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Ola posted:I haven't seen the film, only the trailers. I'm fine with CGI, but what annoys me is the CGI artists' view of aerial combat. It looks more like Braveheart fighting like a lone ninja amidst the English soldiers than a big piece of metal with limits to power, G and alpha. I saw it last night and I think I know what you're talking about. For the most part they did a good job with the ACM and they give a great sensation of giant furballs in the middle of bomber formations. The one scene shown in the trailer where the P-51 does some weird snap-roll-rudder-turn that would rip the wings off of an F-22, let alone a Mustang isn't how the majority of the air combat is. They actually have reasonable P-51 on ME-262 combat, too. Not saying it's a great representation of WW2 air combat, but it's better than the trailer shows.
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Jan 21, 2012 17:27
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Good to know. Will definitely see it when it hits Norwegian cinemas. Somewhere around November I guess.
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Jan 21, 2012 18:15
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grover posted:While the effects and battle scenes in Red Tails is awesome, it's disappointing to realize it's all cgi, and we'll never again fill the sky with every flyable WWII aircraft like when Memphis Belle was remade in 1990. Same with Tora Tora Tora even though most of the Japanese planes were just T-6's
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Jan 21, 2012 18:48
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Pyruvate posted:Same with Tora Tora Tora even though most of the Japanese planes were just T-6's Speaking of Tora Tora Tora, I took this last summer at the local airshow where they had a re-enactment of the Pearl Harbor bombings. This is one of the planes used in the movie.  (1600x1200)
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Jan 21, 2012 20:30
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I'm glad to hear people around here like Redtails; I've not seen it myself, but kinda wanted it to be a good movie. The Tuskegee airmen deserve to have a good movie about themselves. Related question: daylight strategic bombing raids on Germany eventually proved devastatingly effective. So, what about the night bombing raids? Were they just a big waste of time? I can understand that at the start, night bombing raids against the Nazis was more of a morale thing for the UK then anything else. And thus, they served a good purpose...but earlier on, the most important battle of the Atlantic was going terribly, because all the long range aircraft were going into RAF bomber command and not coastal command. I think night raids should have been restricted until the Atlantic had been made secure. Even after that, I think that until the night bombers could attack specific targets like the day bombers could (which didn't happen till '45, as far as I recall) then they generally should have held off and been used for other things. Also, I'm amused to discover that the idea of "We're just going to bomb cities until the will of the people breaks and they sue for peace" is an idea that's been around as long as aircraft. I'm writing a series of truly 'spergin' posts about German airships in WW1, and almost as soon as WW1 started, everybody was agitating to 'destroy England by fire' with Count Zeppelin's sky monsters. Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jan 21, 2012 |
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Jan 21, 2012 21:11
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This is pretty much anecdotally, but: Living in a city that was pretty much destroyed by a night bombing raid and having talked to people who survived this, I'd say they pretty much did what they were supposed to do: Terrorize people and break their will. Even here, none of the strategic targets were hit as far as I know, as they were all outside of city centers and therefore targets for daylight raids (which did hit them eventually), but the night raids caused quite a bit of fear and pretty much proved that the Nazis were not on top of their poo poo when it came to defending Germany. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to recalls the raid that destroyed most of the city pretty vividly and they are all appalled at the notion of war in general after this. And they all cited that specific night as a reason for it. Since I gather that this was the goal, I'd say it worked pretty drat well.
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Jan 22, 2012 04:07
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I think the general sentiment among military historians is that the British night bombing campaigns were initially an awful failure both militarily and as a terror tool before the blitz, but they evolved by the end of the war to be an effective psychological tool. The early raids lacked the sheer numbers, the navigation, and the accuracy to really do much more than pockmark some farmers fields. It wasn't until after the Battle of Britain was won that bomber command could sufficiently field the needed numbers of bombers, and sufficiently navigate, to make it effective.
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Jan 22, 2012 09:35
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Once the US entered the war (better late than never, again!), the round-the-clock bombing was coordinated between the USAAF (daytime bombing) and the RAF (nighttime bombing) to create as much psychological damage (as well as physical damage) as possible.
