Normandy invaded England in 1066 and ruled...so all of England's achievements are really FRANCE'S. And France was taken over by the Romans, who moved to italy From Turkey, who migrated there from East Africa a long time ago. So I declare...SOMALIA the greatest nation ever(by your reasoning AndrewC)

No, because I'm not claiming the successes of those two individuals as Great Britains, I'm just asking that Chaos stops using them as an illustration of the USAs greatness.

I'm sorry but this is the most flawed logic I have ever seen. You're asking me to stop using the American Navy as an example of American exceptionalism because the founder, who has been dead for over 200 years was Scottish? Are you trying to argue the point that the Scotts should get credit for the US Navy's greatness? That is the weakest argument ever, the US Navy was little more than an overglorified coast guard until the latter half of the 19th century, a lot of people were involved in making that possible, Mahan included, but John Paul Jones wasn't one of them.

BTW, another interesting point of history, the Continental Navy was disbanded after the American Revolution. Technically, the Navy we have now is a completely seperate entity and organization from the one founded by John Paul Jones, seeing as how it was refounded some 10 years later, so I will continue using it as an example of American greatness.

That I didn't know, so I will retract my statement. But would ask a different question, who should receive more credit, the creator or the creation or equal?

Cheers

Andrew

Its an interesting question, but how do you define creator, and at which point is his national identity establshed?

BTW, I should point out that John Paul Jones didn't actually create the Navy, the Continental Congress did. Really I'm not sure if John Paul Jones had anything to do with its creation at all, he was a war hero, other than that I'm not certain, nothing I could find online indicates that to be the case. Anyway, back to my point, JPJ became an american citizen at a point prior to his naval service. Do we count him as a Scotsman still, or do we consider him an American from that point on?

I'm not sure anyone can really definitively say who gets credit unless its a case by case basis. Certainly nobody gives Germany or Hungary credit for the Atom Bomb, despite Einstein and Szilards roles in its development, but then again, the Manhattan Project was largely funded and lead by Americans.

It's a good one isn't it.

Everybodys viewpoint is based largely on a national viewpoint. Here in Scotland, Mr Jones is recognised as the founder of the modern American Navy, but from your point of view his inclusion is important but not essential. If you were to take all his knowledge and experience that led him to that point, then he should be credited as Scottish, but if you were only to take his actions then he should be credited as American.

It's because of that dubiety I asked that your example not be used, not because I wanted to pull the rug from under you, but because I felt that it was a misleading premise.

But as you have pointed out, the navy today is a seperate entity from the one created then. However even then his tomb is guarded 24/365 by a Midshipman at the US Naval Academy and is credited as the Father of the US Navy. A charge which is commonly leveled at the US is "don't let the facts get in the way of a good story". However in this case you can truthfully level that at me.

Cheers

Andrew