@Cerberus: Heavy conversation; thankfully, in my absence! Picking one's nose, or stealing somebody's ship. Please be comforted that the Dutch navy has long since been forgiven.

@tony If not forgotten...

Perhaps the closest thing to a Dutch navy I know is KLM.

@Joonas: Forgotten?! It's true that Dutch people still love & respect the memory of Michael de Ruyter (I tested this out). We, with a sense of history, remember receiving a bloody nose, in 1667! Do you respect Marshall Mannerheim? Fascinating was footage of the Marshall meeting Hitler, in 1942. Mannerheim's distaste was palpable (no media-training then). He refused to hand Finnish Jews over to the Nazis and, clearly, the association with Adolf was seen as short-term political necessity.

@Joonas: Incidentally, that meeting produced the only (known) recording of Adolf speaking in a normal voice; chest-to-chest, as it were.

@JoonasIlmavirta How dare you!

@Cerberus I dare well, thank you. :P

But it's not like I'd expect anyone to remember the Finnish Air Force either.

@tony Oh yes, Mannerheim is still well and fondly remembered.

I'm not sure what you mean by "remember".

It's still there.

Finland joined Germany in the war but never in the ideology.

@Cerberus Me neither! I suppose I meant it's not as widely known as it once was.

Naturally.

@Cerberus I can imagine. Your country has quite a maritime nature, especially if your dams fail.

Will all of Holland become a navy then?

A lot of dikes would have to fail!

It's all compartmentalised.

And I believe the big cities are (still) above sea level.

Maybe the Dutch navy can just switch to land ships.

I believe they call them "tanks".

We sold all of our tanks a couple of years ago!

Now we're renting them back from Germany...

@Cerberus That seems good for Germany but not so good for the Netherlands.

Yeah, it was stupid.

The government had a change of heart after the tanks had been sold.

So they had to do something, which was renting tanks from the part they sold them to (if I remember correctly).

Maybe they should consider building more again?

Yeah, or rather, buying.

I'm sure it is under consideration.

@Cerberus That makes sense. Eggs in different baskets and so forth.

@Cerberus Buying weapons is a complicated business. Finland is in the process of acquiring new fighter planes, and that's a lot of money and roughly a decade in planning and decision before anything lands on our soil.

@Adam A landship sounds more like a British WWI tank, and it seems to be in use for beasts of that kind.

@JoonasIlmavirta Oh, don't get me started on that!

The army really, really wanted the American planes, the F-35s.

But it's been a disaster.

The cost has quadrupled already, or something, and we still don't have most of them delivered, after how many years? Twenty?

And Parliament has made and revoked decisions about those planes so many time I can't count it.

@Cerberus And by the time you get (some of) them, they're old and you need to buy next generation planes.

We have these options on the table here.

There's been quite a debate over the selection process. For example, some previous commanders of the defence forces work as consultants for some companies.

@JoonasIlmavirta You still have the options?

We had those exact options.

But the army always wanted the F-35. So we locked ourselves in long ago.

> Aanvankelijk wordt geschat dat de overheid en bedrijven 800 miljoen euro moeten investeren. Dat bedrag stuit al op verzet. Maar het valt in het niet bij de uiteindelijke kosten: ruim 5 miljard euro.

Only 525% more expensive than first estimates.

@JoonasIlmavirta Yeah, that makes it even worse.

People with certain interests, lobbyists.

@Cerberus My impression is we still genuinely have the options. But I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was effectively already made.

@Cerberus I don't think anyone in high official capacity has expressed a clear preference. Maybe they've narrowed it down to few, but not one.

@Cerberus Yikes!

It seems we're behind you in the acquisition process. I hope our folks are paying attention to what's happening to the Dutch.

@JoonasIlmavirta That is much better than our situation. And probably also much cheaper.

@JoonasIlmavirta You are very, very wise to be behind.

Our government and army fell for the idea of getting a discount if we locked ourself into the F-35 early.

And our companies would get to make various parts, getting some the money back to Holland that way.

I think it was all a big disappointment.

Both qua time and qua money.

But, twenty years later, I think we now had the first planes delivered.

I didn't have my hopes high for the Finnish process, but I hope we can get something reasonable.

It's interesting to know that keeping so many options on the table could be so beneficial.

But we don't know yet; perhaps the Dutch indeed have the best case scenario, and we're in for something worse.

@JoonasIlmavirta Umm I don't think so!

Sellers want you to think you really need to buy early.

@Cerberus I know. That's related to how I lose interest in a product whenever there's a pressure to decide quickly.

Exactly.

It's kind of fun to see salesmen react to my requests to take a brochure home and think it through. Many won't allow that.

Heh.

What kind of salesmen?

Electricity, phone plans, and charities come to mind.

Ah, I ignore all of those.

I'm a monthly donor to some charities, but not because they asked.

Probably partly because they didn't ask.

@JoonasIlmavirta Same here.

@JoonasIlmavirta Licet cernere infantiam (verbum fabricatum ex infante ut "speechlessness" Anglice significam) signum infirmitatis. Infirmatis pecunae, potentae-- hanc rem nescio. Huic hypothesi non credo in hoc situ, sed opinatio debetur.