Mandy Lifeboats

An interesting development. Turkey has got 2 ships that act as mobile power plants to support their electrical grid. They have asked Romania and Moldova to host them and hook them up to their power grid. This will indirectly supply Ukraine with electricity from NATO protected waters. The long term aim is to site them in Ukrainian ports and hook them up directly.

I am no expert on submarines. Nor do I speak German. Is the submarine diving at the start of this clip??

Great answer. But do you have a soda stream?

In " Raiders Of The Lost Ark" the Nazis capture the ark and transport it by submarine. Indiana Jones is seen climbing onto the submarine. How did he survive the journey outside the sub? How did he avoid detection inside the sub? Why would the submarine travel the entire distance on the surface with such a valuable cargo. What happens when you put milk in a soda stream? Has anyone drunk fizzy milk?

Even cloned western tanks would have the same issue as the current Russian Tanks. They need fuel and ammunition which is delivered on a truck and stored in a building. That’s how NATO would stop Russian tanks.

Sorry. My bad. I was mixing up...... Canada and Norway. NATO zones with NORAD zones. Russia Ships trying to reach Europe with Russian planes trying to reach North America. Other than that........I was spot on.

NATO is adopting a simple policy. If Russia retreats - Ukraine’s weapons are clearly sufficient - no better weapons needed. If Russia advances or succeeds - Ukraine’s weapons are not sufficient - they are given better weapons. Russia succeeded with air attacks against the power grid. Patriots are provided. Russia is advancing small distances in several areas. Tanks are provided.

Agree.......sort of. Would NATO attack Moscow? Probably not. Would NATO attack military targets on Russian soil near the border? Definitely. Otherwise Russia could deploy air defences in Russia that cover Russian Forces without and danger.

It's fairly academic. The US and the UK signed a treaty with Sweden and Finland giving them our protection until they joined NATO. If Russia attacks Finland, the US and UK attack Russia. The US and UK would then seek NATO assistance which would be forthcoming from everyone with the possible exception of Turkey.

I think so. They abandoned their own guy because they were scared of their own tank.

Russian Troops. Keep a careful eye on the bottom left of the screen.

The Black Death decimated Europe. But it left Poland largely untouched. Historians don't know why. But it seems to have been an accumulation of many factors. A quarantine set up at the border kept new arrivals segregated. The quarantine wasn't effective. But many traders from abroad did not want to be quarantined and simply went elsewhere to trade thereby stopping the spread.

Turkey controls the Black Sea. That has greater than ever significance since Finland and Sweden joined NATO. St Petersburg is now useless as a naval base. NATO can shut the Gulf of Finland from both sides. Anything getting through there faces attackson all sides until it reaches the straits of Denmark. Then it meets the Royal Navy and Royal Airforce. Murmansk is often clogged with ice. Canada has extensive anti ship and anti submarine capacity in the area. Murmansk's land supply route is one road and one rail track that run along Finland's border through forests and mountains. Its also an area that Finland considers to have been stolen from them. 1,000 angry Finish Snipers and Special Forces operating there should be ample. The Mediterranean is controlled by Spain in the West and anything in the Suez Canal is going to be fairly easy to spot. It warms your heart.

According to Ukraine....... Russia fired 55 Missiles at Ukraine today. 47 were shot down. 3 fell harmlessly. The other 5 hit nothing of military value. Its exactly like the Fuhrer Bunker. These wonder weapons will turn the tide of the war.

Erdogan is a genius. He has managed to maintain reasonable relations with all sides. He's sending weapons to Ukraine to kill Russians at the same time as Russia is talking about building a gas hub in Turkey.

They would need to retain the weapon, the expertise, the knowledge, the equipment, the spare parts, lots of cash, people AND somewhere to keep them where the US couldn't intervene. It's possible but the more people involved the less likely it will succeed.

Yes. It was called Brexit. Not our problem.

If anyone wants to know how difficult it is - this is the massive US department responsible for doing so. https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/maintaining-stockpile "Maintaining the stockpile" Most nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile were produced during the 1950s and 1960s. At the time of their original production, nuclear weapons were not designed or intended to last indefinitely.

Who knows. If Russia loses this war they will be looking for people to blame. Traitors and incompetents who undermined Russia. Wagner is a private company because Russia can distance itself from its activities. I am sure they will very blamed for every warcrime possible. Meanwhile Wagner's leadership will be working out how to avoid being sacrificed to the Hauge.

They might go missing. But its unlikely they could be used in a devastating way. Nukes are difficult to maintain. At least a quarter of the UK's nukes are unoperational at any time. They are also very difficult to prime and make ready for detonation. If nukes were easy to detonate it wouldn't have taken the world's greatest minds so long to work out how to do it. The main risk is that the material inside would be spread around by a dirty bomb. But you could do exactly the same thing with material from your local hospital. Hollywood has created a perception that nukes are housed in steel boxes, have a visible countdown clock and are activated by a switch.

The Kremlin has said that Ukraine death squads are hunting down the leaders of Wagner. Hopefully that means the leadership of Wagner will soon be killed by the Kremlin and they are placing the blame elsewhere.

I agree. Will Internet shopping kill it eventually. I'd love to see Brum with lots more smaller independent shops.

Just remembered. Its called SDB. Small Diameter Bomb. It can cause a 3 foot hole in steel reinforced concrete.

Correct. There is a specific adaptation to HIMARS that is designed for that job. I cannot remember the name, but instead of producing a large explosion it punches a foot wide hole downwards. It's accurate to a few feet. The basic theory is that you pepper a small section of the bridge with so many holes that it collapses that section.

Market itself to whom? A place to site businesses? A place to visit? A place to hold conferences? A place to shop? A place to live? West Mids try to do all of this. I wonder if it needs to narrow down its marketing into a few key areas. Blackpool is for stag parties. Bath is for day trips. Lake District is for scenery. Cornwall is for summer holidays and expensive seaside homes for the rich. Milton Keynes is for businesses. Middlesborough is to make you realise there are people worse off than you. Etc.