Hi Andy.

I'm just wondering if there will ever be a forces special of scrapheap challenge? You know get the army, navy, air force and marines to submit a team, and see which does best. (Traditional interforces rivalries should give some great sparks) It might make an interaesting "special" halfway between series.

Matt D

-- Matthew Davey (matthewdavey@hotmail.com), October 10, 2000

Answers

i agree i want to join the forces when i grow up and i think it would be entertaining

-- ben reynolds (phyco_reynolds@hotmail.com), November 05, 2000.

I think that's a great idea. I'm in the RAF, Avionics Mech, and am up for forming a RAF team, for a interforces challange. I'm based at RAF Waddington.

-- Jack Smith (pro_cord@hotmail.com), November 06, 2000.

In gliding we have the inter-services comp - RAF, ARMY and NAVY get together and fly gliders around the sky. It sounds like a good idea even though I'm not in the forces. But:

1. The RAF would cheet and get a chinook in to pull the kit about. 2. The ARMY would delegate, and delegate untill they got down to the lowest life person in the army, and the job wouldn't get done in time 3. The Navy would send apologies, but they were blockaded.

:) Only jokin'

Miles

-- Miles Bailey (sky_high30@hotmail.com), November 12, 2000.

the navy will just sit around and do nothing. well thats what we used to do when i was in it!!!!

-- Gareth Thomas (taff27@connectfree.co.uk), November 17, 2000.

I'm in the US and had a good laugh when the Royal navy couldn't build a boat and the Army couldn't build a cannon.

-- Scott Olorenshaw (scottgo18@yahoo.com), December 05, 2000.

The Navy Team's problem (Amphibious vehicle challenge)

I think the main problem was with the expert. The guy came from a hovercraft background which is, technically, amphibious. The problem is that he tried to apply his knowledge to a rolling vehicle which obviously didn't work. I think it's safe to say that it's much easy to make a rolling motorized vehicle boyant than making a boyant vehicle (a boat) able to drive around the ground. :) So the problem is that these guys tried the "hard" way and lost.

The Army Guys (Brothers at arms) and the cannon.

In their case, they forgot the most basic rule of SC/JYW: KISS. Keep it simple stupid. Instead of going for a simple muzzle-loader they went for a breach loader, which is more complicated. The second problem is that their projectile was too complicated. Even then though, if only they went with a simple projectile, it would've worked.

Of course, this is an opinion with 20/20 hindsight after-the-fact. But after reading the NERDS FAQ, I tend to agree that the simplest ideas win most often than not. Look at the demolition challenge where you had the muncher versus mobile battering ram. Even if the muncher was a more efficient machine, it had too many points-of- failure which made them lose. You couldn't really go simpler than a battering ram and it worked.

- Yves

-- Yves Lacombe (yveslac@videotron.ca), January 15, 2001.