# Reagan dies! Let's debate his legacy! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 5, 2004, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850 "2004-06-05T21:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/261 "2004-06-10T11:21:10Z")
**Sam** (or should we call you Dr. Stonelove?), you’ve made it quite clear to us all that you would eagerly seek out _any_ way to praise, say, thermonuclear handgun ammo if Reagan or some other arch-conservative nut bag wanted them! > [@Sam Stone](#): > > There are many advantages to a turbine engine. The designers of the Abrams were not idiots. Ah. To paraphrase Arthur Dent, that is obviously some strange usage of the phrase “not idiots” of which we were previously unaware. Of _course_ they were idiots! They stupidly lusted after a shiny, idealized, hideously over-complex solution to a simple problem, just like any of us boys would secretly desire to do if given a virtually unlimited budget. They were idiots because they ignored _by far_ the most powerful, effective, and successful engineering concept in all of human history: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Look at the history of the Bradley troop carrier, for example. The initial design was excellent: simple, fast, safe and effective. It would transport 11 troops quickly to or from the battlefield. But the frustrated Tom Swifts (am I dating myself?) at the Pentagon almost immediately glamor-fucked the hell out of it. For Bob’s sake, they actually put a friggin’ **tank turret** on top, _guaranteeing_ that these troop carriers would become primary targets! _ **Troop carriers!** _ They quickly “evolved” from simple, fast troop carriers into huge, slow, hulking death traps. (The full story is shockingly insane and perverse and is almost impossible to believe, even though it’s all too horribly true. Again, see Burton’s book.) Sam, if your vigorous defense of the indefensible was any less an obscene joke, I probably wouldn’t be crying so hard… ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/262 "2004-06-10T12:29:29Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > …Look at the history of the Bradley troop carrier, for example. The initial design was excellent: simple, fast, safe and effective. It would transport 11 troops quickly to or from the battlefield. But the frustrated Tom Swifts (am I dating myself?) at the Pentagon almost immediately glamor-fucked the hell out of it. For Bob’s sake, they actually put a friggin’ **tank turret** on top, _guaranteeing_ that these troop carriers would become primary targets! _ **Troop carriers!** _ They quickly “evolved” from simple, fast troop carriers into huge, slow, hulking death traps. (The full story is shockingly insane and perverse and is almost impossible to believe, even though it’s all too horribly true. Again, see Burton’s book.) > > Sam, if your vigorous defense of the indefensible was any less an obscene joke, I probably wouldn’t be crying so hard… You are rapidly veering into the realm of babble. 1. Stop quoting Burtons book as if though it were the bible of all things American Military. Many of us here have read several (to say the least) books about the American armed forces, and have more sources to draw upon than you and your single book. Visit a library. 2. The original concept for the M2 Bradley was as a Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The Soviets already had one out (BMP-series), as did the Germans (Marder-series) and the French (AMX-10P). American mechanized infantry were hampered by having a old-style ‘battle wagon’, the M113, which was at a significant firepower disadvantage to comparable Soviet formations. The decision was made to design our own IFV. The M2 Bradley was the result. A " friggin’ **tank turret**" was not added as an afterthought, as you seem to be implying. It was a requirement from day one that that it have the capability to engage enemy tanks (TOW missles), IFVs/soft targets (M242 cannon) and infantry (M240C MG). And, if I may… **IT IS NOT A GODDAMNED TANK TURRET!** Also, it takes more than a bit of ignorance and/or naivete to believe that a IFV makes our mechanized forces ‘more of a target’ than they would be if they trundled about in APCs. It’s not like comrade Ivan, sitting in his T-72, would have decided, nah, lets not shoot the M113. It’s so harmless looking! :rolleyes: You have no idea what you are talking about. I am bowing out of this particular fight against ignorance, even though it regards a topic near and dear to my heart. You need to seriously broaden your knowledge on these topics. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/263 "2004-06-10T13:58:18Z")
**Ambushed** : Your last message did not respond to a single point I made. Instead, you just fired a personal attack at me, and tried to change the subject. Brutus is right. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, and your last message indicates that you aren’t willing to have a reasonable debate. I don’t see much point in continuing this. