The Monumental C**k Up Thread.

[Yellow Fang]

Sir Hugh Trenchard was a bone head of the highest order.
He ordered RFC pilots to take the fight out east during Bloody April, while the Germans were enjoying a technological superiority. He refused RFC aircrew from using parachutes because he worried they would bale out rather than fight.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Not to mention the millennium dome...

I don't think the dome was a cock up. I think it was actually meant to be like that.

A bit crap. But not a cockup.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Angela Merkal's decision to close down Germany's nuclear power stations.

We are generally still okay with that one, and Germany has quietly been building up renewables.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Nagasaki.

Whoever convinced the Japanese government that the US had only one nuclear weapon was a bit daft. A big cock up for sure.

There is evidence that even after Nagasaki, the Japanese were more concerned with a build up of Soviet troops in Eastern Russia; the nature destruction was shocking but not a lot worse than other cities were experiencing. The Soviets which could have easily invaded and annexed Hokkaido, then marched towards Tokyo.

The theory goes that when faced with surrendering to soviets or Americans, they took the lesser of two evils. Afterwards, the bomb was a useful fiction for both governments.

Of course, deciding to bomb Pearl Harbour was, in hindsight, an almighty c_ckup...

 

[HMS_Dave]

I don't think the dome was a cock up. I think it was actually meant to be like that.

A bit crap. But not a cockup.

It looks OK. i suppose. But it only attracted half the visitors it projected and needed a quarter of a billion in further lottery money to stop it going bankrupt at the time and was sold by 2001...

 

[Andy in Germany]

The Götterdämmerung order given by Hitler in the last hours of the Third Reich to destroy German infrastructure, apparently on the basis that if he couldn't have it, everyone else would have to suffer. Germany is still fixing the damage.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Track and trace - £37bn c*ck up.
The SA-80 assault rifle.
The new Wembley stadium was over budget and late.
The cancellation of the TSR2.
The de Havilland Comet

The airliner de Havilland Comet wasn't a cock up, it was built to the known specifications of the time. It is a tragedy that some crashed but that wasnt a cock up just being unlucky with new technology that the testing of the time wasn't going to show as a risk.

 

[Drago]

Let's be fair, if you were in one of the Comets that experienced a rapid and unscheduled disassembly event you'd regard it as a cock up.

 

[PeteXXX]

Paying £9 billion to a country to take something of our hands that we 'own'...

 

[Drago]

There is evidence that even after Nagasaki, the Japanese were more concerned with a build up of Soviet troops in Eastern Russia; the nature destruction was shocking but not a lot worse than other cities were experiencing. The Soviets which could have easily invaded and annexed Hokkaido, then marched towards Tokyo.

The theory goes that when faced with surrendering to soviets or Americans, they took the lesser of two evils. Afterwards, the bomb was a useful fiction for both governments.

Of course, deciding to bomb Pearl Harbour was, in hindsight, an almighty c_ckup...

I recall reading of a chap who decided to go somewhere remote and sit out WWII.

He pulled out an atlas and decided a small pacific atoll called "Midway" should be a nice peaceful spot to hide from the war.

Now that's what I call a cock up.

 

[Drago]

Paying £9 billion to a country to take something of our hands that we 'own'...

Don't you also like to give away a random £9 billion while simultaneously complaining you're £20 billion overdrawn? It's all the rage.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Let's be fair, if you were in one of the Comets that experienced a rapid and unscheduled disassembly event you'd regard it as a cock up.

It's a really interesting story, the lessons learned from the Comet fed directly into the success of the Boeing and others aircraft.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The Scots turning back in 1745. They reached Derby, had a conflab and decided to go back. Bonnie Prince Charlie wanted to go on. King George's main army was fighting in Europe somewhere. If the Scots had proceeded to London they may have succeeded. There was some support for him among the English, although it was ot very forthcoming.

 

[Jenkins]

The repeated appointment of outsourcing companies who failed to do the job last time round - see Serco, Group 4, Crapita, etc

 

[Dogtrousers]

Let's be fair, if you were in one of the Comets that experienced a rapid and unscheduled disassembly event you'd regard it as a cock up.

I would have sipped my tea as the plane disintegrated, turned to one of my fellow passengers and said: "It makes one proud, does it not, to be on the cutting edge of aeronautical engineering. A few minor setbacks are inevitable"