THE BRITISH THREAD

Lord Ellpus wrote:

Such a shame that he died at such a young age (and under such suspicious cicumstances).

i dont think there was much suspicious about it E. He killed himself in desperation having been abandoned by the establishment for whom he did such magnificent work.

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

From what I understand, Set, they were transmitted signals that just couldn't be decoded.
The Germans were always changing the codebooks, and tweaking the machines (extra wheel etc) JUST in case the Allies were getting near to breaking the old codes.

No-one has ever been able to put their hands on either the revised version code book, or an altered machine.

It just shows how amazing the whole thing was, that one side could invent such a coding device, and the other side ends up building a machine that cracks it. God knows what the outcome of the war would have been, if the allies had never gained possession of these books and machines.

Turing was an amazing man. Such a shame that he died at such a young age (and under such suspicious cicumstances). Imagine what he COULD have achieved, had he lived to a ripe old age.

You know Boss, we are communicating because of the "computers" constructed at Bletchley Park and during the Manhattan Project in the United States. It has taken fifty years for it to take off, but the computing devices built for the enigma project and by International Business Machines for the atom bomb project are the direct ancestors of the little devices by which we send out our electrons, dancing with one another in the ethereal ether.

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Occasionally, suspendy...

Typical... start a British thread and it ends up being about the war!

...and not a mention on how polymers in mascara have revolutionised women's eyelashes!

x

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Set, the best "deception" story I heard, was when the Germans spent ages, buildiing what was supposed to be a large Luftwaffe facility in Holland (I'm pretty sure), but it was simply a ruse, the entire place filled with mock hangars and wooden aircraft.

The RAF had received intelligence to this effect from almost day one, but waited until the Germans had finished.

They then sent over a lone Mosquito, which circled the place once, and then dropped a large wooden bomb on the main runway.

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Setanta wrote:

Lord Ellpus wrote:
From what I understand, Set, they were transmitted signals that just couldn't be decoded.
The Germans were always changing the codebooks, and tweaking the machines (extra wheel etc) JUST in case the Allies were getting near to breaking the old codes.

No-one has ever been able to put their hands on either the revised version code book, or an altered machine.

It just shows how amazing the whole thing was, that one side could invent such a coding device, and the other side ends up building a machine that cracks it. God knows what the outcome of the war would have been, if the allies had never gained possession of these books and machines.

Turing was an amazing man. Such a shame that he died at such a young age (and under such suspicious cicumstances). Imagine what he COULD have achieved, had he lived to a ripe old age.

You know Boss, we are communicating because of the "computers" constructed at Bletchley Park and during the Manhattan Project in the United States. It has taken fifty years for it to take off, but the computing devices built for the enigma project and by International Business Machines for the atom bomb project are the direct ancestors of the little devices by which we send out our electrons, dancing with one another in the ethereal ether.

This is really weird.

I had drafted up a thread about all this, just the other day (hence the links to hand so easily) and was going to post it all with the title, something like "If you can read this - thank Alan Turing and pals."...I was still working on that part.

Alas, a colleague went sick and I had to go to Court in rather a hurry.

I was sort of working my way back up to it when Steve went and ruined it by mentioning his statue.

Thanks Steve. <sob>

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Tonights Big Match then, Eindhoven v Liverpool. A game called KickBall, or SvenBall, or OverpaidBall. I've heared it called KevBall in the dim & distant past.
Boorrringgggggggggggggggg. Still, each to his own, but you can definately
include me OUT. Instead I be shall be practiceing my Guitar Chord.
I will never the less wish L/P bonne chance . Eindhoven est mort

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smorgs wrote:

Occasionally, suspendy...

Typical... start a British thread and it ends up being about the war!

...and not a mention on how polymers in mascara have revolutionised women's eyelashes!

x

Polymers were invented by a Londoner, I think.

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Just to change the subject...

Found this in The Manchester Evening News:

Tattooed lady and her lost love
Neal Keeling

Melanie with her tattoo LOVE was more than skin deep when Melanie Humphreys had her boyfriend's name tattooed on her back.

After three years together, when she was "madly in love" the passion cooled but her ex has certainly left his mark. The deep blue tattoo at the bottom of Melanie's back says: "Property of Antony McVay".

She now jokes: "I have thought of having the word `lost' tattooed above it!"

Melanie, from Bury, who works at the Ocean Blue cafe in the town's market, said: "I had the tattoo on May 15 2003 - it was a birthday present. Antony had a tattoo as well - he has `Melanie' across his shoulders.