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/264 "2004-06-10T14:33:56Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > **ambushed** , Rommel you are not. **Brutus** , your apparent eagerness to felch out any and all anti-reform Pentagon propagandists is manifest to us all. > [@Brutus](#): > > Comparing the F-16 to the F-15 is a game for ignorant amatuers. Hilarious! Need I point out that it was _you_ who asked me to discuss these aircraft?! In any case, during my stint at Edwards AFB (I worked for NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center) I encountered a great many Air Force and NASA pilots, aerodynamicists and engineers debating the relative merits of the F-15 and F-16 too many times to count. Comparing the two aircraft was an active and vital debate for many of the best pilots and aircraft engineers in the world. You’d have had your ass handed to you several times over if you made such an ignorant pronouncement in their presence. I didn’t have any dog in that race, so I just listened. But every time the argument would go to the F-16 advocates, hands down. Pretty much all the Eagle backers could ever come up with was that it had a better radar (which it desperately needed, being such a huge and obvious target) and a higher top end speed, which nearly all the other pilots and all the engineers considered a disadvantage because of the much too high aerodynamic, engineering, maintenance, support, and monetary costs involved. The aerodynamicists at NASA all marveled at the F-16’s brilliant and cost-effective design and scoffed outright at the inept, relatively clumsy, over-muscled, and over-built F-15 with it’s _enormous_ RCS. Let’s look a what an actual pilot had to say on the matter: > [@](#): > > Sir: > > The Yf-16 was designed by the fighter mafia [the nickname of Pentagon reformers’ TAC group] as an air-to air fighter aircraft. Everything was designed to make it far superior to anything in the sky. The USAF did not want the plane because it did not fit within the parameters they stupidly believed a fighter aircraft should fit in. The Yf-16 was a threat to its baby, the F-15. So they loaded it with electronic equipment, reinforced its structure to sustain 9g and allowed it to carry nuclear weapons and turned it into a “multirole” fighter. Even after overloading it with more than 2000 kg of extra weight, the F-16 retains superior air to air performance, truly a testimony of the remarkable design. > > F-15 was made ever more complex than it needed to be by the stupid push to have it reach mach 2.5 therefore needing complex ramp intakes… > > I could go on for hours and hours. And did you know that the F-16 program actually _gave back_ money to our national coffers because the reformers designed the aircraft as well as the acquisition and production systems so competently and economically? In stark contrast, did you know the F-15 program managers and top Pentagon brass actually despicably conspired and executed an operation to **FAKE** an entirely bogus production facade at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis so that they could continue to illegally and corruptly **LIE** to Congress and the program auditors that the program was not so hideously over-budget and hadn’t even come anywhere _near_ production long after they had officially and repeatedly claimed to be? > [@Brutus](#): > > Yes, the stealth fighter could be seen on radar. Only Wonder Woman had a truely invisible jet; The F-117 and B-2 significantly reduce the chance that they will be tracked on radar. The F-117s performance in GWI bears out its value, flying with impunity over Baghdad on Day 1 of that war. More disingenuous propaganda! But your ignominious deceptions have been found out. The official claims about even the early stealth aircraft was that they would have RCS signatures no bigger than a basketball. **Those were complete and total lies!** They were not just _seen_, they were _easily_ seen on radar for exactly what they were 40 miles away! They were as easily spotted and able to be shot down as any non-stealth aircraft. Stealth is a virtually worthless technology, but it’s cost us an ungodly number of billions of dollars anyway! Why should we not consider that effectively (effectively, mind you) treasonous? And as for the laughable claims made by you and many others that stealth aircraft “evaded” Iraqi radar during the Gulf War – of **“flying with impunity”** no less – here are the **facts** , again quoting Air Force Colonel James Burton: > [@](#): > > An Air Force briefing chart, labeled “The Value of Stealth,” circulated around Capitol Hill. It claimed that eight F-117 Stealth Fighters with two tanker aircraft could have done the same job as seventy-five regular fighters and fighter-bombers during the war. By claiming that stealth aircraft were almost invisible to Iraqi radar, Air Force Secretary Donald Rice hoped to justify more funding for the new B-2 stealth bomber, an airplane with a price tag rapidly approaching **$1 billion per plane.** The Air Force’s claim that Stealth Fighters were [virtually] invisible and required little support from the other forces was shown to be a gross exaggeration. The Army quickly pointed out to the press that the Stealth Fighters, by themselves, **did not penetrate the Iraqi air defenses undetected in the initial air strike, as claimed by the Air Force. Rather, the F-117s flew through a gaping hole in the Iraqi radar net blasted for them by Army helicopters.