| There are always those who base their views of the US or its equipment on a very small segment of society or on their own observations of a handful of personnel who break the rules. This fellow sounds like one of them. Recall that the opinion of a number of British officers was that the US Sherman tank was a disaster and the worst piece of junk in the world, and was aptly named "Tommy Cooker" by the Germans. But then Field Marshall Montgomery, never a big fan of Americans, gave it the ultimate accollade as the "Universal Tank" which made British armoured formations viable during the war, as it was not until the spring of 1945 that they produced a good tank in the Centurion Mk. I. If we had to rely on the opinion of the former, we deliberately tried to kill off the British with inferior junk, but I think that for once (!) Montgomery had a better view of things. The same applies here. I think there is too much a search for hyperbole to "bring theYanks down a peg" on the part of some people to check out the entire situation. Cookie Sewell AMPS |