Nimrod was central to our defence against Russia's fleet of nuclear submarines
Posted on 01/27/2011 8:29:52 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Scrapping Nimrod is a gift horse for the Russians
By Con Coughlin
Last updated: January 27th, 2011
The commanders of Russia’s Baltic fleet will be rubbing their hands with glee over the government’s decision to scrap the RAF’s £4 billion Nimrod aircraft.
As I wrote this morning, for 40 years Nimrod has been central to our attempts to prevent Russia’s fleet of nuclear submarines from penetrating our defences.
But without the sophisticated maritime reconnaissance capability that Nimrod provides, we have, in effect, abandoned the North Sea to the Russians.
Defence officials insist that our Nato allies in Scandanavia, who also have a vested interest in keeping the Ruskies at bay, will be able to help us out by sharing the intelligence they collect from their own surveillance patrols.
This may well be true, but I suspect the quality of the information they provide will be inferior to that provided on a daily basis by the teams of RAF specialists who have honed their skills over many years of detecting and tracking Russian submarine movements.
I can see why the government felt it had no option other than to scrap the Nimrod programme. Once the Strategic Defence and Security Review had decided to stick with the new aircraft carriers, and that the Army must remain immune from wholesale cuts while it is still operational in Afghanistan, there were few other options left.
Nor did the RAF do itself any favours by presiding over a programme that was more than a decade behind schedule and massively over budget.
But the retired service chiefs who
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Nimrod was central to our defence against Russia's fleet of nuclear submarines
The North Sea has not been abandined to the Russians.
I’ve had the good fortune to see this plane fly.
It is an amazing aircraft and highly maneuverable for its size.
The Muslims in the UK and USA are a bigger threat than Putin.
I should have scrolled down first...you beat me to it by quite a bit.
Once the US Navy’s P8 comes on line, the UK could pick up some used P3’s relatively cheap, no?
Great minds do think alike
You know, back in the 50s/60s when I started to read Hunting magazines, a common nickname for a hunter was ‘nimrod’... people like Jack O'Connor, Elmer Keith, Ted Trueblood, or Byron Dalrymple would toss this term out as a non critical description of one who stalked game....taken from the biblical King, Nimrod the Hunter, who built the tower of babel.
I do not know when, why, or where the first depiction of a ‘Nimrod’, as a moron occurred...but it denigrates hunters everywhere....
It is an amazing aircraft and highly maneuverable for its size.
All the more remarkable since its wing is inherited directly from the much-maligned De Havilland Comet, which first flew in 1949!
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It is in your post:
taken from the biblical King, Nimrod the Hunter, who built the tower of babel
.
but that is not, where I believe, the current use came from...I believe it is because it is a funny sounding name...that probably translates to bow and arrow if you think of it(nimble??? rod??? no? whatever.)...and back in the early 60s it was not considered a denigrating term. And I do not think those who use the term today are biblical scholars.
Word Origin & History
Nimrod
“great hunter,” 1712, in ref. to the biblical son of Cush, referred to (Gen. x.8-9) as “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” It came to mean “geek, klutz” by 1983 in teenager slang, for unknown reasons. (Amateur theories include its occasional use in “Bugs Bunny” cartoon episodes featuring rabbit-hunting Elmer Fudd as a foil; its possible ironic use, among hunters, for a clumsy member of their fraternity; or a stereotype of deer hunters by the non-hunting population in the U.S. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
http://www.simplyplanes.co.uk/hawker_siddeley_nimrod.shtml
I cant cut and paste....go to the 5th section and they call the Nimrod the Mighty Hunter.
and yeah I remember that particular Bugs Bunny toon...and that probably tipped it over the edge to mean a ‘maroon’ as bugs would say...
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