** So much for your ignorantly vaunted taxpayer-thieving F-117s and B2s! > [@Brutus](#): > > You really don’t know what the hell you are talking about if you think the M1s turbines need to have new filters ‘every 15 minutes’ in the desert. You made a untrue statement. I may have written a bit clumsily, but I never intended to make such an absolute, flat assertion and I’m not convinced I actually did. What I meant to say – and what is the truth – is that in even moderately dirty-air environments such as a windy desert presents, the air filters usually needed to be replaced about every fifteen minutes. And that’s exactly what often happened in actual practice during the Gulf War. About every fifteen minutes in windy areas the filters got so hopelessly clogged **that the engines out-and-out quit!** Don’t try to give us more shit about how “double filters” made the tanks immune to this intractable problem that could _only_ be a problem with these stupid jet-engine-like turbines in the first place! > [@Brutus](#): > > So fucking about how fast 4th Armored advanced? Do not tell me that you think the M4 Sherman, aka ‘Ronsol’, (which got about 1/2 mile to the gallon) is a better tank? Clearly the M4 is better considering the criterion in question: exactly **14 times** better! > [@Brutus](#): > > The A-10 is good at _only one thing_: Ground attack in a low-threat environment in good weather. It makes no sense to have too many of them, since it is useless in a wide variety of situations. The Airforce would rather have multimission aircraft, which will be useful more often. Can’t fault them for that. And since the GPS-guided bombs is replacing the dedicated CAS aircraft (much safer for the troops on the ground), we will not be seeing these for too much longer. “Only one thing”?? Okay, now I’m _sure_ you’re a Pentagon lackey. Your assertions are _so_ full of the stench of Official Bullshit they can only have come from either a currently bidding defense contractor or a Pentagon senior aide whose tongue is so far up the generals’ asses you taste their food before they do! **NONE** of the other aircraft came anywhere _ **close** _ to the effectiveness of the A-10! And your bald-faced lie about them only being good at “low-threat” environments is just another ignorantly pathetic slander: during the Gulf War the A-10s came under intense enemy fire and they survived extremely well because the A-10 is the **first and ONLY aircraft EVER specifically designed for Close Air Support!** It’s _made_ to take intense ground fire, Pentagon boy! Your beloved anti-soldier propaganda ministers at the Pentagon have obviously instructed you to mindlessly recite their Official Rhetoric about such stupid plans as modifying fighter aircraft to serve in a CAS role, as if fighters flying at 10,000 feet at high speed with none of the A-10s low-altitude maneuverability could somehow actually support troops on the ground! You and Sam are plainly convinced we’re idiots. For those interested in the truth, please see: [Return of the Air Commandos: USAF Close Air Support for the 21st Century](http://www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/aircommandos.htm) and [Operation Allied Force (Kosovo 1999) and other airstrike failures](http://www.geocities.com/operationalliedforces) > [@Brutus](#): > > Little is more dangerous than a rank amatuer reading a single fucking book on so broad and complicated a topic and thinking they know something. You’re talking about someone else, I guess. In any event, one of those more dangerous things is reading a lot of Pentagon propaganda and falling for it hook, line, and sinker. Especially when the facts are so utterly against you! > [@Brutus](#): > > Besides, I asked you for some damned examples. And damned examples I gave you. Damned examples indeed. I’m sure you’re popular at Pentagon group gropes, but it’d be better if you tried to sell your propagandistic bullshit somewhere else. We’re not so easily fooled here. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/265 "2004-06-10T14:57:15Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **Ambushed** : Your last message did not respond to a single point I made. Instead, you just fired a personal attack at me, and tried to change the subject. > > Brutus is right. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, and your last message indicates that you aren’t willing to have a reasonable debate. I don’t see much point in continuing this. **Sam** , you and **Brutus** have merely mindlessly parroted Official Pentagon Propaganda like good little high-tech Über-hawks. Whether knowingly or not, you two rely on deception, disinformation and dogma, while I provided facts from professional experience in actual battle. I’m happy to let the readers decide who’s telling the truth. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/266 "2004-06-10T16:21:22Z")
Is this thread even about Reagan any more? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/267 "2004-06-10T16:22:30Z")
