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.'"
So... (Score:4, Interesting)
The joke gets worse (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been a farce from day 1, starting with the chronically underestimated budget for the whole thing, and the unfounded, misguided claims that it would be profitable for the country and spark unprecedented 'urban renewal', as well as a renaissance in sports for everyone in the country as people became inspired.
As each and every one of these things has been debunked, the fanatics and toadies have continued to shout them, just louder. The level of denial here is incredible. The best one I've heard so far was putting the lie to the idea that it would get the population back into sports. Studies have shown that this doesn't happen in host countries, for the olympics, the commonwealth games or whatever the event. When faced with this the organisers just repeated their feelgood bunk about how inspirational the whole thing was, despite having just been shown unequivocally that the opposite is true.
So now surface to air missiles? Well I suppose a gathering that big could be a target. I know what londoners will be saying though, the same as they said from the start (when I was living there) - "We never wanted them in the first place".
They use civilians as human shields!!! Hostages!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't that the claim, US and other NATO countries' media makes every time a victim of their invasion tries to place any air defenses in their cities?
Re:The joke gets worse (Score:2, Interesting)
Australia basically lucked out in having the last truly successful Olympics. Since then computers, the internet and the drive for participation over sucked in by marketing passivity is taking over.
Whiny, it's not lying it's acting product promoting, athletes and their lawyers, as just so yesterday, last millennium in fact. Olympic gold medal winners are promoting crappier and crappier products, it's getting so bad, using the reduces the appearance value of a product rather than enhancing it.
Of course not to forget, generally speaking it is not a very good idea to shoot down aircraft over a crowded city. So who will be deciding who dies it stead, wait don't shoot it down yet, it'll fall on some place important. Of course this anti-aircraft missiles bullshit might be exactly that bullshit to drive marketing of the Olympics.
Re:The joke gets worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, it gets worse than that... it's pure idiocy to even try using the things as a defense.
If some jackass wanted to slam a plane into the crowd, they'd merely have to fly very fast and very low. Most missiles have a minimum effective altitude (due to the physics of speed, for starters). Most missiles also work on the principle of sending shrapnel into an enemy plane, hoping to tear it apart... few (if any?) are made to simply blow a plane up.
Finally, with sufficient speed, no missile short of a full blown telephone-pole-sized SAM (we're talking massive multi-ton Soviet-style rigs) would completely stop a multi-ton object moving full-throttle at nearly 1,000 km/h. So instead of an intact aircraft slamming into a crowd, you now have a big flaming ball of metal flying into the crowd. Umm, okay...
The best you can hope for is to knock it off course, which in London just means that it'll slam into some other heavily-populated area full of buildings.
Seriously? Someone in security has been watching too many frickin' movies.
Re:And the residents are complaining (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be wrapped to have a missile array on my roof!
I'm thinking the exact same thing!
You see, I live on the coast, and there was recently this company a bit up the road who set up shop giving helicopter rides over the more scenic bits of our county, and sometimes they can really irritate, especially on weekends, so...
Re:And the residents are complaining (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:paranoid nanny state (Score:5, Interesting)
The Olympic Village is in the middle of London, lined by civilian airports.
* London City airport with 200 flights per day is just 5km away (that's just 20 seconds at full speed, or 60 seconds at landing speed!)
* Heathrow airport with 1300 flights per day is just 30km away.
* Gatwick and Stansted airports are both 40km away, 1100 flights per day between them.
All the flights from these may overfly London, and Heathrow planes are often in holding patterns over Central London.
It's basically impossible to define a "air defence area" in London. And if a passenger plane accidentally strays into it, a pilot says "sorry, my mistake" on radio, what politician is still going to give the "go code" to shoot it down in 20 seconds?