Don't worry, we'd never allow an insincere virtue-signalling Irishman in this room

I've heard Bono tried to get in a few times, but our doorman has been efficient so far

Morning

morning

A chairde - Morning all!

Interesting stuff on rt.com (Russian site that's currently banned in the EU) - "US skeptical of UK military – Sky News" - apparently the British army isn't a tier one or even a two army in the Yankee grand scheme of things (see link) "According to Sky News, the general classed the armed forces of the US, China, Russia, and France as tier-one powers, with Germany and Italy representing tier-two armies."

Probably fair.

Though Germany doesn't have much of a military either, so I'm a bit surprised they would be classed as "tier 2".

I'm really starting to become rankled by this censorship - I'm using Hola (free version) to get around current EU restrictions - but it only allows an hour a day - can anyone recommend a good free VPN app that's free of restrictions?

@PaulWhite They've way more tanks than the British?

Sorry - forgot about the pinging!

Any functional ones?

AFAIK, they have (from memory) ~ 200 operational main battle tanks - the Leopard - widely considered to be the best/2nd-best Panzer in the world - possibly after the Abrams - which is way more difficult to operate than the Leopard!

That's not very many

> According to the sources, the general, referring to the army, said: "You haven't got a tier one. It's barely tier two."

So he did regard the UK as barely tier two

(from news.sky.com/story/…)

But I suppose it's all opinion anyway

Maybe generals enjoy playing Top Trumps

That's the British army he's referring to - "barely" is hardly a glowing endorsement. A bit like emissions - you can be "barely" complying or...

People are tank obsessed at the moment. For the most part, a tank is a tank is a tank

Unless it's a US Abrams in which case it's an imaginary tank

Imaginary? Not sure I get this?

Last I saw they were to be supplied late 2023 or early 2024

For the most part, it seems to have been a way to get Germany to send Leopard 2s

"a tank is a tank is a tank" - nonsense - the Americans lost 0 for 400 against Iraqi T72's

Ah yes the highly trained Iraqi army with full air support

Or a King Tiger?

Modern tanks are basically equal.

A Leopard can hit a target the size of a fridge at night from 3km - no Russian tank can do anything like that!

And on the move!

Well there shouldn't be any problem in Ukraine then

What's the situation in the air over Ukraine? The fact that Russia is sending missiles rather than bombers to Ukraine suggests to me that Ukraine has mastery of its own skies?

The RuAF doesn't really do bombers. Even the things they call bombers are mostly missile launchers.

Leo 2 is a third generation tank, list: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

npr.org/2022/05/11/1098150747/…

These people really cannot understand why Russia doesn't fight like they would (or did, in Iraq and other places). Blows their minds.

Ding ding ding "Round 2, fight!"

> I also spoke with Mark Cancian with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he says most military experts expected the start of this war to look something like the opening of the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003.

Shock and awe!

Never mind the civilian casualties

Just bomb the shit out of everything

@Vérace Paul is right. That comparison is false. The tanks were not just fighting each other. Not when the air was completely in US control.

Target practice really

Why say Germany doesn't have much of a military?

@ypercubeᵀᴹ Yeah, but my understanding is/was (despite air superiority) that there were actual tank-tank battles - it takes time for aircraft to respond. But I would agree, the 0-400 is unfair - but apparently, in any tank/tank battle, the US tanks won without loss!

@Vérace General impression from multiple sources. It's tough to compare these things, but Germany doesn't feature highly on globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php for example

@Vérace Unsurprisingly.

> Further combat was seen during 2003 when U.S. forces invaded Iraq and deposed Ba'athist Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War's Operation Iraqi Freedom. Some crews were issued M136 AT4 shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons under the assumption that they might have to engage heavy armor in tight urban areas where the main gun could not be brought to bear. During the invasion, at least nine Abrams tanks were put out of action by fire from rocket-propelled grenades.

> One achievement of the M1A1s was the destruction of seven T-72s in a point-blank skirmish (less than 50 yards (46 m)) near Mahmoudiyah, about 18 miles (29 km) south of Baghdad, with no U.S. losses.[39] This was in the face of inadequately trained Iraqi tank crews, most of whom had not fired live ammunition in the previous year due to the sanctions then in operation and made no hits at point-blank range.

(from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams#Iraq_War)

Apparently, seven of the nine Abrams destroyed were lost to 'friendly fire'

Though that was from the first Iraq War, not the sequel

@PaulWhite look at nz at 103 - no wonder you guys prefer to stay off maps

@ErikDarling Yeah, New York could invade us quite easily

Probably just Brooklyn actually

A couple of blocks perhaps

*blokes

Don’t tempt me

one man and his missus

I could use a vacation

a doorman and his dog

Really test that new PM

I think I've said before that if anyone invaded us, we'd likely just show them around and ask nervously what they thought of the place so far

I don't really know why we have a military. Probably someone just thought we should

For appearances or sthg

Good way to keep teen boys busy with a sense of purpose

Like boy scouts with artillery

Well N.Z. has a defence force, not an army. Just like the IDF (Israeli Defence Force).

Namewise

N.Z. Defense Force | Operations & Engagements

@JohnK.N. Maybe they should be called the Israeli Scouing Association?

I think it was a punchline of a joke: "We would invade you, if we could find you on a map"

Well I mentioned the defence bit, because it slightly contradicts with the Overseas Operations, doesn't it?

Well, everyone spends huge amounts on defence

Including quite a few arguably offensive weapons

@PaulWhite wouldn't you just lead them to mordor?

sure would

then ask them what they thought of it

I heard a stand-up comedian say that where the English say, "put the kettle on," New Zealanders say, "boil the jug" and I just find that phrase delightful.

@PaulWhite good point

Dammit, I have to be a tank expert this morning!

Morning

@CadeRoux i figured you'd been tanked for years

@SeanGallardy - can you take a look at this answer? It seems to imply that a service borker endpoint is required to avoid repeated errors being logged in the SQL Server Error Log. Seems very weird to me, but I'm seeing the aforementioned error being logged frequently, with nothing reported in sys.service_broker_endpoints.

I'm reluctant to add an endpoint just for the sake of avoiding an error message, and would love a better explanation than "because".

tanks but no tanks

@HannahVernon Did you mean to link the answer below that one?

That would make more sense

the first answer links to a website which links to an old msft page that shows some unintelligible garbage talking about the resolution, but either way I guess. They both point to the same resolution (being to add an endpoint arbitrarily)

Oh I see

I only read the quoted portion

doesn't sound like something a p-core could do

@PaulWhite I feel like I got Service Brokered again. For some reason there were a bunch of old server notification messages queued in the msdb sys.transmission_queue that never got delivered. I've removed the messages, and am waiting to see if the error message shows up in the server error log.

you're in an abusive relationship

no doubt

@HannahVernon Sure, I'm out today but I'll check it out tomorrow.

@SeanGallardy no worries; it's probably really dumb anyway

of course it is

it involves service broker