Battleship Envy
I found this article over at Independent Sources and thought it was amusing, given the current state of affairs with the U.S.S. Iowa and the City of San Francisco.
It seems our friends the Russians have some Battleship Envy (as the BBC reports):
Moscow stung by US warship gaffe
It seems they can’t tell the difference between Soviet Battleships and the mighty-mighty U.S. Battleships.
For example, this poster for Defender of the Motherland Day:
That’s a nice battleship.
Isn’t it?
Too bad it is the Iowa Class U.S.S. Missouri. (Currently serving as a museum next to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor) [And a major character in the movie "Under Siege"]
The authorities in Moscow have hastily removed posters congratulating Russian war veterans which mistakenly showed the American warship USS Missouri.
The Russian defense ministry said it did not produce the posters.
A Moscow city hall official said the design “should have been shown to specialists who can distinguish one battleship from another”.
A defense ministry spokesman, Vyacheslav Sedov, said “it was a civilian firm that produced the poster, and the people who made it were simply incompetent”.
“We do have similar ships, beautiful ships. They should have used one of those,” he added.
But this is not the only form of Russian military envy, it seems this has happened before:
A similar mistake was made last year when for 23 February postcards appeared in Crimea showing a World War II German T-3 tank and an American M60A tank.
But I have a serious question (for once), why is the BBC Article talking about “Russian Wars”, these were all Soviet Wars that this holiday is celebrating, yes?
Unlike my 1980′s education suggests, “Russian” is NOT synonymous with “Soviet”
Very good Jeremy; I was surprised that some of the reporters at the Olympics also got it correct most of the time. Once upon a time, some of the teams competing against each other were on the same USSR team, which is the opposite case for the Germans.
Comment by Dad — February 27, 2006 @ 2:32:33 PM