Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2009
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2,572

The best video I've seen of inside the reactor. When you search Chernobyl most videos are just influencers walking around Pripyat but there are some excellent videos out there. I've searched a lot but cannot find footage I saw on TV some 20 years ago of the first time a team discovered the elephant's foot. It was most likely on BBC and I remember someone Russian saying "don't go in there it's 10k roentgen". Would love to find it.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Nov 2009
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Baa
Black woman and forces veteran defends her community against rioters with a powerful speech.

Fine words butter no parsnips.

(The swearing is bleeped out but I'll stick it in a spoiler tag with a bad language warning just in case.)

 
Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
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20,997
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Just to the left of my PC

Insane the size of this, could imagine if they had a few thousand of these early in the war. :eek:

For a few thousand of those you could have ~15,000 practical tanks, which would be much more effective. It was a silly idea, which Mark Felton aptly describes as a lesson in how not to design a tank in that video. Nowhere near enough mobility. Can't use bridges. Can't use roads. Can't pass through even sparse woodland (too big to pass between trees). Can't travel much of a distance under its own power (as you can see in the video, the main way of moving it was by train). And it's a huge target for enemy planes. You could probably bomb it from a plane, even with WW2 technology. Or bomb the railway so the tank can't be moved. On top of all that, it was never going to be reliable. Not with that much weight. A much better version could be made today, but isn't because it's just not very good at being a tank.

A far bigger "tank" was proposed and designed. The Mouse's (very) big relative - The Rat. 1000 tonnes. Basically a small battleship on land. Hitler liked that one too. Hitler had NFC what a tank is for and was wrong in the head.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
39,267
Location
Ireland
For a few thousand of those you could have ~15,000 practical tanks, which would be much more effective. It was a silly idea, which Mark Felton aptly describes as a lesson in how not to design a tank in that video. Nowhere near enough mobility. Can't use bridges. Can't use roads. Can't pass through even sparse woodland (too big to pass between trees). Can't travel much of a distance under its own power (as you can see in the video, the main way of moving it was by train). And it's a huge target for enemy planes. You could probably bomb it from a plane, even with WW2 technology. Or bomb the railway so the tank can't be moved. On top of all that, it was never going to be reliable. Not with that much weight. A much better version could be made today, but isn't because it's just not very good at being a tank.

A far bigger "tank" was proposed and designed. The Mouse's (very) big relative - The Rat. 1000 tonnes. Basically a small battleship on land. Hitler liked that one too. Hitler had NFC what a tank is for and was wrong in the head.

They're not practical, but none the less, impressive given their sheer size.

 
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