Bush ad sites wrong company, wrong workers and wrong state

A $10 million ad blitz in Michigan (another crucial swing state for the president) criticized presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry for votes against various weapons systems. An ad that ran in Detroit claimed Kerry voted against the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a tank-like weapon that saw extensive action in Iraq.

The ad said the vehicle was “made in Michigan,” and campaign spokespeople stood in front of the General Dynamics headquarters there asking if Kerry cared about the site’s 1,200 jobs.

Wrong state.

Wrong company.

While General Dynamics makes some fine weapons systems, it doesn’t manufacture the Bradley.

Any York countian can tell you it’s made right here in West Manchester Township by 910 United Defense workers.

How soon they forget.

It was just about a year ago that local workers were giving each other high-fives for toppling Saddam — or least his statue. The tank recovery vehicle used to pull down that monument to egomania in Baghdad was made by United Defense in York County.

http://ydr.com/story/opinion/24881/

Citing Kerry's refusal to support all these critical weapons systems being used nowe in the War on Terra. They made sure to include Aegis destroyers being buuilt at Bath Iron Works here.

But the union president at Bath Iron Works doesn't think Bush is going to help them out too much. Their support will eventually go to Kerry. And their endorsement will carry some weight.

The votes mentioned in the commercial were from a long time ago ... and represented a post-cold war trimming of defense spending promised by Bush the Wiser, and Uncle Dick Crashcart voted the same way ... those details were left out of the commercial though!

If only we had more fucking warships to help us fight the "guerrillas/rebels/insurgents/terr'ists" in the middle of the goddamn desert and in, say, the streets of Fallujah!

THEN we'd be winning the war but good!

Damn you Kerry... damn you for not sending more Aegis Destroyers to Iraq!

/sarcasm

to have more ships who's purpose is to shoot down incoming missiles fired from Soviet submarines and aircraft? Sure, the system can't aim low enough to hit a small speedboat packed to the gills with explosives, but if the insurgents ever get their hands on some multi-million dollar post-exocet anti-ship missiles, we'll be all set.

F*ckin' snowshoes.

You know, Tubbs Snowshoes is headquartered in Vermont, and when John Kerry voted against equipping our soldiers in Iraq with sorely-needed snowshoes, he didn't just hurt the troops -- he hurt Vermont, too.

Isn't Bob's House of Dog Leashes in Brattleboro?

But I believe that the U.S. Electrodes 'N' Hood Emporium is in Montpelier, so...

my ex-girlfriend loved it there!

after all the recent screw-ups by the admin, someone would start checking the facts before spending big bucks on an ad like this.

If Kerry's team had a pair, they would use the ad to point out the disconnect the Bush team has with the real world.

the media certainly won't do it's job and inform the country .

bush*inc knows they can get away with it

don't have to check facts... Jaysus said we are right!!!!

I have no idea which state that's done in though.

And it certainly doesn't count as "made in michigan" and more than you can claim the F-16 is built in any state but Texas. Virtually every state has some piece of it. But it's assembled in Ft Worth.

Probably a mistake to put too much attention on it. It just draws attention to the issue of systems Kerry had previously opposed. Which hasn't really got a lot of traction so far. It may have even been an intentional slip.

Explosive reactive armor is boxes of explosives bolted to the sides of the vehicle. When a high-explosive antitank round hits one of these ERA boxes, the ERA box explodes and blows the HEAT round out and away from the vehicle.

(A HEAT round works on a shaped-charge principle. If you cut one in half, you'll see that it has a hole drilled end-to-end through the explosive charge. When a HEAT round goes off, that hole allows the charge to form a white-hot plasma jet that burns through the vehicle; when the charge gets inside the vehicle, it flares out and roasts everything inside.)

The US never deployed ERA because it poses a danger to infantry working in the vicinity of the vehicle. Being in the infantry is dangerous enough as it is; we don't need to add to that.

The US uses "Chobham" armor. Chobham plate is two sheets of armor plate with an air space between them. If a HEAT round hits this armor, it punches through the first plate, then flares out as HEAT rounds will. That flared-out jet won't affect the second plate. The composition of the plates, and the spacing between them, is a carefully guarded secret.

Now let me pose a fun puzzle to you. A tank, any tank, has two pieces of metal in the front of the hull--one above the beltline, the other below. They are slanted on every tank ever made. Why?

http://www.gdatp.com/news/2004/NR04-06_042304.htm

And I'm fairly sure that the Abrams has an option to add reactive armor as well, though you are correct that the standard plate is "chobham". The composit interior is classified, but I'm pretty sure that it's common knowledge that they now use DU for the outer skin.


A tank, any tank, has two pieces of metal in the front of the hull--one above the beltline, the other below. They are slanted on every tank ever made. Why?

Deflect bird droppings?
"stealth" radar avoidance?
Lower "drag coefficient"?

:-)


I know that by sloping armore better than half way back (say 50-60 degrees) you can more than double the protective value of armor (from direct fire, some penetrators now come in from above) over "slab sided" protection. But I don't know why the front glacis pike needs it specifically.

Penetrators--kinetic energy rounds--don't come in from above. Some antitank weapons climb up over the vehicle then dive down into the thin armor on top of the vehicle, but they're HEAT rounds.

By sloping the steel in the front of the vehicle, you make it effectively twice as thick as it really is.

When I read your link (this is news to me) I realized that the Army figured out it fucked up when they built the Bradley from aluminum. I'd have thought they'd have figured it out about the time they were looking for good ideas to copy in the Bradley. There are two kinds of APCs: ones the United States makes, and ones that are made out of steel. "Sir, no one makes APC hulls out of anything but steel. Is there a reason for that?" "Yes, they like big heavy vehicles; make ours out of aluminum." And then we take these 25-ton beer cans to war and get the hell shot out of them... "Sir, the enemy's rounds go through our aluminum APCs."

Let's see...60 reactive armor sets breaks down as follows: one mechanized infantry battalion contains three Bradley companies containing ten vehicles each, plus one for the colonel. One mech infantry brigade contains three battalions of Bradleys plus one Bradley for the colonel. A mech infantry division contains two Bradley brigades, plus one for the general. They need 189 sets of this shit to equip one division and they're buying exactly enough to equip two battalions, assuming they can find two battalions whose colonels are willing to run with less armor than their soldiers have. Where have we heard this before?

They looked for a mix that had the best aspects of several vehicles and ended up with (mostly) the worst. And at the price you almost might as well buy a REAL tank (Bradley's cost about 75% of an Abrams - depending on whether you order the cruisecontrol/roof rack/CD changer package).

Yes, they can carry troops where the tanks can't, but they didn't even do THAT particularly well (six is an ineffective division of an infantry unit - When did six guys become a platoon?).

In this "modern" era where electronics/sensors/computers (and the training of the operators) counts for so much they are still more than a match for most opponents they are likely to run in to... but it was still probably a mistake. I'd almost trade 13 bradleys for 7 Gavins and four Abrams. Costs less, greater firepower, AND same infantry load. An exageration perhaps, but not by that much.

An entire political party based on lies and corruption.