20 years since them slags smashed into the twin towers...

[Video Game Fan 2000]

What about suicide milkmen?

[PlanktonSideburns]

The Martyrs I feel sorry for are the Metric ones. I don't know how many of them actually made the ultimate sacrifice, and I can't actually recall any suicide bombings at the metre stick factory, but reckon it must have been a few thousand.

And now heaven is here, in Great Britain, at long last!

Here you go mate, welcome to heaven, your 70 yards of virgins are just over there


NOOOOOOOO

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Just have a few pints every night until you're dead from pints. Easiest matyrdom ever.

[JamesTC]

I've never heard it said explicitly that martyrs receive 72 virgins to be used for sex, just that they receive 72 virgins. I like to imagine that when they get to heaven Allah is just stood there grinning and says "thanks for the Jihad, here are your virgins" and presents them with a 72pc lucky dip of toddlers, dogs and Susan Boyles. Go on, enjoy forevermore, fuckwits.

What happens if Susan Boyle does a terrorism for Allah?

[touchingcloth]

Why is terrorist the only occupation to have an official suicide version

Light Brigade. Balaclava Cardigan cunts.

[touchingcloth]

What happens if Susan Boyle does a terrorism for Allah?

She's done several, but she's as yet unmartyred.

[imitationleather]

The Martyrs I feel sorry for are the Metric ones. I don't know how many of them actually made the ultimate sacrifice

If I recall correctly, it was around eight hundred pounds and fourteen ounces worth of Metric Martyrs.

[touchingcloth]

Are we talking long metric martyrs or short?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The Metric Matyrs is the stupidest name ever
Al Qaeda isn't called Christianity Club

[touchingcloth]

Is a martyr still equal to about 0.405 hectmarts?

[famethrowa]

Why is terrorist the only occupation to have an official suicide version

RAF Vulcan pilots in the 60s? Maybe they were terrorists, oooh makes ya think

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Suicide confectioner

[MikeP]

Christianity Club

I like it!! Dunno how well it will go down with the chaps at work though...

[batwings]

Pilots? In '40s Japan, anyway. Also presumably anyone who pilots a plane that drops a big old nuclear warhead, if they get caught in the explosion.

The Japanese also fielded sea Kamikazes who operated torpedos or speedboats or submarines, as well as Kamikaze frogmen during WW2.

[H-O-W-L]

Yeah I reckon they would be human shaped ice by the time they reach 15,000ft

I did some (admittedly soft) research and the highest survived ejections have been up to 45,000 and 35,000 was the range for the first successful tests, so I'd imagine 35,000 is well within surviveable range, just not a great range.

[batwings]

I expect they have some sort of hot water bottle.

[H-O-W-L]

If you eject at 35,000 feet you don't stay there very long. Less than a minute or two in most cases I was reading about.

[seepage]

In the 1950s the US had a tactical nuclear recoilless smoothbore gun with a range of about a mile. Supposedly safe for the crew but would you want to be only a mile away from a tactical nuke going off?

[H-O-W-L]

In the 1950s the US had a tactical nuclear recoilless smoothbore gun with a range of about a mile. Supposedly safe for the crew but would you want to be only a mile away from a tactical nuke going off?

Terrible comparison, frankly.

You're talking about the Davy Crockett, firstly it was first adopted in the early 1960s, and it was never "supposedly" safe for the crew; its functional range was always within the radius of potential fall-out, however it was well within you could call a "safe" dose of radiological contamination from a "nearby" nuclear detonation. Crews deigned to use the Davy Crockett would typically be mounted (IE in vehicles) and would be wearing partial or full NBC gear while operating it (not least because the scenario one would be used in would be the end of the world, with several tactical nuclear uses already ongoing as well as a chemwar that would be thrice as worse. I can elaborate if anyone cares.) The light variant had a range of 1.25 miles and the heavy variant had a range of 2.9 miles, while the calculated theoretical fatal range for it was about 400 metres, which is significantly beneath the maximum range. The real risk would be wind carrying fall-out toward you after launch rather than immediate radiation exposure from the blast itself.

The Davy Crockett was, overall, more of a tactical radiation delivery system than a blast weapon anyway; it was never intended to be used against specific targets, but instead to salt the earth around the Fulda Gap and other land transit zones in Europe (and potentially the USA's borders)  to prevent infantry/armor transport in the case of a "Red Steamroller" scenario. They were superseeded by the nuclear landmines that were used in the Fulda Gap until the end of the Cold War, and it's very unlikely that they would've actually seen tactical use. Most soldiers trained in use of them, in anecdotal remarks I've seen, have talked about how they basically never expected to use them, and many had objections to using them (primarily out of personal safety concerns). There are of course plenty of men who would've fired one but still. You hear similar things about SADMs -- Special Atomic Demolition Munitions -- which were intended for the same purposes. SOme blokes think they were suicide jobs to be assigned and others (and the usage manual) believed it was possible to deploy one, get to a distance, and detonate it safely.

Comparing a tactical nuclear weapon; something only given a first pass of practical definition/testing and no tactical in-field usage, to ejections -- which are a direct lifesaving measure which have a proven survival rate overall and are used very regularly and very rigorously in airborne warfare -- is so wrong-headed I don't really know where to begin.

Considering there are several pilots who have survived ejections at or near 35,000 feet, and nobody who has documentedly survived a Davy Crockett going off in combat, I don't think the two are even a valid comparison. Nevermind the fact there are several pilots who've survived more than one in-combat ejection.

[touchingcloth]

I doubt that, they were actually pretty open about the fact that they sent jets to bring it down. In the "Surviving 9/11" docu on iPlayer, Heather Penney talks about how her and another pilot were ordered to bring it down, but didn't have time to arm their F-16s so basically would have to ram it, killing themselves in the process, which they both went off to do without any hesitation. In the end they didn't need to of course, but damn imagine going to work one morning and being told you'll be committing suicide as part of the day's duties.

Didn't have time to arm their plane, or fired all of their bullets at United 93, hmm?

Heather Penney is an anagram of "heat the panty", so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

[MikeP]

Terrible comparison, frankly.

You're talking about the Davy Crockett...  ...combat ejection.

Thankyou for that,

[touchingcloth]

Them Al Qaeda boys were lame. I'm going to do a 9/11, but using a Saturn V.

[JamesTC]

Al Qaeda are rubbish. Booooooooooo Al Qaeda.

[JaDanketies]

ISIS would've had a quality HD camera recording for the first plane and the Pentagon

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark mull over a rewrite.

"Al Qaeda, compared to Enola Gay 9/11 was weedier...."

[beanheadmcginty]

One of the lesser acknowledged results of 9/11 was that everyone decided that it was definitely spelt Muslim. Before that, we all spelt it Moslem. I remember clearly because my mate at school was one.

[jobotic]

Remember when those old school Monday Club type racists used to say Mohammedans?

[JaDanketies]

Does anything compare to 9/11? The closest I can think is MJ dying. Maybe the boxing day tsunami or a few election poll results.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Does anything compare to 9/11?

The now-Muslim Sinead O'Connor mulls over a title for a rewrite of her biggest hit.

[JaDanketies]

Imagine if Michael Jackson had been on one of them planes. What would the newsreader lead with?