From which page? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/268 "2004-06-10T20:21:27Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Hi **bullshit**! I call **Brutus**! Good to meet you! > [@Desmostylus](#): > > Well waddya know. I call bullshit, and bullshit obediently comes. **Moderator’s Note:** Knock it the hell off, you two. Just about everyone still posting to this thread needs to take a deep breath, step back, and _CALM DOWN_. If y’all want to debate about the technical merits and drawbacks of different sorts of tank engines, or any other really specific spin-offs from this thread, y’all might want to start a new thread or two. For the purposes of reasoned debate, that is. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/269 "2004-06-10T21:15:33Z")
Well, I can’t think of a more appropriate debate to have in a Reagan thread than a technical discussion about defense, unless it’s a technical discussion about finance. Anyway, **ambush** , I’m proud to have praised your initial post so highly, as your follow-ups show you to be the real deal. Just tone down the personal stuff some, as I really, really, don’t want to see you get banned. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/270 "2004-06-11T00:29:11Z")
**Ambushed** is the real deal? Hmnn… You say you worked at Dryden. What did you do there? What are your technical qualifications? Normally, I don’t ask for personal qualifications, but since you’ve brought it up as an appeal to authority, I think it’s only fair to ask what it is that you did. And before I go any further with you, I’d like you to address the points I made earlier, rather than just ignoring them and going on to your next attack. Specifically: [ul] [li]How did the M1A1 prevent the U.S. from destroying the Republican Guard? [/li][li]How was the M60 better than the M1A1? [/li][li]Why did the Marines refuse to use their own M60s, instead borrowing the M1A1 from the Army? [/li][li]If the M1A1 was inferior to the M60, and if it was such a horrible design, how do you explain the fact that it destroyed the Republican Guard’s tanks while suffering no KIA losses of a single crewmember?[/li][li]Why do you not list any of the numerous advantages of the M1A1, such as its thermal sight, ability to fire accurately while moving, NBC overpressure system, low profile, lower maintenance, higher speed, ability to climb higher grades (and climb lower grades faster), active armor, and the numerous other ways in which the M1A1 is superior to the M60?[/li][/ul] Your aircraft comparison between the F-15 and F-16 is laughable. You failed to acknowledge the big difference I pointed out, which is that one has two engines. I don’t care whether your NASA buddies would say the F-16 was better - if they were approaching the matter as fighter pilots, that makes sense. The F-16 is a better dogfighter than the F-15, no question. What you have failed to acknowledge is that the F-15 does many, many other things very well. As I said before, you need to evaluate the whole weapons system, and not just the airframe. Why didn’t you compare the F-16 to the F-14? Or the F-18? Why did you pick the F-15? ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2004, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/271 "2004-06-11T03:17:58Z")
Jesus H. Jumped Up Christ in a bunny suit. Look, guys, I’m no Reagan fan, but I’m thinkin’ about a problem they had in the space program. They had trouble with ballpoint pens not working in zero gravity. So they invested bazillions in a program to develop ballpoint pens that _would_ work normally in zero gravity. The Soviets solved the same problem by simply using a _pencil_. I daresay that the Neocons aren’t the first big important people to go a little crazy over neato shiny gadgets once they got their hands on all that rich green tax money, you know? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/272 "2004-06-11T03:32:55Z")
Well… [that didn’t really happen.](http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp) > [@](#): > > Fisher did ultimately develop a pressurized pen for use by NASA astronauts (now known as the famous “Fisher Space Pen”), but both American and Soviet space missions initially used pencils, NASA did not seek out Fisher and ask them to develop a “space pen,” Fisher did not charge NASA for the cost of developing the pen, and the Fisher pen was eventually used by both American and Soviet astronauts. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2004, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/273 "2004-06-12T22:20:09Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Well… [that didn’t really happen.](http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp) Garrison Keillor said it on _Prairie Home Companion_ so it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2004, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/274 "2004-06-12T22:21:35Z")
Don’t know how to break this to you, **BG** , but…you know, come to think about it, I don’t think I will. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850/275 "2004-06-14T02:10:13Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Don’t know how to break this to you, **BG** , but…you know, come to think about it, I don’t think I will. Never mind. 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reagan-dies-lets-debate-his-legacy/248850.md?page=13)