"Although we are not together now we are still very good friends.

"It was only my second serious relationship. But it was a joint decision to have tattoos.

"It was just something we did. We were madly in love. I do like the tattoo - the Old English style artwork is great. It was fashionable at the time. David Beckham had his son's name put on his lower back.

"I do see people looking at mine but I'm not conscious of it at all."

Melanie, 34, mother to 13-year-old Ryan, added: "One girl once said to me `What is that'? and so as a joke I said `It's my dad - he made us all have it done'. The tattoo could put some men off. It puts you in a category. People think you are a certain type of girl - which I am not."

Melanie has looked into having the tattoo removed by laser.

But she said: "I don't think it would work because it is such a large tattoo. I might have it camouflaged with something else one day.

"I don't have any regrets about having it. Antony has met someone else and I do wonder how she feels waking up to my name."

Her tattoo was highlighted in the BBC programme The One Show.

The show's experts recommended laser treatment but they also did tests after Melanie described how she has suffered with numbness and pain for years in her hands and fingers.

A blood test confirmed she has rheumatoid arthritis and she is now planning to see a consultant.

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I'm going to have Able2Know tatooed right across my arse!

x

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The Germans obviously were bad copyists:

Quote:

A Tale from WW II
In the early stages of WWII, British commanders realized that they were out-gunned by the German airforce. To help conceal their weakness and divert German bombers from invaluable British airfields, the Allied army created an elaborate system of camouflage and decoys.

Carpenters, artists, and painters built an impressive array of ships, aircraft, tanks, and airfields all from lumber, canvas, plaster, and chicken wire. Once complete, the decoys were placed away from key targets so enemy planes would spot, report, and attack them rather than targets of real value. In England, decoy airfields were attacked more than real ones and thousands of tons of German bombs were wasted on fake targets.

The Germans also used decoys, but not without problems. In his book Masquerade, writer Seymour Reit tells of one German failure that became legendary among RAF pilots:

The German "airfield", constructed with meticulous care, was made almost entirely of wood. There were wooden hangers, oil tanks, gun emplacement, trucks, and aircraft. The Germans took so long in building their wooden decoy that Allied photo experts had more than enough time to observe and report it. The day finally came when the decoy was finished, down to the last wooden plank. And early the following morning a lone [British] plane crossed the Channel, came in low, circled the field once, and dropped a large wooden bomb.

source

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smorgs wrote:

I'm going to have Able2Know tatooed right across my arse!

x

I'm going to have "LordEllpusdistinguishedveteranmembersince10Mar2005muchlovedbyhisfellowa2ker's" tatooed on my willy.

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thks for turing/newman/computing post smorgs

to broaden the topic somewhat

In return for the US coming into the war and therefore ensuring the defeat of Germany, the Brits gave the US every latest technological gizmo we had.

including

1. How to build an atomic bomb (3 easy lessons)
2. The 10 cm wavelength cavity wave magnetron
3. Computers
4. Penicillin

I recall a guy at RCA saying the atomic bomb finished the war, but the magnetron won it.

We could not build stuff in quantity subject to German bombs. But America could.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

thks for turing/newman/computing post smorgs

to broaden the topic somewhat

In return for the US coming into the war and therefore ensuring the defeat of Germany, the Brits gave the US every latest technological gizmo we had.

including

1. How to build an atomic bomb (3 easy lessons)
2. The 10 cm wavelength cavity wave magnetron
3. Computers
4. Penicillin

I recall a guy at RCA saying the atomic bomb finished the war, but the magnetron won it.

We could not build stuff in quantity subject to German bombs. But America could.

Plus they nicked most of our Spitfire (and admittedly developed a far superior plane)

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OK....now it's the girls turn.

I saw an AMAAAAZING handbag in John Lewis yesterday.

So tempted.

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Quote:

Typical... start a British thread and it ends up being about the war!

...and not a mention on how polymers in mascara have revolutionised women's eyelashes!

smorgie wrote through the fog and noise.

Are you saying it was bloody polymers that had done all that fluttering at me all these years. What a sap I've been. I'm insisting on the unadorned real thing from now on.

War talk is not typical in my experience. This is a very self-selecting group on here apart from me.

