Thread by @GrayConnolly

Thirty years later, "Hunt For Red October" still goes well .... No one reviewing a classic movies channel will pass up HFRO - it is the "Roadhouse" for the thinking man. Also, probably Alec Baldwin's last serious role.

The HFRO starts well with Alec Baldwin being dropped to Heathrow in a Range Rover - at one stage, they were basically issued to naval officers as the Range Rover sat high enough that most officers could wear their cap while driving past the guard

Quite why a naval analyst would end up at the CIA and not, say, ONI, has never been explained to me, except recall reading that ONI was located in a part of US "Fedland" where local gangs exchanged gunfire outside after dark. I am sure someone will correct me here.

By the late cold war, a lot of the Soviet Navy and Air Force was drunk a lot of the time. It was only due to Soviet shortages of everything that kept ships alongside & grounded planes that stopped the Soviets from having more collisions than the Vilnius Schoolmaster could handle

As every man knows, the greatest tragedy of the HFRO series was it was never merged with "Firefox" to create a prequel cross-over thriller involving the Tupolev Blackjack bomber where Clint Eastwood & Sean Connery fought a duel to the (almost) death

So the (annoying) political commissar goes into see the Captain, ends up slipping on his tea & dying painfully....go woke, go broke(n neck). Also a useful lesson to all the junior officers viewing to only bother the Captain when the Captain is prepared to be bothered.

Red October may be a Typhoon SSBN but on any view it has a simp-cuck Wardroom. If the Captain has just taken out the Commissar then his officers owe him loyalty from here on in. Even the men who informed on Vlasov etal were also hanged by the NKVD.

Hard to believe Red October is trying to break through the GIUK gap and there are not more British ships, planes & subs patrolling. Needs to have an old Leander class smashing through the waves with a Nimrod flying overhead & a Wessex doing its wocka wocka along its patrol box

I share the general disgust of the American Admiral at Alec Baldwin. Everyone remotely sensible does really

‘When your command brief keeps it all a bit too real’

Disappointed there is not more Soviet “Bear” bomber action. On any view one of the most incredible aircraft ever built and patrol wise, one of the most annoying

Tupolev complaining that his orders were 7 hours old is really an indictment on his comcen and signals yeomen. Tupolev thoroughly deserves his fate if only for the abysmal command state & routines of his boat. Ramius was doing the Soviet Navy a favour

The doctor being the only real believing communist is the least surprising aspect of HFRO. Doctors are basically wharfies with stethoscopes. No one, really, should miss their slow replacement by robots who will be on time & listen to their patients.

Sam Neill letting his Wardroom fight in front of the Captain is also pretty poor form, albeit unsurprising, given Sam Neill always comes across as something of a ponce in movies. Ramius should have relieved him then and there. Red October's officers a 'motley crew/crue'

On any view, the USS Dallas' Captain sitting at his chart table in 1990, in a movie set in 1985, but only having a copy to hand of Jane's Fighting Ships from 1977-78, is the most realistic aspect of the movie. That and an urgent defect requiring him to return to base.

Also, HFRO reminds me that all of Twitter should run on Zulu time.

Will pick this up later .... ivo the Neptune Massive

Sorry to be that HFRO guy ..... but why does a Tomcat approach the carrier for landing but then crash on deck as what looks like a Hornet??? No one noticed this at the time? Nyet?