History, Politics And Current Affairs

Taken from a stackexchange.com: In Star Trek - The Motion Picture, it is established that Kirk is a rear admiral, but he is addressed as captain on the Enterprise. Was this done because the heads of all vessels are traditionally addressed as captain? At the start of the movie, Kirk's rank insignia i...

Whatttttt!!!

I recently got a free 12mth Paramount+ membership so am I to season 1 of the <other> space station show of the 90s..!

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Wed Feb 11, 2026 1:07 am I would love to see KC747s part of a MITO.

Even better with B-747s in company…

yup, then it all becomes a matter of connecting up these in series or parallel depending on the differential equation. Some can get quite large (narrator lists 25 inputs). Electronics, micro circuitry and software makes this all so much easier since.......but it sure is pretty as hell seeing their ...

RJGFox wrote: ↑Sat Feb 07, 2026 12:20 am I’ve been looking for, but never found, an image of what the view through a big gun battleship’s rangefinder would look like…

Haven’t been able to find tha, but if you have ten minutes this video is fascinating. I could watch it all day.

https://youtu.be/gwf5mAlI7Ug?si=gBXYuwIU-BjiHT0b

A thought: Given periscope constraints, wouldn't U-Boot range-finders be 'coincident' ?? Subs used rangefinders when submerged? I thought they used lines like in a hunting scope. The target is ID-ed as X, making it Y long, meaning Z length/height in lines translates to range A. They did (yes to bot...

Mark, this is absolutely fascinating. The 100’ kill radius even more so.

Forgive me if this sounds like trivialising a superb technical post, but can we conclude from this that Stu was right all along in his contention that ABM was a problem mostly solved by the late 1960s?

could just have each admin/mod have 2 accts. 1) username 2) and username-mod keep your pw the same or whatever. it standardises easily. permissions for 1 set like every other member (incl can be ignored etc) permissions for 2 set for mod/admin (cannot be ignored) mod just logs into 2 (i'd imagine r...

Yes; no. I’m happy for the Mods to post in red when they mean Mod-business but I don’t want to have separate accounts for Mod & non-Mod posting. I already operate an Admin account and that’s a pain in the arrse.

Having noted the recent explosion of a thread between the most unlikely board members to have crossed words in the way they did, I think it’s time we cleared the air in here a bit. The general feeling is running rather high. We don’t all be on, but we hav all known each other to a greater or lesser ...

Apparently a spare pair of socks is out of fashion these days…

I'm going to say something as a military veteran, as a science fiction fan, and as a Star Trek fan: Stories about basic training are going to be one of the following: About as interesting as watching paint dry; Utter shite; Both. Training is dull for anyone not actually going through it. The Camp A...

Takes this with a fair bit of salt but there’s reporting in a ”paywalled” article in the Daily Mail today that Trump will hold a disclosure speech. Per a ”source” elsewhere this is supposedly what will be stated: If Trump announces anything like that, it will be the best announcement of its kind ev...

MikeKozlowski wrote: ↑Sat Jan 31, 2026 9:17 pm

David Newton wrote: ↑Sat Jan 31, 2026 8:15 pm

Nightwatch2 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 31, 2026 6:55 pm What was he thinking?

Probably something along the lines of uuuuuuuuuuh, unnnnnngh, duuuuuuuuuuh!

"Sir, it wasn't my fault - he had the big 48 piece box of Crayolas!!"

Mike

“The GREEN ones, sir!”

Well, one valid target out of five isn't too bad for random chance..... New Jersey? :D Yes. :mrgreen: Craig, weirdly there’s nothing online that I can find about that incident. I can't find it either. This site: https://www.nuclearinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Nuclear-Weapon-Accidents-Inciden...

And no second season…

They admit it exists and provide some pictures. Not much more than that at the moment. One of the rumored uses was to listen in to the telemetry from Soviet missile tests. Factsheet: https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/Documents/foia/JUMPSEAT%20Records/Jumpseat_SIGINT_Fact_Sheet.pdf?ver=3ftuLUHD9UbkEos...

Look, all this talk of accidentally nuking one’s ow country (or that of an ally) is all very well and good when nothing goes off… We accidentally nuked a golf course one day. Accidental release of a Red Beard (always unstable at the best of times) caused it to fizzle upon impact, estimated 20-30t TN...

I remember him mentioning a few years before he passed away a bit about Soviet aircraft guns and how they weren't built to last because Soviet pilots weren't expected to live long enough for their guns to get worn out. The mentality was in the are instances where their life was up, they'd be straig...

I remember him mentioning a few years before he passed away a bit about Soviet aircraft guns and how they weren't built to last because Soviet pilots weren't expected to live long enough for their guns to get worn out. The mentality was in the are instances where their life was up, they'd be straig...