Since I can only get to the Mudcat when my works done, I just arrived after the weekend, only to find that while the cats away... So lets start straighting a few things out.

Bulfrog, if you had half a clue about what you quoted, you would realize that you just blew the hell out of your cohorts comments about the Belgrano. ANGLICO stands for Air Naval Gunfire LIaison COmpany, and are naval officers or senior enlisted who are forward observers for naval gunfire (in this case the battleship, New Jersey).


The use of naval gunfire is extremely important in an amphibious landing, but the British is the Falklands did not have a captial ship, due to the previous governments idiotcy, and the ground forces were forced to use close air support and landed artillery. The Belgrano would have caused two forms of havoc. By steaming directly towards the Falklands, she would have required the Brits to divide their already meager air power into three missions; ground support for the troops, air cover for the anchored fleet, and attack aircraft on the Belgrano. And when she arrived, she could have rained hell on Goose Green from any point of the compass around the Islands.

Your limited mind obviously does not comprehend that the Argentines already had land based airpower, that eventually sunk three ships with Exercets, and that their French Mirages were more than a match for the Harrier (which is not an air superiority fighter but a close ground support plane).

Now do try and pay attention: The Belgrano was a declared combatant, by it's own government the DAY IT SAILED, after the Argentines occupied the Islands, and herded the occupants/hostages into army concentration camps, and after Lady Thatcher had spent some three months working through the UN (which backed her actions, after the Argentines refused to negotiate) a point the BRIT TWITS refuse to acknowledge. I know that I've no chance in engaging in a battle of wits with a group of individuals who come to the match half-prepared, but I do hope that some of the other readers are able to catch some of the points being made.

Now to quickly clean up some of the other intellectual stragglers.

Greg F, I don't expect that you have a clue what you are talking about in mines, but the word COMMAND DETONATED means the mine does not indiscriminately kill women, children, yadayada, yammer, yammer, etc. It is set up temporarily above ground to cover trails, lines of attack, etc and is activated by a button attached to an electric detonator. It is never left behind, and is expressly permitted, and actually encouraged as a sane alternative, by the current UN Working Group on Anti Mining Treaty. And Greg, I don't mind insults, I just hate the really stupid, ignorant ones...

As for studying war, somebody has to keep the twits away from the buttons.

As for the lunacy that by not indicating a continuing interest in a piece of national property that has not been in dispute for over a hundred years, you have CAUSED a war when somebody forcibly occupies it; my question to the BRIT TWITS is this, any of you guys comtemplating a shot at Rhode Island?... Our government hasn't indicated a desire to fight for that particular state in my memory...

As for coal and steel, they were dying morbiund industries in the States too, and went the same way, without Lady Thatcher's help. When you charge too much for the job you are doing, and your business doesn't make a profit, and is only held up by government subsidies, eventually you lose your job and your industry...

Finally, I hope I do not bring fire down upon your head, but thanks Teribus... it takes two to recognize the truth...