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Jan 23, 2012 03:34
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Cygni posted:I think the general sentiment among military historians is that the British night bombing campaigns were initially an awful failure both militarily and as a terror tool before the blitz, but they evolved by the end of the war to be an effective psychological tool. What does that mean, specifically? Okay, they were scary, but did that have any measurable effect on the outcome of the war? The Germans fought until Berlin fell, even to the point of throwing old men and kids up against the Allied armies, and pilots were flying kamikaze missions against bridges. The point of the "dehousing" campaigns was specifically to "break the spirit of the people," and while the massive slaughter can be said to have impacted the war effort by the simple expedient of killing huge chunks of the labor force in cities like Hamburg, in what sense what it "an effective psychological tool?" reddeathdrinker posted:Once the US entered the war (better late than never, again!), the round-the-clock bombing was coordinated between the USAAF (daytime bombing) and the RAF (nighttime bombing) to create as much psychological damage (as well as physical damage) as possible. Again, same question. "As much psychological damage as possible." What does that mean? How could you tell? How can you determine whether it was successful or not?
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Jan 23, 2012 03:51
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Memphis Belle was good, but nothing's going to beat The Battle of Britain for actual old warbirds (in this case from the Spanish Airforce) on film.
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Jan 23, 2012 04:07
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Phanatic posted:Again, same question. "As much psychological damage as possible." What does that mean? How could you tell? How can you determine whether it was successful or not? This question is something historians still fight about in conferences so you're just going to have to believe what you want to believe. There aren't exactly a lot of Third Reich confidence polls going around you can use to prove the argument, its basically a lot of interviews, handwaiving, and production number logs. Some people WANT to believe that terror bombings work, some WANT to believe that they don't work.
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Jan 23, 2012 05:16
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Phanatic posted:Again, same question. "As much psychological damage as possible." What does that mean? How could you tell? How can you determine whether it was successful or not? Psychological damage doesn't always refer to the civilian population. Once the strategic bombing campaign began, the Germans were forced to evaluate where to spend their resources. They ended up putting a million men on AAA duty and keeping a substantial portion of the Luftwaffe within Germany proper to deal with the raids, regardless of how effective the raids were. This led to less resources at the Eastern front and less in CAS and offensive roles in the West. Just the fact that raids were happening round the clock made German high command consider things they otherwise wouldn't have. Actual success of the missions had little to do with it.
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Jan 23, 2012 05:28
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law abiding rapist posted:Has anyone ever tried to reheat food by taping it to the radome? So this is from a While back now, but it draws me back to my days in NJROTC and now I'm wondering if my Commander was full of poo poo. He was an EA-6b pilot and used to tell stories about firing up the jammers on the flight deck and frying up hamburgers placed in front of the plane. Could there be any truth to this?
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Jan 23, 2012 05:58
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Maybe if you use this:
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Jan 23, 2012 06:07
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You could probably zorch something real good with a JSTARS. (2100x1500)
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Jan 23, 2012 06:29
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Plinkey posted:Maybe if you use this: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the ABL project is a near-total failure from a technical standpoint (to say nothing of the cost). Any of you milgoons willing/able to weigh in on this?
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Jan 23, 2012 06:41
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MrChips posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the ABL project is a near-total failure from a technical standpoint (to say nothing of the cost). Any of you milgoons willing/able to weigh in on this? It did work as a demo (I think in some very well controlled test). I think they had a lot of problems with getting enough power out of the laser if I remember correctly. From wiki quote:Secretary of Defense Gates said that "I don't know anybody at the Department of Defense, Mr. Tiahrt, who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed. The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire." Basically a chemical laser won't do it anytime soon. The program itself was shut down like a month or two ago and the plane is apparently on the way (or already left) to Davis Monthan. I got to spend a weekend in the same hanger that it was in, it's such a god drat huge plane. Didn't get to take a look at anything close up though because we had too much work to do.
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Jan 23, 2012 07:01
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Plinkey posted:
Wasn't it just a 747? They're huge all right, but not uniquely so, since they've been in near-constant production for forty years.
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Jan 23, 2012 07:08
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BonzoESC posted:Wasn't it just a 747? They're huge all right, but not uniquely so, since they've been in near-constant production for forty years. Haha, yeah I know. I'm just not used to being around commercial aircraft that are that large. They also had to park it in the hanger on a weird angle. I think so that they could close the doors.
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Jan 23, 2012 07:26
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Cygni posted:
Do you count yourself as in the latter group then, since you described it as "evolving into an effective psychological tool"? Bombing destroyed a lot of infrastructure but not as much as its proponents promised before the war. Survivors say "we couldn't have taken another Dresden, we couldn't have taken another Coventry" but chances are as nations they could. Terror bombing was recognized in its day as inherently cruel and failing to deliver on the promises meant to justify its cruelty, that the enemy's spirit would be broken. That's why Bomber Harris didn't get the same honors as other commanders. All military commanders dream of delivering the crushing blow. But to work, it really needs to be very massive indeed. Think how dumb the WW1 generals look today, when they tried to deliver a crushing blow for the 20th time in the same way. Even the firebombing of Tokyo can't be said to have had much in the way of measurable results. But Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that worked. Ola fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 10:29
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co199 posted:You could probably zorch something real good with a JSTARS.
