Mandy Lifeboats

One for the NFL fans. SHA will need to change their club crest. The football needs to be defeated.

I cannot read a post about the Russian navy without thinking about the battle of Tsushima. I wrote this for the history thread. It sounds exaggerated. It's not. It's all 100% true and very funny. BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA 1905. It's 1904 and Russia is at war with Japan. Things aren't going well and Russia decides to send the Baltic Fleet to attack Japan. That's only 18,000 miles away. The fleet forms up near St Petersburg. It's a massive fleet of warships and auxiliary support ships. The crews aren't experienced navigating in a large fleet. The flagship runs aground. A destroyer rams a battleship forcing them both to return to port for repairs. The fleet is approaching Denmark when the lead ship reports being attacked by 8 Japanese Ships. Its actually a fishing boat delivering a message. The gunnery is so bad that the fishing boat doesn't realise its under attack and just sails to the flagship and delivers its message. The fleet is now at Dogger Bank. It spots a massive Japanese Fleet and attacks. Its actually the fishing fleet from Hull. The warships fire for 20 minutes before realising their mistake. As the smoke clears 1 fishing boat has been sunk and 2 fishermen killed. But the unarmed fishing fleet gets a score draw. The Russians shelled 2 of their own ships and killed 2 Russians. The British are furious and the Royal Navy is despatched to sink the Russia Fleet. The French Ambassador manages to stop the attack. The French tell the Russians to stay the hell away from any British Ports or face destruction. This causes a slight problem for the Russians because Gibraltar and the Suez Canal were on their route. They decide to go around Africa instead. They have arranged to be resupply with coal by a German Passenger Liner company. But they now need much more coal for the longer journey. They pile coal on deck. That's still not enough so they store coal in every available space below deck. Several crew members die of Black Lung. Cleanliness reduces to zero. Coal dust gets into guns and other vital machinery. Morale is low. The fleet stops off in Madagascar. The crew bring several exotic pets aboard. This includes a Crocodile who injures several crew members and a venomous snake which bites a senior officer. One ship has an infestation of Cameleons. A battleship is hit by shell fire from another battleship who are conducted a salute during a burial at sea. The Admiral orders gunnery practice. Its abandoned after the gunners successfully sink the ship towing the target. The fleet approaches Japan. They decide upon a sneak attack. All ships extinguish lights except the hospital ship. A Japanese Destroyer spots the hospital ship and investigates. The Russians identify it as a Russia ship and send frantic messages telling it to turn its lights off. The Japanese Destroyer spots the fleet, turns off its lights and exits. The Russia Fleet thinks they are still undetected. They are very wrong. The Japanese Fleet intercepts the Russians. Japan Loses > 117 dead, 3 torpedo boats sunk. Russian Loses> 5000 dead, 6000 taken prisoner, 7 battleships and 14 other ships sunk, 4 battleships and 1 Destroyer captured. In a final insult, a Russian Cruiser grounds itself. The crew flee ashore and destroy the ship to stop it falling into Japanese hands. They ran aground in Russia.

1 ship + 29 Lifeboats. Mission accomplished.

Possibly. But what about the logistics of Ukraine getting the drones to the right place at the right time when it's so far away from Ukraine? Do these drones have a range of 300 or 400 miles??? Remember that they are designed to travel at speed whilst partially submerged. I doubt they have marine drones floating around waiting for a Russia ship to be in the area. Ukraine has no navy. They would need to put the drones onto a larger ship that was safe from Russian attack and transport the drones into the general area.

I doubt it. Remember that the Black Sea is 100% controlled by Turkey. Russia would never get reinforcements into the Black Sea without agreement from Turkey. Russia's Black Sea fleet has nowhere to run or hide. Turkey has already said that they will protect civilian ships going to and from Ukraine. Israel has one of the most battle hardened and proven militaries in the world. Russia hasn't escalted the conflict after losing its unsinkable flagship, seeing its perfectly defended bridge fall twice, NATO supplying arms, NATO supplying HIMARS, NATO supplying tanks, the UK supplying cruise missiles, NATO expanding or NATO providing targeting data. That's not because they don't want to. It's because they can't.

When I look at the position of the strike (map in the 2nd tweet) it makes me wonder why Ukraine would have drones in this area and how they would be able to track /locate 2 Russia Patrol boats in that area. NATO must have been involved.

See above Alleged radio communication from the struck Russian patrol vessel.

See above Twitter posts relating to the NATO surveillance planes

Something happened in the Black Sea yesterday. Its very difficult to piece it together at the moment and there are many conflicting stories. But here's a few bits of the jigsaw - Russia reports 2 of its warships were attacked by Ukrainian drones but they were destroyed before reaching the ships. Intercepted radio conversations suggest at least 1 dead and 5 injured. The location was in neutral waters but very close to Turkey. Flightradar24 shows that 2 NATO surveillance aircraft headed into the area of the attack at the time. Here's the speculation......... Why would Ukrainian zones be operating in this area? Its nowhere near Ukraine/Crimea. Is it connected to NATO's commitment to protect civilian ships in the Black Sea? Were these Russia patrol ships attempting to "inspect" a civillian ship? Russia feels it has the right to do this. Have we just seen the first shots fired by NATO directly at Russian ships?

