CONGRATULATIONS to the Brazilian navy for launching its newly refurbished Tupi Class (Type 209/1400) submarine. It’s not clear if we should send gifts or maybe hum the Brazilian national anthem on our lunch break, but it’s definitely a special moment. I don’t have to tell you that the 209/1400 has needed modernization for several years and, well, it’s about time.
Actually, I think about the Brazilian navy ... uhm ... never. Didn’t even know Brazil had a navy. (Must be near an ocean, right?) In fact, my knowledge of Brazil is limited to that tall Jesus statue overlooking a city, and the fact people can be naked on the beaches, while speaking Portuguese.
But the submarines I know about because I read Jane’s Defence Weekly, a British publication that spells defense with “c” and regularly arrives in my email even though I didn’t ask for it.
According to Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jane’s Defence Weekly is the world’s most trusted source of military-related news. And she wouldn’t be wrong about a thing like that. (Oops. Actually, the founder was a man named Fred. T. Jane, who published the first issue in 1898, a time when being a guy named Jane probably required some quick thinking when local thugs approached on the street. “Morning lads. Did you hear they’re putting double hulls on the new ironclads? Didn’t think so. Ow! Mind me new knickers! Second pair this week! Oof!”)
Jane’s is not only a comprehensive review of the military industrial complex, it’s also the largest collection of acronyms in the history of long words you don’t want to have to keep saying. “U.S. NAVAIR has just completed flight-testing its AAR as part of the UCAS-D programme [that’s another word Jane’s mispelles] to de-risk AAR.” It doesn’t report how the test went, but de-risking is always a goode idea.
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