True but ideological reasons seem to be a big driving force for Xi Jinping. More so than his predecessors.

I don’t think China has any claim to Taiwan, they never even owned it that long. If the only reason is that it used to belong to them at some point in the past, then well, the Dutch and Japanese have a valid claim too. But they are independent now and that has been the status quo for 70 years. They deserve to be free.

gearbox did not allow for shifting into reverse while the vehicle was moving

Ummm this is probably like, a good thing? You don’t want to crank 20 tonnes suddenly in reverse when it’s moving full forward.

The other things are pretty bad, true. Especially the uncommanded turrent movements, that can really chop off a limb in the wrong situation. The gun firing is probably not quite as bad because I assume most of the time it wouldn’t actually be loaded.

I understand, it’s just that I’ve never heard that term outside of Australia. I was just wondering.

I agree that the term “truck” for both a HGV and a pickup is super confusing and I made that mistake myself earlier in the thread.

Are you Australian by any chance? I’ve never heard anyone else use the term “ute”. Just wondering :)

And we don’t really drive “trucks” anyway, not as they know them in the US.

SUVs are getting annoyingly common though.