F-22A in a spot of bother (major report)

[Dark Hellion]

You can't simply point it out because as said the U.S. can afford to spend this much quite easily, hell it could easily afford to spend more. You can tell you neighbor he doesn't need a Lexus, but if he can afford it he's going to tell you to fuck off. The U.S. can afford to want to be a generation ahead militarily so saying it doesn't need to is just whining unless you can provide a reason it doesn't.

And the big military thing is still bullshit. You are confusing cause and effect. All the countries of the day captured smaller countries and used them. Rome, Persia, and Britain just did it better because they had bigger militaries. They were in no way exceptionally aggressive, just exceptionally good at doing what all the other countries wanted to. Europe carved up Africa and the middle east and France and Belgium were much more aggressive and militarily antagonistic to those countries than the bigger more powerful Britain. The Balkan states started more wars during the 1800s over less significant holdings than the British. The Germans set off 3 wars in 50 years, two of which would become world wars, despite being smaller than its main enemies of France and Britain. You are looking at history like it can be summed up with cliffnotes and ignoring than many smaller countries were doing all the things you accuse having a big military of making you do. None of those countries with massive militaries were acting in any way extra-ordinarily aggressive for the geopolitical climates they were in, its just they had the power to mount campaigns that make it into history books, which some vandals fighting some Visigoths isn't going to do.

[Simon_Jester]

The sad thing about this is that if there's one thing the Iraq War demonstrated, an operation against an easily defeated tin-pot like Iraq was enough to tie down the majority of the US military so that it wasn't a credible full-spectrum threat against anyone else.

That's because the one thing missing from the "America: world's imperial ruler policeman" military is sufficient troops to do occupations properly. To do that we'd need either conscription or sepoys, and neither of them is in the cards.

God knows we have enough jets, tanks, missiles, and other vehicles of explodey death to do the job, though.
__________

But I don't really see you fulfilling the threshold of actually explaining how the U.S. military is failing to fulfill its mandate (whatever that is being a debate in and of itself) or why a country that controls over 1/8th of the economic power of the world cannot decide how it want to spend it by itself, especially when the expense is historically lower than the spending of numerous countries in the past and the fact that like it or not the world gave America position as hegemon in the early 90's with many of the responsibilities to global trade and geopolitical relations that that requires. Had Europe wanted greater equality, they would have had to build the navies and sea lift that the U.S. provided for free, greatly increasing their defense spending. Sea lanes don't defend themselves, and without a strong military presence piracy is always a threat, as is historically evident.

Again, you misunderstand the nature of the problem.

The problem is not "Is the US military failing to fulfill its mandate?" The problem is "what should the US military's mandate be, given how much we have to pay to fulfill it?" Should the US military be designed to prevent a direct invasion of our coastlines (dirt cheap on the scale of the US economy)? Should it be designed to support some specific ally in some specific region (not so cheap)? Should it be designed to be capable of beating anyone, anywhere, in any combination (frighteningly expensive)?

Moreover, while the policy of making the US the world's policeman clearly has advantages for people who can get our protection, does it have advantages for us that justify the diversion of resources to expensive military projects? Especially when those projects are not, strictly speaking, essential to the life and prosperity of American citizens?

Why should it even be a question whether the US needs a military capable of confronting, say, Russia over the Ukraine? The Ukraine is about 5000 or 6000 miles away from us, and it's right next door to Russia. Do we really need a margin of superiority over Russia so great that they can't beat us even in their own backyard? What do we get for having that margin of superiority that pays for the cost of buying it?

These are not trivial questions. Maybe you feel that they have satisfactory answers that explain why the US needs to be a world policeman and to have the firepower to match the job description. But it's worth recognizing that this is not a one-sided policy debate in which the expensive military hardware should always win.
______

It is not like the U.S. will suffer insolvency for it predilection for military spending any time soon...

Since the money spent on the military is not spent on paying down our debts or on revitalizing our domestic economy, I'm not so confident of that.
______

I still don't understand why they can't just lift the F-22 export ban already?

