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There's nothing inherently magical about a triad; justification for it as a policy was basically driven by a combination of the US treasury not wanting to develop still more nuclear delivery systems, and the US military not wanting to give up any of the ones it already had. Seriously proposed...

It even works with internal combustion engines, as long as you accept electric transmission - which is one of those ideas that never quite goes away, but never quite succeeds either. Heavy trucks and coaches can, in principle, run their long-distance miles under the wires, and only fire up the...

It's the Macdonald triad: arson, cruelty to animals, and bed-wetting. One on its' own is not a huge cause for alarm. Two, or especially three, are claimed to be associated with violent or homicidal tendencies. Whilst widely believed, the hypothesis isn't well supported.

The Londoners would spread out into the rest of the country. I'm slightly surprised not to see the Underways featured here. They seem to be right up OP's (grade separated, motorist-only) street.

I did some estimates a few years ago and came up with a figure of 12.6 million for a no-famine Ireland, based on historic growth rates for Ireland and Great Britain. Which is a massive increase over OTL, and will force the island to undergo significant changes. Industrialisation and urbanisation...

It's not so much the number of potential contractors, as having enough work to go around so that tenders can be awarded based on merit rather than 'who will go out of business without more work'. In that respect, having two competent competitors with a healthy orderbook is preferable to...

It's probably not that significant for strategic bombers, for the reasons stated. For naval purposes, though, it's potentially very significant, due to its' position off the Barents Sea. A regiment of Backfires at Longyearbyen in particular could seriously complicate the life of NATO carrier...

Going by that argument, the Soviet Union had nuclear weapons stationed on the North American continent. There's more to life than plate tectonics. ;)

The B-19 or B-20 (an improved XB-15) might conceivably see service if the United States gets dragged into a war where a long-range bomber is needed in 1939-1940 rather than 1944-1945. I've seen a TL where the 1937 Panay Incident led to a war between the US and Japan that saw this happen.

Well that's all very interesting. That the NER was seriously considering the Newcastle-York scheme isn't really news, although the details are interesting. The full scheme, seemingly being discussed as though it were a done deal (the key line being As we have now decided the policy of electric...

Not totally true - German main lines were constructed for a 20-ton axle load, whereas British main lines could handle 22 to 23 tons. Britain tended to have significantly lighter track on secondary routes, though, while Germany allowed for 20 tons across more of the network.

Basically what happened was that Boeing designed a really good, cheap, stealthy conventional strike fighter as the conceptual successor to the A-7, which is what the JSF CTOL and CV versions are. They then tried to figure out how to shoehorn in STOVL capability, which is where it really fell...

That's not strictly true; the designated home port for the 705s was equipped with shore steam generating plant that the boats could be plugged into when alongside to keep the coolant liquid. The problem was that, with the USSR being the USSR, it wasn't very reliable, so the reactor plant...

If that were the case, then the USSR would have built aircraft carriers in some other shipyard. Doctrinally, there's a direct line from the MOSKVA class through to KUZNETSOV. MOSKVA is unquestionably a cruiser with a large group of helicopters. KIEV is also a guided missile cruiser with a large...

To win as Iran: maintain the military strength the Shah built up. Khomeini would be celebrating Christmas 1980 in Baghdad, if only he weren't Muslim. To win as Iraq, more difficult. The best way is probably to weaken Iran, perhaps with more enthusiastic purges immediately following the...

It was beyond mere consideration, it was a very definite plan. British Aerospace had been working in the late 1980s on a Mid-Life Update for the MR.2, which would have seen much the same avionics as the Australian P-3C upgrade (they were originally developed for the RAF) and possibly even podded...

Probably not the WS, they were seen as ludicrously expensive in the early 1980s, more likely a less ambitious B2TC before the ASTUTEs. Canadian TRAFALGARs or RUBISes requires a big change but might just happen if all the stars align. Wasn't it ASLP that was being developed to replace both...

IIRC the AAC was pretty dismissive of the Tiger and Mangusta, and always wanted Apache as the Lynx attack helicopter replacement. There was certainly no appetite for Merlin as a support helicopter in the RAF - they viewed it as being almost as big as a Chinook for far less capability, and the...

In-universe, NCC-1701 is named after 'humanity's first spaceship', or some such thing; from a certain point of view, and given the press coverage of the time, this means that OV-100 was named for itself.

It was scientific and research ships, regardless of nationality. In fact, three were named for British ships (Challenger, Endeavour, and Discovery), and one for a work of fiction (Enterprise).