Dealing with pirates

Me personally ? No.

However - the Robin Hood story has many, many roots. Much like the King Arthur legend (obviously based on the Scots tales of Ossian - pronounced Osh-in) Robin Hood appeared to be a chap of many parts - when in Britain I visited at least four 'authentic' burial places of Robin Hood - including two in Scotland, one in England and one just across the border in Wales. I suppose it might have been a case of the unquiet dead.

 

Surely two digits Bergalia, the one digit was a corruption of the great 'fcuk off' symbol by the 'septic' who could never get it right, and was bone idle to boot! Or it was when I was on campaign with Harry at Crecy and Agincourt - those 'Welsh' bowmen did good work against a few Scots as well I hear (Flodden field - to name one small victory)! apart from the fact that a six foot length of good yew can beat the hell out of any fancy work any day (in the hands of a good archer) the speed was the critical thing in battle! the English Longbowman could (it was said) have three arrows in the air at any one time, whereas the crossbow took that long to get ready, let alone fire! the good thing about a crossbow was that it didn't need much training to become proficient, as opposed to the longbow where much training was needed to even pull the bloody thing let alone shoot it!

 

About 75 years before Agincourt, King Edward defeated the French at the Battle of Crecy under similar circumstances: As at Agincourt, the English chose the battleground well, and the French were forced by geography to attack through a narrow chokepoint. The crossbowmen were sent in first, but the English longbowmen decimated them, mainly due to more rapid rate of fire. The French cavalry then charged, hoping to overwhelm the English, but one account said the longbow archers loosed 90,000 arrows in the first minute of the charge. (Yikes! ) The French lost more than 10,000 mounted knights that day.

Military historians mostly agree that the reason the longbow was replaced was because of the years of time and the expense needed to train and maintain a skilled longbow archer (including development of the incredible upper body strength required), and to craft a good longbow. Crossbows of the time had a much slower rate of fire, but they could be mass produced, and any soldier could learn to fire one effectively with a few months training.

I once heard the finger story was the origin of the V sign, and that the French were going to cut off the first 2 fingers of the hand .... your version is much more fun, Max!

 

Mike,

I was working on mine, didn't see yours. I wonder if some Frenchman limping home from Agincourt finally remembered Crecy (too late) and began the saying that those who fail to learn from history are fated to repeat it!

 

Flodden field...Remember it well...The Flowers of the Forest and all that. A Lowland affair. We Highlanders arrived too late to loot the bodies - a Cornish contingent had got there first. But I believe in the 'replay' - Bannockburn - the English/Welsh got their just desserts...Unfortunately a bit later (400 years) that mincing prat Charles Stuart allowed an Irishman, of all things, to organise the field at Culloden....However, we're not finished yet....
An interesting aside for those who've wondered why the Yew tree is favoured in many English church-yards - it stems, apparently from an order by the English Queen Elizabeth, that this species must be grown to supply future English bowmen with suitable material for their 'weapon.'

 

Hey, Jibbernaught,

Welcome to the thread. Going back a few months, a few of us, notably Safewalrus, were advocating massive firepower as a logical deterrent. Some others suggested submarines, to hide from same. Looks like your bunch combined the best of both worlds! Is that a 688 Improved?

Skimmers got into the act, too: "After receiving a report of an attempted act of piracy from the International Maritime Bureau in Kuala Lumpur on the morning of Jan. 20, the guided-missile destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) and other U.S. naval forces in the area located the vessel of the suspected pirates and reported its position. ... At 11:31 a.m. local time, Churchill fired warning shots. The vessel cut speed and went dead in the water."

 

no its not an improved boat, its the last of the first flight. (the particular boat is the first 688 to go through the polar ice cap) Not is it not an "I" boat, Its a remarkable piece of 5H1T. We are cutting her up right now in the bremerton naval shipyard, then we are going to stick the front end on the USS San Fransisco, the boat that ran into a "mountain" a couple of years ago.

Submarines still have problems with fisherman in Asian waters because people still fish with dynamite. Its not enough to really do any damage to a submarine, but it still scares the crap out of someone who hasn't experienced it before.

 

Arrrrrrgh! Prepare to repel boarders!

 

Ouch! That's got to be rough on the sensitive ears of the sonar people listening hard for other stealthy subs!

 

Yo! Jibbernaught tell me about it! mind you in return surfacing alongside him with all tanks blowing scares the 5hit outa the poor wee chappie

 

Bergalia, to be fair Charles Stuart was a wee bit of a fop with pretty crap advisors (that's advisors for you pretty crap! think about it)! If he'd have followed his heart and his troops rather than their lairds the whole setup in Westminster could have been a bit differerent now. and remember when it come to looting you Scots are only learners (good ones true, but still only learners) the cornish still have the edge on that one!! mind you the way the Labour party is going there will soon be nothing left to loot!

 

That was the trouble Walrus. Within minutes of the first shots being fired the 'Bonnie' Prince was halfway to Skye for a quick change into woman's clothing...and a drunken retirement in Italy.

 

the boat picture with the polar bears is my boat, I was on it when that picture was taken.

 

would that be the Skye boat? if it is the weather has changed a wee bit since I was up there last - hardly global warming is it?

 

Fire Extinguisher Pepper Spray (er)

Don't know if this was ever brought up in this thread, but it does pertain to the original subject matter

.... an interesting concept... Take an old fire extinguisher, open it up and empty the contents. Clean, dry, fill with cayenne pepper (the HOT stuff, not the regular), charge it up and it makes one helluva self protection device. On the outside, it's just a fire extinguisher. Just don't make the mistake of trying to put out a fire with it!