Probably because the F-22 can beat the tar out of our planes just as well as it can anyone else's. We're afraid of what happens if we wind up selling anyone else an air superiority force that's better than the one we ourselves have in the field; see all this stuff about "world policeman."
______

You can't simply point it out because as said the U.S. can afford to spend this much quite easily, hell it could easily afford to spend more. You can tell you neighbor he doesn't need a Lexus, but if he can afford it he's going to tell you to fuck off. The U.S. can afford to want to be a generation ahead militarily so saying it doesn't need to is just whining unless you can provide a reason it doesn't.

Reason: the US budget is only about 80% covered by the US government's income from taxes. We need to either raise taxes or cut spending, or we're going to be up to our eyeballs in debt.

Raising taxes is politically difficult, and is probably not the answer by itself. Cutting spending is also difficult, but we're going to have to do at least SOME of it. And since the military makes up between a fifth and a quarter of the overall budget, the military is going to have to take at least some of the budget cuts.

So in short, we're fooling ourselves if we think we can afford to spend on a globally dominant military given the situation the budget's actually in. We can't have wartime levels of military spending without wartime taxation.

[Darth Wong]

You can't simply point it out because as said the U.S. can afford to spend this much quite easily, hell it could easily afford to spend more. You can tell you neighbor he doesn't need a Lexus, but if he can afford it he's going to tell you to fuck off. The U.S. can afford to want to be a generation ahead militarily so saying it doesn't need to is just whining unless you can provide a reason it doesn't.

Maybe you haven't been following the news for the last six years, but the US government is hemorrhaging money. Is it capable of spending this money? Sure. Is it financially responsible to do so? Is it helping the country to spend this money this way, which is the whole fucking purpose of a national military?

And the big military thing is still bullshit. You are confusing cause and effect. All the countries of the day captured smaller countries and used them. Rome, Persia, and Britain just did it better because they had bigger militaries.

That's a nice backpedal from "when someone has a huge military, it's always peaceful". Go on, continue pretending you didn't put your foot in your mouth.

[Dark Hellion]

Again, you misunderstand the nature of the problem.

The problem is not "Is the US military failing to fulfill its mandate?" The problem is "what should the US military's mandate be, given how much we have to pay to fulfill it?" Should the US military be designed to prevent a direct invasion of our coastlines (dirt cheap on the scale of the US economy)? Should it be designed to support some specific ally in some specific region (not so cheap)? Should it be designed to be capable of beating anyone, anywhere, in any combination (frighteningly expensive)?

Moreover, while the policy of making the US the world's policeman clearly has advantages for people who can get our protection, does it have advantages for us that justify the diversion of resources to expensive military projects? Especially when those projects are not, strictly speaking, essential to the life and prosperity of American citizens?

Why should it even be a question whether the US needs a military capable of confronting, say, Russia over the Ukraine? The Ukraine is about 5000 or 6000 miles away from us, and it's right next door to Russia. Do we really need a margin of superiority over Russia so great that they can't beat us even in their own backyard? What do we get for having that margin of superiority that pays for the cost of buying it?

These are not trivial questions. Maybe you feel that they have satisfactory answers that explain why the US needs to be a world policeman and to have the firepower to match the job description. But it's worth recognizing that this is not a one-sided policy debate in which the expensive military hardware should always win.

This is actually one of the points I have been trying to make over the last two pages. It is fine to say that the U.S. spends to much, I am not going to argue that, but the U.S. can afford it and has been able to for 60 years. So like you did here you have to attack the philosophy behind the military spending. Which requires a thought out argument like you presented, not simple repetition of the fact that the U.S. spends a fucking ton of money.

Maybe you haven't been following the news for the last six years, but the US government is hemorrhaging money. Is it capable of spending this money? Sure. Is it financially responsible to do so? Is it helping the country to spend this money this way, which is the whole fucking purpose of a national military?

If you want to go this route lets look at the fact that there are European countries with over twice the amount of leveraging and much higher GDP to debt ratios, and these countries don't have massive economic power or the ability to project force, so this is a very mute argument. The U.S. may be spending a lot but it has gotten numerous tangible gains in technology and geopolitical position through this spending, while countries like Ireland have accomplished nothing and put themselves much closer to insolvency. Sure there may be better things that the U.S. could spend the money on, but there are far worse things that countries without this level of military spending have wasted huge amounts on. And if this money wasn't spent on military projects, which do have some tangible gain, there is no guarantee it will be spent on something better. As was shown previously, just throwing money at things like education aren't real solutions, so simply re-allocating money is in no way guaranteed to make things better, and despite the fact you may dislike it, things like the F-22 do serve to further the national interest of the U.S.

