Surface-To-Air Missiles At London Olympics 395
First time accepted submitter TheGift73 writes "I have to admit, when I first read about this I thought it was a hoax, but unfortunately it's true. The UK government is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential buildings in London for the duration of the London Olympics. From the article: 'The Ministry of Defence is considering placing surface-to-air missiles on residential flats during the Olympics.
An east London estate, where 700 people live, has received leaflets saying a "Higher Velocity Missile system" could be placed on a water tower.
A spokesman said the MoD had not yet decided whether to deploy ground based air defence systems during the event.'"
Salt Lake City 2002 (Score:5, Informative)
The winter games in 2002 in SLC had unprecedented military participation. There were radar and missile emplacements all over the foothills and there were troops all over the place including Apache helicopters and F-16's patrolling the skies during the days major events. The SLC international airport was off limits entirely to unscheduled flights and the military was authorized to shoot down any plane violating SLC airspace.
We see a lot of air traffic being that Hill Airforce base is close and Fort Williams is where the Apaches train but I've never seen so many military air craft all over the place.
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:5, Informative)
He is mentioning the "away" is still full of London crowd. If a hostile plane can reach London itself, wherever it hits will cause loss of lives.
If the missiles are long or medium range SAMs, then there is no need to put it inside London and at the top of the apartment building. It appears therefore that the SAM is a short range.
These were in place for the Athens Olympics (Score:5, Informative)
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6203/6074130550_928b676ecc_z.jpg [staticflickr.com]
Although that was in an open, unpopulated area. Placing them on a residential complex is obviously a step up though.
Re:The joke gets worse (Score:2, Informative)
I think the Chinese Gov and people knew what they were going to get out of it. And they did get most of what they wanted or expected. Some golds, some international fame, and a big expensive ego-trip. They certainly didn't do it to make more money (they shut down factories to reduce pollution!).
Any country/city that expects to easily make money out of hosting the Olympic Games are fools. The games nowadays are so big, you need to spend lots of money building/upgrading all the facilities and then hosting the event. And guess when is the next time the same place gets to host something similar? Certainly not the next year, or even decade. So if you do not have a use for the stuff you've built, they are wasted money.
This article seems to indicate that Sydney didn't do that well: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/after-the-party-what-happens-when-the-olympics-leave-town-901629.html
LA made money which might be more because of sponsors being willing to stump up the $$$$ (maybe even out of patriotism) and a lot of the infra already existing.
Re:Where went wrong? (Score:5, Informative)
First, London is not in the US, so I'm not sure what the fuck any of your post has to do with anything.
He's called "Tom the Pom", so I'm going to guess that he's English. You may not have realised this, but the UK invaded Iraq (get the WMD!) & Afghanistan (get Al Qaeda!) too. We also "renditioned" people to be tortured (former FM Jack Straw is currently being sued for it), held people without trial (check out Abu Qatada, a thoroughly unpleasant man who we're deporting after a decade of imprisonment, despite the minor inconvenience that he's never been convicted of any crimes), and have TSA style airport madness (double the fun when visiting the US)
Unless you've been living in a cave for the last decade, you can get your own citations.
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Informative)
That Virginia Beach residential area and central London residentials are quite a different thing.
From Google Maps & Street View:
Virginia Beach: 2-story buildings covering one third of the surface.
London: ~4-story buildings on two thirds of the surface with seemingly much less floor area per apartment.
Wikipedia says, London has 7.5 times the population density of Virginia Beach.
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:5, Informative)
The full article is for subscribers only.
Mach 3.5, laser guided, whether it works against a motorcyclist depends on your "to hit" roll.
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:5, Informative)
Here is what it said:
Fewer than five per cent of Muslims polled believed they should separate themselves from non-Muslims, and fewer than 10 per cent believed it was acceptable for religious or political groups to use violence for political ends.
and
Almost 80 per cent agreed that the attacks on the London Underground in July 2005 had damaged the image of Muslims in Britain.
Hardly as as damning as you suggested. The right wing media in the UK has been doing its up most to portray Muslims as the enemies of the "truly British" white majority. I'm not saying there is no issues with Muslims in Britain, but anything negative written about them needs to be read with a whole heap of salt.
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:4, Informative)
This thing simultaneously fires three laser guided, tungsten jacketed shells off the top of a rocket, travelling at Mach 3.5, each with half a kilogram of high explosive. They fly 1.5m apart to maximise the chance of hitting a fast moving object, they can out-turn a plane turning at 9Gs and any one of the three hitting is enough to tear through the armour of a modern APC, though the fragmentation alone would be enough to kill a person several meters away.
If you let me choose any weapon for seriously ruining the day of a motorcyclist from the top of a building, I could think of nothing better than this one. In fact, I still find it hard to believe that the British were actually crazy enough to build such a thing.