I was militant, internet celibate for years. I was dragged reluctantly to this altar to egomania by my friends. I was getting on their nerves denigrating their activities. They logged me in. "Give us a username!" they demanded. "Give us a password" next. They twiddled about and then it was "what subject". I said "how the f**k do I know?". "T**t" I added after a pause. Somebody said "Philosophy" so more twiddling and a list appeared on which Ask an Expert came up.

I've always been a bit confused about a lot of things so I chose that. More twiddling and there's this empty box with a little line clicking in the top left hand corner and I'm told to ask a question of these experts. So I did and that's how I met Lola, the dark Queen of the Manhattan Twighlight Zone and began my long decline into the pathetic state I'm now in of the love madness. They should call it ask a big-head. I was on 12 months or so before I was far gone enough to get one at home so I was still resisting.
Now I've abandoned myself to it like the wastrel I am. It's always been my policy to find something interesting to do whilst sitting or lying down and cricket was by far the best thing. My father was the same. If it's heritable it's not my fault is it?

But this is pretty good too. And cricket isn't always on.

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Quote:

I'm going to have Able2Know tatooed right across my arse!

If you do do it with tube of chocolate paste and use the Roman !! instead of 2. It'll be easier.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

thks for turing/newman/computing post smorgs

to broaden the topic somewhat

In return for the US coming into the war and therefore ensuring the defeat of Germany, the Brits gave the US every latest technological gizmo we had.

including

1. How to build an atomic bomb (3 easy lessons)
2. The 10 cm wavelength cavity wave magnetron
3. Computers
4. Penicillin

I recall a guy at RCA saying the atomic bomb finished the war, but the magnetron won it.

We could not build stuff in quantity subject to German bombs. But America could.

Ah, but we gave you the Norden bombsight, the Mustang Fighter (Der Dicke Goering said he knew the war was lost when he saw Mustangs over Berlin), and Spam.

We also introduced Sex into Merry Old. When the first troop ships arrived in Merry Old in 1942, their holds were bulging with GIs, chocolate bars, nylon stockings and Juicy Fruit chewing gum. The rest, as they say, is history . . .

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Spendy!

Was at a party in Harpenden (very posh) on Saturday. They had a chocolate fountain. Sat next to a very clever woman explaining compost heaps.

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Spam spam lovverly spam!

The allied secret weapon. What was it exactly Set? I know the Navy used to fire 16 inch tins of it at German gun emplacements, but what was it about spam that won the war?

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Lord Ellpus wrote:

Plus they nicked most of our Spitfire (and admittedly developed a far superior plane)

False, the P51 (Pursuit Aircraft model 51) was developed from prototypes which were begun in 1939. In 1940, North American Aviation signed a contract with the Brits to develop a fighter aircraft which would carry eight heavy machine guns. The United States Army Air Force reluctantly agreed to the contract, but the North American prototype, NA-73X, was rejected by the Brits, largely because they considered it to be "underpowered." North American continued to develop the aircraft which would become the P51 Mustang, though, as a ground support fighter, and it was a superior plane for that purpose even in its final form. But the Pratt and Whitney in-line engine was not powerful enough for the aircraft to perform with contemporary fighters. It is false that the design was based on any Supermarine models, because even though the Spitfire was known in 1939, it's design specifications were classified by the British, and were not given to North American.

The great breakthrough was acheived when Imperial General Staff air officers suggested that the North American NA-73X might benefit from using the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It was fuel-injected and in every other way superior to any existing in-line engine. It made the Mustang the greatest propellor driven aircraft ever to fly.

Chuck Yeager, a fighter ace and test pilot well known to Americans once said in a television interview that what the Spitfire could do for 40 minutes, the Mustang could do for eight hours. The Mustang was better armed (eight 50 cal. machine guns), better armored, roomier and carried far more fuel than the Spitfire, which could only operate locally as an air defense fighter. Adolph Galland, head of the Luftwaffe fighter arm at the end of the war, tells in his war memoir how Mustangs would follow German aircraft back to their bases when they (the Germans) were running out of fuel, and shoot up everything in sight. By the end of the war, German fighters were flying out of logging roads in forests.

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/war/fighter/p51/p51_afttoff.jpg

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Spam spam lovverly spam!

The allied secret weapon. What was it exactly Set? I know the Navy used to fire 16 inch tins of it at German gun emplacements, but what was it about spam that won the war?

It was the closest thing to meat which the Germans had eaten since 1941. Of course, once we were on the ground with massive convoys of trucks bringing in chocolate bars, nylon stockings and Spam, it was all over for the Hun.

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