That's a nice backpedal from "when someone has a huge military, it's always peaceful". Go on, continue pretending you didn't put your foot in your mouth.

How many huge wars did the Roman fight after the Punic wars? How many massive conflicts did the Ottomans get into between Byzantium and WWI? When there wasn't a Rome, Britain and France spend nearly half of three centuries fighting. Then, when Britain beat Napoleon and become the dominant power, while numerous small wars existed, there death toll was less than one year of WWI. World War one killed more people combined than the previous two centuries of wars, wars fought primarily when there was a major power. Hell, there are currently over a dozen wars being fought in the world right now, and we would consider ourselves living in a time of unparalleled peace. You cannot equivocate every armed conflict and pretend that the simple existence of a war means that the world isn't generally at peace. There has been a war being fought for the entirety of human history.

Not all wars are the same. When large powers exist, the threat of massive conflict is very small. There is too much to lose for a large power to get into a petty fight, a lesson W. obvious didn't learn, as is evident in Iraq. But by and large the times when a single major power had unparalleled military supremacy there was a much lower rate of bloodshed world wide. When there is an absence of such all the great powers will compete to become this superpower, resulting in things like the Spanish Armada, Charlamagne, Napoleon, or the Franco-Prussian war. These all build to things like World War I and II, were major powers decide that it is worth risking everything because if you win you become the Superpower. Amazingly, Russia and the U.S. winner of that conflict became superpowers.

You are presenting this view of history that is so oversimplified, removed of context and substance that it is practically a strawman of the real sociological, psychological and technical realities. Its not simply a timeline where you point to some conflict and go "AHA- not peaceful".

[fgalkin]

Hellion, you don't know jack shit about history.

How many huge wars did the Roman fight after the Punic wars?

Conquest of the Iberia
Conquest of Greece, Macedon and Illyria
The Jugurthine War
The Mithridatic Wars
The Conquest of Gaul (even YOU must have read about this one and an obscure guy named Caesar)
Conquests of Britain, Dacia, and wars with Parthia

These are just the ones off the top of my head, and I'm probably missing more than a few. Thanas will probably kick me for any oversight I've made.

How many massive conflicts did the Ottomans get into between Byzantium and WWI?

Pssst, dipshit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman-Habsburg_wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Ottoman_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War

When there wasn't a Rome, Britain and France spend nearly half of three centuries fighting. Then, when Britain beat Napoleon and become the dominant power, while numerous small wars existed, there death toll was less than one year of WWI.

Yes, and they were fought with much inferior killing technology, and some, like the Crimean War and the Indian Rebellion were quite bloody in their own right.

That of course ignores the fact that between Napoleon's time and WWI, the colonial powers and especially Britain conquered much of the known world. Just because the people being conquered couldn't mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops does not mean that the impact on them wasn't great.

If you compare the wars of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, you'll see that being a superpower made the British more, not less, agressive.

World War one killed more people combined than the previous two centuries of wars, wars fought primarily when there was a major power.

That statement is wrong on so many levels.

Hell, there are currently over a dozen wars being fought in the world right now, and we would consider ourselves living in a time of unparalleled peace. You cannot equivocate every armed conflict and pretend that the simple existence of a war means that the world isn't generally at peace. There has been a war being fought for the entirety of human history.

Unparallelled peace? Millions of people have died all over the world in wars started or influenced by the rivalries of superpowers. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Congo ring a bell?

You are presenting this view of history that is so oversimplified, removed of context and substance that it is practically a strawman of the real sociological, psychological and technical realities. Its not simply a timeline where you point to some conflict and go "AHA- not peaceful".

