Mandy Lifeboats

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.

NATO tactics for defeating Russia were to let them advance, destroy their supply lines and wait for collapse. Ukraine did that and pushed the Russians back. But Russia is countering that tactic. They are dug in and have no real ambition to advance. They just want to defend what they have and make small gains. So Ukraine needs a new tactic. The most obvious tactic would be to strike south east from Kherson and get to the sea. That would leave Crimea completely dependent upon the bridge and well most of Crimea within HIMARS range. But that must be in the forefront of Russia's mind. In my opinion the next breakthrough will be an opportunistic one caused by Russia moving its forces to counter Ukraine's new tanks and inadvertently leaving a weakness. Russia will leave some bunch of poorly trained clowns in a position where they can be cut off from supplies. They will surrender rather than fight to the death.

Let’s be realistic. The threat of these tanks will have a far greater impact than their actual value. I mean that in a positive way. Russia will now be building tank defences and deploying anti tank weapons along most of the front line. That’s a hell of a lot of resource being taken up when the actual assault will be on tiny sections of the line. it would seem logical to hold the Challengers near Kyiv. In fact…….paint them luminous pink and have them driving along the Belarus border every day. Put the Abrams together and the Leopards together in different areas to maximise logistics. Let’s see how many Russians mobilise when they know they will be facing angry Ukrainians in US tanks.

Tanks are on the way but sometimes it’s the smaller efforts that make me proud. An Aussie car mechanic has gone to Ukraine. He takes any donated old Nissan 4 x 4 and services them. He then converts them to whatever can help. He has recently made 8 mini ambulances which house a driver and passenger sitting next to a stretcher and basic medical equipment. Just this 1 guy must have saved dozens of lives.

Ukraine needs the Leopards first. Poland can supply all the maintenance, servicing and training. Ukraine probably has some Foreign Legion fighters who are already trained. Challenger and Abrahams will put a strain on the logistics. Next step - F16.

1970 Joke. What is black and white and travels across water at 250mph? Mountbatten's peaked cap.

On a similar note. 1980s joke. Norman Tebbit and his wife are the fastest readers in history. They went to bed in a Brighton Hotel and went through 3 stories in 0.5 seconds.

Again.........not all bad.

Either you missed the joke or it was a rubbish joke. I was suggesting that blowing up Manchester was a positive.

Gulf War 1. Genocide and Civil War in Yugoslavia. The first bombing of the World Trade Centre. The bombing of Manchester City Centre. OK........it wasn't all bad.

They are on strike.

Ukraine did/does have a problem with racism and Nazism. But it was a catch 22 situation. Addressing the problem would have meant weakening the army, Police Force and numerous other volunteer units. It was simply never going to happen whilst Russia's aggression was anticipated. Ukraine will reform and become better. But I think it will be a few decades before Russians are welcome.