From: Ronzo (rojoha@attbi.com)
Date: Fri Feb 07 2003 - 03:42:23 PST
FRED H. ****** PUT ME ON BLOCKED SENDERS LIST NOW ******
Hi Andreas:
While my reply to Steve's post was tongue in cheek, your reply got me
thinking that maybe I am just an ignorant US citizen who believes what he is
told by his government about his former adversary. But a Google search
appears to indicate I am correct.
In regards to comment 1):
Russian Federation
http://www.geographyiq.com/countries/rs/Russia_transportation.htm
Highways: total: 952,000 km
paved: 752,000 km (including, in addition to about 336,000 km of
conventionally paved roads, about 416,000 km of roads, the surfaces of which
have been stabilized with gravel or other coarse aggregates, making them
trafficable in wet weather)
unpaved: 200,000 km (these roads are made of unstabilized earth and are
difficult to negotiate in wet weather) (1998)
United States of America
http://www.geographyiq.com/countries/us/United_States_transportation.htm
Highways: total: 6,370,031 km
paved: 5,733,028 km (including 74,091 km of expressways)
unpaved: 637,003 km (1997)
It does appear that most sources use the CIA as their source of
information as the following is a typical note:
" NOTE: The information regarding Russia on this page is re-published
from the 2001 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence
Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Russia Transportation
2001 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any
errors about Russia Transportation 2001 should be addressed to the CIA."
Therefore, the above is suspect, just US propaganda and can be
discounted as lies and deceit. Ask any Euro for the truth.
Using 4 different search engines, I was unable to find ANY official
Russian web page stating their transportation stats. But for a country with
so few paved roads, web pages probably aren't a high priority versus getting
a truckload of potatoes to market. Or else, the CIA controls the Internet,
and I only get to see what they want me to see.
Go here to see info about Russia's highway system as seen by the World
Bank ( another capitalist institution that CLAIMS it wants to wipe out
poverty worldwide by giving large amounts of US dollars to third world
countries) in regards to a loan given to the RF to be used by the Russian
Federation to replace WOODEN bridges on its Federal Transportation system.
An independent and rather telling description of the former 'Workers
Paradise'.
http://www.worldbank.org.ru/eng/projects/portfolio/bridge_96.htm
>From another source:
" Transportation is a major problem in Russia. River travel is slow and
cumbersome. In winter all of them freeze over. Road building material is
scarce and paved roads are few and far in between. At the beginning of World
War Two Russia had only 55,000 miles of railroad. This has improved since
than but even today Russia has only one mile of railroad per 100 square
miles of land compared to the US 7.1 miles and Britain's 20.6 miles. Russia
has about ten miles of motorable roads per 100 square miles, compared to the
US 101 miles and Britain's 195 miles."
More from this paper can be found here:
http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/russia/lectures/02geography.html
( For the number 5 hit on a Google search of 'Paved roads in Russia' go
here:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/pt36todt.htm
A view of the subject by a Free German of the past. Verrrry
interesting, ja? )
Regards 2)
Ask the Iraqis about highway travel of armored vehicles versus
survivability. I would guess that pilots in most air forces in the world
prefer one quick pass where they can expend all their ordnance versus high
loiter time at the FEBA while 'plinking', though the later is more
interesting allowing them to exercise some skill keeping the laser on
target. ( It ain't called laser TAG for nothing)
The main reason tanks in Europe drive on roads is because they did not
have to fear air attack thanks to the presence of the USAF, RAF etc, for the
past 55 years. Maybe the fact that the US was also sensitive to taking of
peoples houses for " big unpadded runways parallel to the roads to go to
their proving grounds." might have had something to do with track pads, but
I doubt it. I don't think the Soviets paid reparations to folks in occupied
countries for training incidents involving crushed VW's and run over
chickens. The US Army sure did.
Regards 3)
Hmmmmmm.... so living under the Third Reich today would have
been your preferred choice, if you had been given one? Do you think your
ability to travel to Beltring each year to show off your machine might have
suffered under the former management of Europe if the "Shermann tanks in WW2
" had to await rubber tracks for esthetic reasons.
Or is this just another example of the uncaring, brutal United States
forcing its belligerent beliefs on a content citizenry, who were happy
living their carefree, peaceful lives under Adolff Hitler? Can you hear the
words "Papers, Please..." today, without cringing?
Am I mistaken, or is the reason those "Shermanns" were there in the
first place was because a "FREE" Germany decided to station troops in other
"FREE" European countries without asking?
And then your closing salutation, "Best regards from the Free
Western Germany". It wasn't the troops of West Germany with their rubber
padded tracks that kept you from having Russian tanks parked in your local
town square. It was large numbers of steel tracked Sherman's and other
allied armor, and their successors.
That "FREE" was bought by the thousands of Allied lives that defeated
the Axis, and by Trillions of US and UK dollars and uncountable US and UK
citizen's hours spent sitting in various "FREE" countries over the previous
60 years, waiting to give THEIR lives to defend YOUR freedom, which allows
US to post these idiotic bits of fluff across the FREE world.
Instead of me "take some more Geography lessons", maybe you should get a
reality check on your situation. Or else hit a search engine before posting
nonsense....
Regards, Ronzo
(stupid US citizen whose tax dollars helped pay off the WWII and POST WWII
debt STILL owed by so many "FREE"{loading} European countries).
How can something "FREE" have ended up costing the USA so much ?
Where's the hook in our "FREE" aid? It sure ain't paying off in the UN, is
it?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Mehlhorn" <a.mehlhorn@t-online.de>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 1:56 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Russian T72, sorry, my fault
> Ronzo wrote:
>
> >Hi Steve:
> >
> >Possibly because:
> >
> > 1) they only had a couple of hundred miles of paved roads in all of
> > Russia
> >
> I think you should take some more Geography lessons. May be the former
> Soviet Union had more
> paved roads than the United Staes of (North) America.
>
> > 2) Tanks on roads are targets
> >
> Here in good old Europe, tanks usually drive on the roads. A tank stuck
> in the mud is a much
> better target than a tank driving fast on a road.
>
> > 3) Tearing up the roads of a country you are overrunning is not high
on
> >your priority list of "things to avoid" while winning hearts and minds.
> >
> >
> Ah, now I know why the Shermann tanks in WW2 had steel tracks.
>
> > 4) Crushed peasants tend to stick to the rubber blocks while steel
> >tracks work similar to 'Miracle Blade III' knife sets favored by Chef
Tony
> >and are therefore self cleaning.
> >
> >
> May be true.
>
> > 5) Cost of 1 track pad equals 1 main gun round or 400 co-ax rounds.
Ammo
> >wins hands down?
> >
> Warfare is an expensive game and tanks are expensive toys.
>
> > 6) Sound of steel tracks on cobble stones sounds cool and strikes
fear
> >in the hearts of citizenry. Also see 4 above.
> >
> Korrekt!
>
> > 7) Lawyers who sue Russian government over road damage tend to
> >disappear.
> >
> >
> There are virtually none.
>
> The real reason, why the Russians didn't use rubber paded tracks is,
> because they had big
> difficulties to vulcanize rubber and metall together. All Russian and
> other Eastern designs
> always tried to avoid rubber/metal components. They didn't have the
> technology to
> produce them in a reliable quality in big quantities.
>
> In the fromer East Germany, the tanks didn't drive on the paved roads.
> They had big
> unpadded runways parallel to the roads to go to their proving grounds.
>
> Best regards from the Free Western Germany
> (Where the tanks have rubber track pads, and my Kettenkrad has them, too)
> Andreas
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