OK, I'll play.

1. Charge of the Light Brigade- horses against guns!!
Agreed, but they were a tad short on armour or air support.

2. WW1 - infantry against machine guns !!
Agreed, but they were a tad short on armour or air support (though not as short as Crimea).

3. Space travel - billions spent - achievement ???
As Ken says, massive, tangible and intangible returns. Every cent spent on the Apollo program amounted to an investment in technology.

4. Vietnam - why fight with one arm tied??
Because nuking peasants is not "on".

5. Typhoon - a great fighter ac but a bomber??
Indeed. With 232 of them ordered at the outset, why does the GR4 remain in service some 14 years later?

6. Aircraft carriers -too expensive and too vulnerable!
Without aircraft carriers, the Falkland Islanders would be speaking Spanish. Neither were sunk, so not that vulnerable.

7. MOD - too big !
Ambiguous. I would suggest that all three services, and MOD CS wish they were bigger.

8. Gulf war 2 - no end game /wrong enemy ??
Depends on your POV. If your intent is to demonstrate political and military power and remove local dictator, then it was a win. If your intent was to somehow "fix" the Middle East, it was a serious disaster

9. Arab spring ???
Who was making the intelligent decisions?

10. BREXIT - don't procrastinate just go for it!
Not my area, sorry. It was however a wake-up call for all, whether pro or anti-Brexit.

11. Russia - talk !
Better than not talking

12. United Nations - waste of time ??
Well, it does provide legitimacy for operations against international pariahs.

13. House of Lords - too big !!
Why too big?

14. Corbyn - disaster!
Au contraire. A marvelous success. For the Conservative party, at least.

15. Political correctness - gone far too far !!
Very subjective. Not calling a spade a spade does have some advantages.

16. Health Service - too big !
Agreed. You either fund it properly and go bankrupt, or have poor healthcare.

17. Rich to poor pay gap - way too big !
Depends entirely on where you set the thresholds for "rich" and "poor". In general however, reward is a direct function of effort, application and ability.

18 . RAF - top-heavy !
Quite

19. Annual budgets - stupid !!
What would be preferable? 5-year plans?

20. Wind turbines ??
Energy without fuel costs seems like a winner to me.

Wind turbines? At what economic cost? Do they ever show a profit?

More relevant, at what environmental cost? We know the cost of production, installation, grid connection, maintenance, and ultimately disposal, but what was the environmental cost against the environmental saving? When their life expires will they be abandoned like wartime forts, chopped to the sea bed, or recovered at greater environmental and economic costs?

Is solar a better proposition with power generated at the point of use?

PN - I am with you on wind turbines. And all this electric car nonsense - the power has to be generated somewhere - so someone is getting the pollution, unless it is the small amount of "green" generation or nuclear that is saved just for electric vehicles (and tongue firmly in cheek to deflect the incoming).

Wander, fit cars with solar and stop night driving :)

Aah, at my age the latter might not be a bad idea, although it was Mrs W who rolled the X-Trail a week or so back, sober and in broad daylight, and she is 9 years younger than me!

Wander00. Agreed. Night vision does deteriorate with age. I was running through town just before Christmas (with a running club) and fell badly, tearing two tendons in my shoulder. Operation next month. I put it down to not being able to discern the heights of kerbs. I've told the club I'm not running until the evenings get lighter. I found the same with driving; not so easy to differentiate the kerb, especially against oncoming traffic. I'm safe enough, but I don't enjoy it any more, whereas once I preferred night driving.

QUOTE:

Wind turbines? At what economic cost? Do they ever show a profit?

More relevant, at what environmental cost?

In one of my whimsical moments [possibly senior as well] I caught myself wondering if all these wind turbines were perhaps slowing the rotation of the earth? This is based on the premise that nothing is for nothing.

Come to that, New York, London, Dubai, Beijing do stick up unnaturally. I just hope the Himalyas etc are shrinking to compensate.

Just wondered, mind you.

Never shared enthusiasm about wind turbines. Just wonder why they are mentioned as a wonder :-) Solar arrays are better, but still the output per square/cubic meter of the space occupied is quite low.

And mankind still needs the technologies where a hell of output power could be generated by a compact generator. Recall that shortly after the first nuclear power plants were put into operations, and also H-bomb were invented, there was a lot of enthusiasm that fission was just an intermediate solution and very soon we would have (nuclear) fusion to feed us. No waste, no problem with fuel. When I was a schoolboy in 60's I read a lot about it as it appeared to come soon. Some 50 years passed, but we are still pissed. Next generation of "egg-headed" appears to be not that great and smart... And all those supercomputers and internets seem to be of no help to them.
With this regard I really loved the rumours spread by LockMart a few years ago (their famous Skunk Works) whispering that they were close to roll out an industrial solution for compact fusion. I am pretty sure it is not so, but what a great teaser! Perhaps the race for this new source of energy would get a really new impulse?

And of course, when talking about money, only for the amount spent/wasted in Afghanistan in this century (USD 500 - 900 bln) it would be possible to both solve the compact fusion problem and walk on Mars.


Herod, I wish you totally recover soon with no consequences to your health. Being a long distance runner/skier since my youth, I understand how inconvenient it is to be so much constrained.

A Van, I guess solar is not a perfect solution in Russia. Plenty of sunshine in summer but if your panels are covered with ice or the northern winter things might be a tad different.

1. The tried and tested method of the day. Only there were a few more guns than anticipated.

2. A bit like England v Italy. It took a while to figure out what to do.

3. Non stick saucepans. :)

19. Annual Budgets - stupid!!

I was hoping that some luminary would explain or defend 'annual ' budgets!
Remember in the 70s during a ' fuel ' crisis we had to eek out our reduced sqn fuel allocation. Less flying, shorter trips , best efficient crew table etc. Actually quite good training !
However with a about a month to go to the end of the financial year suddenly a load of fuel became available which HAD to be used by the said date! Resulting in flying long useless sorties (with airbrakes out ) etc!
How stupid was that?
Apparently it is still happening - with the overseas aid budget ?? Where millions are spent in haste on dubious projects?
Mugging up on budget control reveals that it should be possible to defer money to be used later when needed but is this done?? - and if not why
not ??

Budgets
 

When I worked (space, not military), our budgets were allocated
for a purpose down to quite small detail. I was one of the people who helped plan it,
annual, 5 year, 20 year. There was no chance
just to throw away money at the end of a budget year.
With some adjustments for urgent requirements (wars etc)
I don't see why the same can't be done in the military. Of course
I retired in '95 and our annual budget was only a few billion.

Annularity was still well in the 21st Century. Lyneham got a wonderful footpath across a large open grassed area so that families could stand on dry ground watching the annual bonfire. The footpath went no where and walkers would go round the perimeter on the grass.

Now THAT was annularity.