Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
Michael Yon reports that the troops don’t actually like it that much – it’s too tall, for one thing.
Then again, it seems he’s hanging out a lot with the Stryker troops, who’s love for their vehicle appears to border on the unnatural.
Lex, as I went through those slides, If I were there, I would have had puckered sphincter issues. This is only true, if I were lucky. If I wasn’t lucky, I would have had laundry issues.
To those serving our Country, seriously, I just want to say, “THANK YOU!!”
Grumpy
The MRAP pictured that survived the 500 lb. blast was a Cougar made by Force Protection. The Marines love this vehicle. The Maxxpro MRAP made by Navistar Internation that the troops are complaining about. It is very tall and knocks down power line wires and is more prone to rollover.
That’s the vehicle my guys are training in now, and the same one we’ll have when we get in country. The guys we’re relieving have no complaints about ‘em, except to say they’re a bit underpowered; I’ll gladly take underpowered if we can walk away from that kind of hit!
These are built just up the road from me. You’ll occasionally see one in traffic while it’s out for a test drive. Kind of intimidating to hear that diesel rumble up at a stop light and look over only to be staring at the lug nuts.
My buddy helped design the website for Force Protection. Lot’s of great pics and videos there. We had some fun coming up with the rotating captions.
Roachman
I’ll be in my bunk.
As a former reservist, I can tell you, that I would take the MRAP (that someone posted was too tall) over the Humvee ANY day!
Why?
Because Id want to survive and continue to live to see another day!
What struck me is how this is but a small example of the adaptability of technology over unanticipated threat. Apply this to global warming. I really think that when the oceans start to rise significantly and Russia’s Northeast passage becomes a commercial reality, any downside will be a piece of cake compared to stuff like this. I’ve seen 500# bomb craters and this is quite remarkable.
But then the global warming hysteria is merely a symptom of national decline. But then this is a symptom of national vigor. WTF?
“[...] the engineering team who built the vehicle has every right to be proud of the work they did.”
Ya, those blokes at Reumech OMC certainly know their stuff. Then again, they do have almost 25 years of experience with stepping on mines in the veld to lean on.