Red arrows

[ladyofastolat]

We've just had a lovely aerobatics display by the Red Arrows just over our house. This is faintly worrying, since if they're aiming for the Festival, they're 4 miles off, and if they're aiming for Cowes Week, they're 2 months too early. As I said to Pellinor, "I would have thought that the RAF's crack fighter unit could read a map." He scoffed mightily about the "crack fighter unit", and said something technical about the sort of planes they use. However, I stand by my statement. My theory is that aerobatics serve to baffle and confuse the enemy, and lull them into a false sense of security. I'm sure that the army also has a crack team of ballet dancers, whose role is to pirouette prettily up to the open-mouthed enemy, then produce a knife from their pretty pink tutus and kill the disarmed enemy. Well, I think it would work.

Many of you have already heard my Battleship Theory, but for those who haven't, here it is. My theory is that all battleships should be called things like "Cute Bunny" and "Fairy Twinkletoes." This wil have several benefits:

1. The people serving on that ship will be so embarrassed to have to go round with "Cute Bunny" written on their uniforms, that they will become super fierce and macho, to compensate.

2. If the enemy dares do a single hostile action against you, all the papers in the world will have to report that "Dastardly Killer fires upon Cute Bunny." You have won the propaganda war instantly. Your own people rally to support the poor defenceless cute bunnies, and also all the neutral countries in the world think your enemy is awful for sinking the cute bunny. However, if the cute bunny manages to score a hit on the Dastardly Killer, the enemy becomes the laughing stock of the world for being mauled by a bunny.

Oh. There has just been a sudden very loud roar, and one solitary red arrow has raced away towards the Solent. I think he must have killed his friends, and is trying to get away discreetly. Which is kind of hard when you're in a bright red aeroplane.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Well, the Red Arrows' planes (BAe Hawks) could be used as fighters in an emergency, as they can be fitted with gun packs and missiles. That's the theory, at least, but I don't know how easy the conversion would be.

A pedant could also point out that only one nation (the US) still uses battleships as such, and I think all theirs are currently mothballed.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have been to an airshow where a couple of US planes performed over the wrong airfield, a few miles away. The announcer took great delight in bringing out his stock of similar stories. This makes the blue-on-blue incidents in the Gulf all too credible.

[gileswench.livejournal.com]

I admire and completely subscribe to your theories of warfare.

(bows to the genius of the Cute Bunny)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Not even the US Navy has battleships now. Their last WW2 battleships were decommissioned in the 1990s I think, and I have a feeling that I've read somewhere that they aren't even in mothballs any more.

The closest to a battleship (in physical form) in any current navy are the Russian Kirov class battlecruisers, but even they are a lot smaller than say Bismarck or HMS Hood.

In terms of purpose, the closest thing to a battleship you'll see in a modern navy would be something like a Trafalgar class submarine, or the Astute class launched this week in Barrow.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia:
"The last two Iowa-class battleships were removed from the mothball fleet in 2006, and are currently awaiting transfer for use as museum ships."

[nilsigma.livejournal.com]

I have watched an RAF Hercules trying to land on the ex-airfield that I worked on. You would have thought it would have noticed the flowering cherry trees on either side of the runway.

As for 'Cute Bunny', let me assure you that horses are already named on this principle, and the reverse works too, so if you want a slow horse pick 'Whirlwind' or 'Storm', and never, ever, ride 'Dobbin'.