But you can go "aha, more people died in WWI- the 19th century was peaceful!" Gotcha. Because smoothbore muskets are clearly the same as machineguns and poison gas at killing people and things like population size and industrialization have no impact whatsoever on the number of people in standing armies and the number of casualties.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dark Hellion]

Well, given that I have been shown to run into a pretty big wall in my historical knowledge (damn you liberal arts education) I will concede. I am not a military historian and while I was relatively assured of myself it has become evident that my knowledge base was definitely poorer than I thought. Building a conclusion on bad facts doesn't necessarily lead to a bad conclusion, but I am not assured of my conclusion anymore myself and should remove myself and concede it.

[Stark]

What's sad is that you made an ass of yourself by saying OTHERS had a 'simplistic view on history' when you clearly had NO FUCKING IDEA what you were talking about. How stupid do you have to be to make statements like 'how many major wars did the Romans fight after Punic 3' and not even fucking check? Your idea that militarily powerful states create world peace is fucking retarded and even the slightest examination of history would have shown you that.

I want to know where you got the idea you failed to defend from. It sounds like it's just pride, but maybe someone put it in your head. Who?

[Darth Wong]

It's Dark Hellion's manner of great confidence despite obviously lacking any real knowledge which is most offensive. If you look at his choice of words, he clearly attempted to present himself as a scholar on the subject of military history until he was resoundingly smacked down. He even specifically mentioned the Roman Empire and this imaginary period of prolonged peace and tranquility following the Punic wars, despite literally knowing less about the period than my 13 year old son.

It's all well and good that he now concedes he was making it up as he went along, but the fact remains: he tried to bluff his way to a pretense of being particularly knowledgeable about a subject in which he clearly had no knowledge at all. That's just downright deceitful, dishonourable, etc.

[fgalkin]

Well, given that I have been shown to run into a pretty big wall in my historical knowledge (damn you liberal arts education) I will concede.

Don't blame a liberal arts education, blame your own study habits. Knowledge of history is one of the few good things provided by a libarts education

I am not a military historian

Then why do you try to pass yourself off as one?

and while I was relatively assured of myself it has become evident that my knowledge base was definitely poorer than I thought. Building a conclusion on bad facts doesn't necessarily lead to a bad conclusion, but I am not assured of my conclusion anymore myself and should remove myself and concede it.

It looks to me like you didn't draw a conclusion from facts, you started out with a premise- the old mantra of "peace through superior firepower," and then cherry-picked examples from history to support it.

In any case, I am glad that this interruption is over, and we may now return to discussing the subject of the thread.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dark Hellion]

Honestly, I was pulling shit from a 300 level sociology class I had. I got caught up in the debate without really fact checking myself. Had I thought about it I really should have remembered things like the Roman campaigns in Britain and other simple things. It's why I try to avoid getting too far into debates on this board because I have a bad tendency to get way ahead of myself becoming convinced I have some really good idea and then running right into a "I should have thought of that" moment. However, I am not going to try to bullshit around it and pull a bunch of random shit off google to try and shoehorn my argument.

I thought I understood the situation better than I did. Fgalkin hit me with a major moment of "shit should have fact checked before running off my big mouth", so I did the only thing I could, concede all points because I clearly was not actually making a good argument. I was not trying to pretend to have better credentials, although I will admit I was getting very arrogant because I thought I was winning. I have never hid my credentials. I have a BA in Physics/Philosophy and will be going for a Masters in physics.

It is a weakness of liberal arts education. You get a few high level classes of various fields, and it really isn't until you run into trying to make an argument when you realize how spoon fed it was. But repetition is not good argumentation and neither is getting as invested as I did. I believed I had a gotcha argument and didn't even think about it. I should have taken myself out earlier, but I got the whole huffy "garr he doesn't agree with me must argue" thing going. And I said dumb shit.

Most everyone says dumb shit from time to time. I said some monumentally dumb shit here. There isn't much I can do but man up, say I got arrogant and stupid and concede; or try to dig myself a grave further defending what is a clearly moronic and untenable position. Frankly, I would like to see debate on this subject continue, because I clearly do not know as much as I thought about it, and would like to get a clear presentation of both sides.

If it isn't too much to ask, I would like to request my hijack be pulled to the HoS so as not to disrupt the thread further.

[Alyeska]

In other words:
US... Your superplane is fucked.

Do you have anything constructive, or for that matter intelligent to add?

No, I think the statement is self-explanatory.

Besides, there's nothing I can say that hasn't been addressed in full and at large by Lord Wong.