Another small nail in Putin's coffin. Let's see if Russia is brave enough to attack an Israeli ship protected by NATO.

I have a new pressure sprayer. When you build up the pressure it makes than penny whistle noise that you hear in the Carry On films when a lady's skirt drops down. When you release the pressure it sounds like air brakes on a train. Hours of fun.

For the benefit of @DewiMckay let's celebrate Russia's hugely successful Special Military Operation "We will stop NATO expansion" - Fail. NATO expanded. "We will demilitarise Ukraine" - Fail. Ukraine's military is bigger and better equipped. "We will protect Russian speakers in Ukraine" - Fail. They can't even defend Russian speakers in Russia. "Any country that interfers with the SMO will experience immediate retaliation never seen in history" - Fail. Ukraine has shot more missiles into NATO territory than Russia. One. "Europe will freeze without Russian gas" - Fail. "The Moskva is unsinkable" - Fail. Its been promoted to a submarine "Kherson is now part of Russia forever" - Fail. Six weeks later Russia ran away. "Sanctions will not work" - Fail. Ruble free falling against all world currencies.

1. Please provide a link to the Geneva Convention that states weapons cannot be sited in residential areas. 2. Sorry. I have no time for your alternative history nonsense. Russia invaded Ukraine twice. Russia is the aggressor. Russia twice violated an agreement to respect Ukraine's borders. Every death (on both sides) is the responsibility of Putin. 3. I wonder why Belarus wanted to join NATO? Was it because Russia was such a good neighbour? 4. Provided in an earlier post.

1. Most of the Warsaw Pact joined NATO in order to protect themselves from Russia. 2. Stalin murdered millions. Putin has murdered less. That makes both genocidal maniacs. 3. If the bear does not want to be poked it should get back into its cave. Personally I think NATO should be poking the bear much harder.

@DewiMckay You asked for a source showing that Russia initially admitted to shooting down MH17. Here is the link to Wikipedia. That then links to the other sources. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Russia murdered those people and still hasn't admitted responsibility.

The USSR was bigger than Russia. It had more gas, more oil, more land, more population and a bigger army. We killed it with 40 years of financial warfare. Most of the Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO because they feared the horror of being "liberated" by Russia again. In 1939 Russia was allied with the Nazis. They made a military pact and invaded Poland together. Russia slaughtered thousands of unarmed Poles in the Katyn massacres. Russia subsequently blamed the Nazis for commiting those attocities. Its the biggest country in the world with a proportionately tiny population. It should stick within its own borders.

1. Russia has been using cluster bombs since the start of the conflict. Russia has not banned these weapons. They are now crying because Ukraine is retaliating with the same weapons that they use. 2. South Korea can give weapons to Ukraine. If Russia doesn't want to be hit by those weapons then they should get the hell out of Ukraine.

Ukraine was attacking Russian forces that had invaded the Donbas which is part of Ukraine. Ukraine was placing rocket systems in Ukraine. What the hell has that got to do with Russia. Russia murdered the passengers of a civilian airliner flying over Ukraine. They even boasted about it when they thought it was a Ukrainian military plane. There were no drone attacks in Moscow until Russia invaded Ukraine for the second time and began commiting genocide. It amazes me that anyone can defend Russia's actions. If they are justified in attacking Ukraine because they want to be in NATO why shouldn't NATO attack Belarus because they want to be allied to Russia?

Its 1938 on the Villatalk Forum - "Poland is actually part of Germany. Poland has also signed a military treaty with the UK. If Hitler invades Poland- its Poland's fault. But we shouldn't involve ourselves. Opposing Hitler will just lengthen the war and lead to more deaths. Its not like he's going to attack any other countries or commit genocide."

The Budapest Agreement was signed by Russia. It made a commitment to respect Ukraine's borders at that time. Russia has broken that agreement twice. NATO rules on membership are very clear. Countries cannot join during an active military conflict. There is no way Ukraine could join without the rules being rewritten. That will not happen. The UK & US also signed the Budapest Agreement. That included an assurance that they would protect Ukraine's sovereignty if threatened by nukes. France and China gave similar assurances outside the agreement. The current situation is not the West's fault. It's Russia's fault. They invaded. Even if Ukraine wanted to become the 51st state of America - it does not justify invading Ukraine.

Yugoslavia - renowned for its fine wines. Wasn't there a scandal in the 70s when Yugoslvia wine was exposed as grape juice mixed with industrial alcohol???

I think its "Plaice" but the font has distorted when copied.

What the hell has he got on his head? Liverpool Echo

Eric Morecombe (3rd from left) looks really different without glasses.

Only Russia could report a drone strike resulted in "no damage" whilst also showing a picture of the damage. Clowns