The TEF

[BANGKOK RED]

She's a bit poorly innit.

Critical error massif for me tonight.

[axs]

ditto

[Samdy Gray]

Someone needs to stick a quid in the meter

[Reg Smeeton]

I've been forced to look at thisis.....

[Luci]

All goes tits up since Sonic got himself a job.

He emailed me to tell me the other day he received an all staff email regarding a lost banana so I'm guessing they're not super busy!

[BANGKOK RED]

Iv'e been wikipedia-ing.

Apparently the Belgrano, an argentinian ship sunk during the Falklands conflict by HMS Conqueror (Submarine) is the only ship to date to have been by a nuclear powered vessel.

Oh, and The Argentinian "Conflict" was named a conflict as opposed to a war because neither side officially declared war on each other.

Fascinating.

[Barry Scott]

Iv'e been wikipedia-ing.

Apparently the Belgrano, an argentinian ship sunk during the Falklands conflict by HMS Conqueror (Submarine) is the only ship to date to have been by a nuclear powered vessel.

Oh, and The Argentinian "Conflict" was named a conflict as opposed to a war because neither side officially declared war on each other.

Fascinating.

I remember during the world cup in 2002 when Beckham scored the penalty and a load of yobbos in Mackenzies started singing, "Where's your Belgrano, where's your Belgrano!".

Not the most tasteful of songs, but then us English aren't renowned for being respectful of other nations and their histories.

[BANGKOK RED]

Iv'e been wikipedia-ing.

Apparently the Belgrano, an argentinian ship sunk during the Falklands conflict by HMS Conqueror (Submarine) is the only ship to date to have been by a nuclear powered vessel.

Oh, and The Argentinian "Conflict" was named a conflict as opposed to a war because neither side officially declared war on each other.

Fascinating.

I remember during the world cup in 2002 when Beckham scored the penalty and a load of yobbos in Mackenzies started singing, "Where's your Belgrano, where's your Belgrano!".

Not the most tasteful of songs, but then us English aren't renowned for being respectful of other nations and their histories.

They started it though!!!

[Reg Smeeton]

Iv'e been wikipedia-ing.

Apparently the Belgrano, an argentinian ship sunk during the Falklands conflict by HMS Conqueror (Submarine) is the only ship to date to have been by a nuclear powered vessel.

Oh, and The Argentinian "Conflict" was named a conflict as opposed to a war because neither side officially declared war on each other.

Fascinating.

  Remember when the conflict was going from sabre rattling to proper fighting, I was walking Offa's Dyke path  in mid Wales.  When I do this sort of thing I like to cut off as far as possible from news etc....this was probably easier to do back then than now.   Nevertheless it was impossible not to realise that something was kicking off.  I couldn't believe it....here we were fighting a bloody conflict with a nominal ally over a bunch of sheepshaggers and penguins.  Worst thing was that Thatcher became quite popular and won a couple more elections as a consequence.

 At least fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have an enemy.

[BANGKOK RED]

Quite interesting really how it all kicked off (If it's your cup of tea).

Basically the Argies where under a military Junta at the time, and the said Junta where under pressure and on the verge of being overthrown. And so to gain public support they decided to invade one of the Islands. The thing is though that where not expecting the Brits to be all that bothered about it and thought that we would pretty much let it go. Their initial invasion came completely by surpise and we where even supplying them with arms not long before, and some of our our weapons where even used against us (Which was to our advangtage)

But then we retaliated and the Junta could not back out otherwise they would loose face and almost certainly be overthrown. They managed to put up a bit of a fight because strategically it was a major pain in the arse for us. A major factor for us was the SAS, who pretty much kicked ass really.

[Reg Smeeton]

Quite interesting really how it all kicked off (If it's your cup of tea).

Basically the Argies where under a military Junta at the time, and the said Junta where under pressure and on the verge of being overthrown. And so to gain public support they decided to invade one of the Islands. The thing is though that where not expecting the Brits to be all that bothered about it and thought that we would pretty much let it go. Their initial invasion came completely by surpise and we where even supplying them with arms not long before, and some of our our weapons where even used against us (Which was to our advangtage)

But then we retaliated and the Junta could not back out otherwise they would loose face and almost certainly be overthrown. They managed to put up a bit of a fight because strategically it was a major pain in the arse for us. A major factor for us was the SAS, who pretty much kicked ass really.

We used to maintain some sort of naval presence down that way, but when this was withdrawn, the Argies took it as a signal we didn't care.

  Mrs Thatcher got some help from that awfully nice General Pinochet...who overthrew the democratically elected left wing government
 of Salvador Allende, in Chile.

 The Chileans quite like us, not only because of conveniently overlooking human rights abuses....but because one of their heroes of the fight to gain liberation from Spain, was  radical Brit,  Lord Thomas Cochrane.

  Cochrane was a character around the time of the Napoleonic War....he was driven out of the Navy because of his political ideas, and Bernardo O'Higgins sought his help in organising the Chilean navy to fight the Spanish.   A major ship of the Chilean Navy is still named after Cochrane.

 Think they got it second hand from us

[BANGKOK RED]

We used to maintain some sort of naval presence down that way, but when this was withdrawn, the Argies took it as a signal we didn't care.

That's it in a nutshell Reg, I can't boast to know from memory as my wiki period helped me.  But the Argies thought that because we called a few ships back home that we couldn't give a shit and so the under pressure Junta thought that they had a golden opportunity to make themselves look good.[/quote]

[neville w]

Even so, we were down to the bare bones in terms of support (not enough helicopters etc) and if we'd have lost a carrier (definite possibility with exocets about) it could have been so different.

At the end of the day it was our regular and elite troops  against their largely conscript forces that carried the day. We shouldn't underestimate how close it was though.

[BANGKOK RED]

Even so, we were down to the bare bones in terms of support (not enough helicopters etc) and if we'd have lost a carrier (definite possibility with exocets about) it could have been so different.

At the end of the day it was our regular and elite troops  against their largely conscript forces that carried the day. We shouldn't underestimate how close it was though.

They only had 5 exocets, one of which struck and sunk one of our ships.

We didn't have enough choppers cos' they managed to sink our transport ships carrying the choppers, and there where no chinooks available for troop transport on the island.

We made LOADS of blunders which cost a fair few men and quite a bit of hardware, thanfully for us they often didn't have the right tools for the job. (Bombs not detonating on our ships ect.)

Your'e right Nev, that it was a close call and a bit of luck went in our favour.

Although in saying that should things not have been going our way I can't help but think that the Iron Lady would have unleashed our full force onto  the Argies. I know that we ain't as big as we used to be but we are still a force to be reckoned with. Could have been a nasty drawn out affair and so thank fuck it ended relatively quickly.

Oh, and the argies had a fair few specual forces troops there themselves.

[axs]

I cried a little when we beat them in WC2002.