By continuing to push the F22's agenda, one of two things is going to be made quite clear and evident...
Neither is going to be the USA's ability to recognise a failure after it costs them 62,000 million (as of 2006).

Now, you would say: Why do you say the F22 is a failure, when it's freaking fantabulous!

And I'll say that with maintenance demands like that, I'd call call bloody Tinkerbell a failure.

Thank you very much.

Did you even read the rest of this thread? I seriously doubt it. The maintenance costs have to take into account the capability increase of the F22. Right now the USAF considers the F22 equal to a DOZEN F15s in combat. The F22 is more expensive to maintain. Is it a dozen times more expensive then the F15? I doubt that.

[Medic]

You know the corollary to 'US defense spending is proportionally much LOWER in modern times than it was to the past' is that 'social welfare programs cost proportionally much MORE in modern times than they did in the past.'

The DoD's Green Book (a giant budget document) clearly shows as much. Now, what I'm not mentioning is I haven't correlated civil vs. defense spending in past eras with the modern one while taking into account average life expectancy and other demographics, (they obviously factor into what social spending deserves) but why isn't the argument being made FOR such exorbitant social spending? They are at least equally up-for-grabs to criticize -- board consensus may hold that so many things like healthcare should be nationalized or that certain increases in spending need to happen in x, y and z -- but aren't such areas of spending demonstrably just as fraught with fraud, waste and abuse? I'm not excusing the latter but it is just as easily the former, some 2/3 or so of discretionary federal spending that we 'can't afford,' as it is that 1/3 or so the defense establishment soaks up.

Of course we can always just tax more but is that even what most taxpayers want? It isn't what I want, personally, but FYI plugging in your opinion here -- in regards to what are reasonable tax rates, social safety nets, etc. -- really does nothing to weigh electoral whim in this manner, which will fall the way it may. It's all then a matter of ideology, preference or reason and to an extent, moral or ethical responsibility (i.e., being uninsured healthwise just because you were born poor, or being left to wither in a retirement home because you're too old to work and your social security don't pay for shit or you had none cause long ago we never made a valuation that that was needed) but those are real dollars that come from somewhere -- if not taxes ultimately than debt.

Cause really, the argument 'the richest / most powerful nation in the world can curbstomp anyone into the dustbin of history but can't take care of it's own' falls on it's face the moment we tax ourselves past the point of being the richest / most powerful nation in the world. Higher taxes mean less consumer spending and ours is a consumer economy.

edit: put in 'consumer spending' in last sentence, for clarity

[MKSheppard]

Is it a dozen times more expensive then the F15? I doubt that.

Because some people can't read the OP:

The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22's predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.

As for the rest of the debate in this thread. Dark Hellion raised some interesting points; but failed in overall execution. I give him a solid C+ or C-; depending on which way you blow.

[Alyeska]

Cute. Thats close enough Shep.

[MKSheppard]

Cute. Thats close enough Shep.

Why, I accept your thanks of praise for digging up the information so you could make a well reasoned post.

[Alyeska]

And clever. Now when you want to insult someone, thats the way to do it. It makes me look more foolish while you get away relatively unscathed.

[Medic]

Oh right, the other corollary -- just how useful are Europe, Japan, and Canada as illustrative examples of a spending plan when they in fact DO siphon off the great American DoD? They've got dollars to spend on their own because they do tax more and they legitimately need to worry less about defense -- we got that tab, in part, if not in full.

[MKSheppard]

Oh right, the other corollary -- just how useful are Europe, Japan, and Canada as illustrative examples of a spending plan when they in fact DO siphon off the great American DoD? They've got dollars to spend on their own because they do tax more and they legitimately need to worry less about defense -- we got that tab, in part, if not in full.

During the Cold War, they at least did pull much of their own weight; for example, we relied heavily on the fact that if the Cold War ever had gone hot that:

1.) We would have swarms of cheap, essentially useless ships from the navies of the UK and other NATO members to do convoy escort duties, and minesweeping operations.

2.) Germany would provide the major contigent of land forces in Europe to fight the red menace.

Since the end of the Cold War however, the European nations have let their militaries atrophy away to the point that during 1999, the US Military did the overwhelming majority of the work in the Kosovo intervention, despite it being literally in Europe's backyard.

