Scorpion Tanks Deployed At Shannon
national |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report 
Thursday June 24, 2004 13:37
by AmBush
info at amubush2004 dot org
087 6277606
Provocative and dangerous, says former army officer
Seven Scorpion tanks have arrived at Shannon Airport in advance of tomorrow’s visit by US president George Bush.
The tanks are part of the Irish army’s First Tank Squadron, according to anti-war activist Edward horgan, who is himself a former commander of that very squadron.
Mr horgan, who followed the tanks from Limerick to Shannon between 10 and 11 am this morning (Thursday), described it as “provocative and dangerous” and called for their withdrawal.
“It is absolutely inappropriate that tanks would be used for riot control,” Mr horgan said.
“The only other case I’m aware of where tanks were used for riot control was by the Indonesian military in Aceh, when the tanks were used to kill hundreds of protestors.”
AmBush spokesperson Dermot Sreenan pointed out that “the European Convention on Human Rights Act, which Bertie Ahern signed Ireland up to on January 1st this year, guarantees the right to peaceful protest. The Act actually obligates the police to facilitate peaceful protest.”
"What kind of facilitation of peaceful protest is it to deploy tanks against a group of protestors living in tents? Tanks against tents is more a case of intimidation than facilitation.”
Comments (14 of 14)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14As long as the gullible public pays its taxes so that the lads in the Dail can buy boytoys like these, it'll be Scorpions for the lot of ye. Boycott all taxes now. No taxation without representation! Don't give 'em the wherewithal to kick your asses (unless you like it of course - dat's something else altogether!).
The Common Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) family of vehicles was developed by Alvis for the British Army to replace the Saladin Armoured Car. The first phototypes were completed in 1969, with first production vehicles following in 1972. By 1995 over 3500 had been built for the home and export markets.
The hull and turret is of an all welded aluminium, with the driver front left and the two man turret at the rear. The turret has a commander on the left and gunner on the right. The turret traverses manually through 360 degrees and -10 degrees through -35 degrees in elevation. The main armament fires HESH, HE and smoke rounds with a 7.62mm Machine Gun mounted co-axially to the left. The basic scorpion is armed with a 76mm gun, although this version has been phased out of the British Army. Late production vehicles have a diesel engine, with the option of a 90mm gun and various fire control systems. When the flotation screen is erected the Scorpion is fully amphibiious, propelled in the water by its tracks at a speed of 6.5km/h. Standard equipment includes NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) system, fire detection and supression system and night vision equipment.
Despite it's silhouette being close to that of a tank, the Scorpon remains a reconnaissance machine that his nothing to do with a battle tank, but which holds more than the tracked 4 x 4, covered by a light armor and solidly armed. Designed to operate at temperatures oscillating between -30º and +50º, the Scorpion can be airlifted at the rate of two at a time in a Hercules C-130.
Scorpion: light tank, by Alvis (UK) and Malines (Belgium)
loa: 4.9m, width: 2.4m
Jaguar, 4.2L, petrol, 6-cyls, 2-valves/cyl, ohc
transmission: 7-speed (fwd and rev)
in service (UK): 1972 - 1997+/-
main armament: 76mm gun
It's unusual in it has an aluminium hull.
you can pick one up in army surplus for about 200,000$.
You know what that means?
yep. pass the hat, we'll buy some of our own scorpions by tomorrow and Ed can put on his beret again.
all you need to do is get them up a gradient of 70º and they back flip.
or send them over well disguised traps, they weigh 8073kg and with a ground pressure of 0.36kg/cm2 it can be quite easy to get them bogged down on a bendy road.
To be honest, I don't see any point in using them to protect Bush. or even to send a message. What message bertie?
you've a space re-entry vehicle with six months supply of cheeseburgers, & we've a bunch of toytanks.
cead mile failte.
we have Bush surrounded.
As you will be noticing by now, the only escape plan for Bush is either to make use of Mole1 the sub-magna emergency tunneling module or go with the cheeseburger supply and leave by air.
There is only one road out of Shannon which will bear the weight of Presidential Limousine "cabbie1".
And all other roads are now blocked by our own defence force scorpion tanks.
over-
roger roger-
it's all coming together nicely.
Ghrainne Mhaoil is moored off the coast in a secluded bay, ready to sweep ashore with the best of her desparate (and reasonably violent) pirate brethren. She's been laying mines all last week, and theres five zeppelins camoflagued as oil tankers out in carnmore ready to foil any presidential escape by air. Now that the Army has joined us with tanks and the cops are ready with their water cannons, all we need is Vlad and Osama to show up to complete the pincer movement.
Then Again, those men just are just not reliable
they're not tanks, they're reconnaisance vehicles, normally used for blocking roads
Sorry to distract from reading Victor, Warlord, Hotspur, & Battle Action Weekly but this has been thoroughly discussed in the preceeding posts.
After the US military shut down the opposition newspaper in Iraq there were huge demonstrations in which Iraqi collaborators shot and killed a number of people AND US tanks ran over and killed at least two people. I would not say that the Republic of Ireland would not use them on protesters, because every time I say anything like that it is bound to happen.
the US use tanks all the time and light weight reconaisance personal carriers.
So do many other nations.
These however are "OUR TANKS".
and they are there to protect our nation from Caesar should he get any notions, and decide to stay in Eire and set up his imperial senate.
I hope he likes Salmon Bertie.
They're big, expensive pieces of junk sitting out at the airport looking ridiculous. But I guess the army bought them on a whim and now feels that they need to do something with them. Well have fun, lads. My, you look fearsome...
That will burn nicely,as the Brits found out in the Falklands war with alminium ships,like HMS Sheffield.
Expensive?5K Stg gets you one without the fire controls in the UK surplus market.
Which BTW ours will be soon.They are over 30yrs old!
Horgan's an idiot. He was an tank officer so he knows the tank crews are not trained for 'crowd control' nor will they ever be used for such.
The tanks are there because they're good accross rough ground. So they'll spend their time driving around in circles, far away from any protests.
It's not going to turn into Tianamen Square, relax the heads.
I almost wish the army did do a Tiannamen Square job on you pinko wankers. That'd teach you a lesson!
I heard it from a good source that the last post came from a US State Department computer.
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