But of course you would say that

C'mon, Alan- Didn't we "bury the hatchet" over 200 years ago?

What's wrong with a little bit of pride in ones' Nation's military equipment..? I didn't "put a slur" on your "Chally", did I..?

Hi Dennis

From your comments in the last two emails you seemed to have come to the opinion I've got something against America or Americans. How you made the leap to that idea I do not know.

I have family in LA and my best friend resides in Florida so my experience of the USA isn't just through the media.

Yes I have pride in my country and its military equipment hence my little mischievous dig that started this "discussion" when you pronounced the Abrams the best tank in the world.

To be honest it's a pretty tough call between those two and the Leopard in my opinion. From a looks only point of view at least I think the Challenger looks the more mean, sleek and aggressive of the trio, followed by the Leopard in its current configuration. The Challenger to me looks the Jaguar of the tank world, whilst the Abrams is more the Cadillac.

To drag this back to an earlier post, why DON'T they call it the M1A3? At what point does a design change result in a new number? The old Twilight:2000 roleplaying game had an M1A3 that was the M1 chassis we all know and love but a weird looking autoloader unmanned turret on top. Why do they keep adding letters to this tank but not the number?