[fgalkin]

Did you even read the rest of this thread? I seriously doubt it. The maintenance costs have to take into account the capability increase of the F22. Right now the USAF considers the F22 equal to a DOZEN F15s in combat. The F22 is more expensive to maintain. Is it a dozen times more expensive then the F15? I doubt that.

It doesn't matter how awesometastic with a cherry on top it is if its grounded for repairs when its needed. Remember that bit about for every hour in the air, it spends thirty in maintenance?

How many you need to cover the continental US, again?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Alyeska]

It doesn't matter how awesometastic with a cherry on top it is if its grounded for repairs when its needed. Remember that bit about for every hour in the air, it spends thirty in maintenance?

How many you need to cover the continental US, again?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Which is why it is going to be paired up with existing airplanes. The F22 works more than just alone. Even the eventual future changes will have the F22 paired up with F35s. F15Es and F16s are going to remain in service for quite some time since several of them are still quite new airframes.

[MKSheppard]

How many you need to cover the continental US, again?

On 9-11; many of our ADC F-16s had to make sustained supersonic dashes to arrive over Washington or New York; and as a result; many had to break off for refuelling after a very short time over their area to be protected.

F-22A doesn't have that problem. Distance from Langley AFB in VA where F-22As are based to Washington is 140 miles.

At a cruising speed of Mach 1.6 at 1,000 MPH, or sixteen and a half miles a minute; it takes the F-22A only 8.5 minutes to arrive over Washington DC, and it retains enough fuel after it's supersonic dash to engage in subsonic combat air patrol over the place for some time before it needs to tank up.

Of course, all this wouldn't be a problem if we had bought 93 F-12Bs like Congress wanted us to in the 1960s/70s...mach 3 cruise capability would be even better.

[Darth Wong]

How many you need to cover the continental US, again?

On 9-11; many of our ADC F-16s had to make sustained supersonic dashes to arrive over Washington or New York; and as a result; many had to break off for refuelling after a very short time over their area to be protected.

F-22A doesn't have that problem. Distance from Langley AFB in VA where F-22As are based to Washington is 140 miles.

At a cruising speed of Mach 1.6 at 1,000 MPH, or sixteen and a half miles a minute; it takes the F-22A only 8.5 minutes to arrive over Washington DC, and it retains enough fuel after it's supersonic dash to engage in subsonic combat air patrol over the place for some time before it needs to tank up.

Of course, all this wouldn't be a problem if we had bought 93 F-12Bs like Congress wanted us to in the 1960s/70s...mach 3 cruise capability would be even better.

So ... F-22s could have prevented 9/11? What exactly are you arguing here?

Could you describe the nightmare future we might experience in a world without more F-22s? I'm curious just how awful this dystopic future might be. Will there be Chinese armies rolling through Pennsylvania?

[MKSheppard]

So ... F-22s could have prevented 9/11? What exactly are you arguing here?

I'm countering Fgalkin's argument of "How many you need to cover the continental US, again?" by pointing out that F-22A has much superior range in the ADC intercept mission -- which usually is "take off fast, fly really fast to some point, and then subsonically loiter" -- for example, the F-22A has to break off less often than a F-16 for refuelling from a tanker in the ADC mission; thus it's more efficient than a F-16.

[Starglider]

So ... F-22s could have prevented 9/11? What exactly are you arguing here?

His point was that having F-22s on standby instead of F-16s would have substantially increased the chance of shooting down AA flight 77 before it hit the Pentagon. Unfortunately, shooting down UA flight 175 before it hit the south tower would be much harder; there are only 17 minutes to work with, so I imagine you'd need constantly airborne F-12s on racetrack patterns up and down the east coast and a very well trained ground control system.

Erik appears to be correct with regard to that drawing, in that the wing AoA would be significantly negative if it actually flew at the attitude shown, which is nonsensical. At a realistic supersonic cruise AoA (of several degrees positive), the intakes would indeed be shielded by the cockpit from anything flying significantly lower. This is hardly surprising since the Su-27 also sits considerably more nose-down on its landing gear than it does in flight.

[Vympel]

Note that the Project 701 topic has been split off to the History Forum.