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Jan 23, 2012 10:36
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Munnin The Crab posted:So this is from a While back now, but it draws me back to my days in NJROTC and now I'm wondering if my Commander was full of poo poo. He was an EA-6b pilot and used to tell stories about firing up the jammers on the flight deck and frying up hamburgers placed in front of the plane. Could there be any truth to this? I heard a story that I want to believe is true about this. The Soviets were concerned about jamming and ECM from US bombers during an attack so they equipped the MiG25 with the biggest tube-powered radar they could (lol tubes... turns out vacuum tubes can take far more power than semiconductors can - they weren't there by accident) to burn through the countermeasures. They also made sure they could point the radar down to reduce the effectiveness of the countermeasures and give the best chance of acquiring targets by flying at 60kft, above the attacking bomber fleets. When the pilots were on training missions / goofing off, they'd arrange to fly over their parents' farms at a few hundred feet with the super radar turned up to 11 and pointed directly at the ground to toast any rabbits that were eating crops, even if they were in underground burrows. I really do hope that's true.
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Jan 23, 2012 11:15
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VikingSkull posted:They ended up putting a million men on AAA duty and keeping a substantial portion of the Luftwaffe within Germany proper to deal with the raids, regardless of how effective the raids were. This led to less resources at the Eastern front and less in CAS and offensive roles in the West.
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Jan 23, 2012 14:10
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Captain Postal posted:
Supposedly the big OTH early-warning radars could cook bird flocks in flight. I could buy that, if they flew close enough to the emitter. Remember, microwave cookery was discovered by a guy who was building magnetrons for radar transmitters and accidentally melted a chocolate bar in his pocket.
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Jan 23, 2012 15:38
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Captain Postal posted:When the pilots were on training missions / goofing off, they'd arrange to fly over their parents' farms at a few hundred feet with the super radar turned up to 11 and pointed directly at the ground to toast any rabbits that were eating crops, even if they were in underground burrows. I really do hope that's true. Man, that woulda made Watership Down even more hosed up for kids watching.
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Jan 23, 2012 19:04
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Phanatic posted:Again, same question. "As much psychological damage as possible." What does that mean? How could you tell? How can you determine whether it was successful or not? This is what I was thinking. After asking that question I did some reading on Wikipeida, and it turns out that the British night bombers could find specific strategic targets far earlier than I thought, it's just that they did all that 'night area bombing' stuff, too. So I'd like to change my answer, a bit. When the night bombers could bomb specific strategic targets effectively, was worthwhile. When they were just dropping bombs on cities to terrorize the populace, not so much. The guy who was running things on the Commonwealth side, Sir Arthur Harris, really really really believed in the effectiveness of the second part. So much so that he believed that his sort of aerial terrorism could literally win the war; that people would rise up and demand peace, or something like that. So in his mind, if you could burn down Berlin, the war would be over, literally. Dude was wrong; strategic bombers would have an enormous impact, but by disrupting industry and transport. Indiscriminate bombing of civilians would produce a lot of fear, but that fear doesn't really translate militarily. Unlike, say, 'you have no fuel for your air force due to 1000 allied bombers blowing up your production facilities.' Ola posted:But Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that worked. Yeah, big asterisk here: 'theory does not include atomic weapons.' Nebakenezzer fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 19:08
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Plus there's the sort of important distinction that fear does not necessarily mean psychological capitulation to the enemy.
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Jan 23, 2012 19:28
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co199 posted:In honor of Red Tails (which is pretty good), have some warbirds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouJ_WyS9v8
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Jan 23, 2012 19:36
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouJ_WyS9v8 That's a good one. I also remember my reaction to this scene in Saving Private Ryan, which was a mix of "gently caress yeah!" and crying like a little girl. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfigpjOTZvs
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Jan 23, 2012 19:42
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouJ_WyS9v8 This was the first time, and maybe last time, I saw my dad cry. He was basically that kid - though it was with P-38s I believe.
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Jan 23, 2012 22:27
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Nebakenezzer posted:Yeah, big asterisk here: 'theory does not include atomic weapons.' Almost still does. There was an attempted coup against the emperor to keep the war going even after the atomic strikes. Ironically it was foiled partially thanks to Tokyo cutting power as a protective measure against a conventionally-armed night time bombing raid.
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Jan 23, 2012 22:49
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MrChips posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that the ABL project is a near-total failure from a technical standpoint (to say nothing of the cost). Any of you milgoons willing/able to weigh in on this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCufvG9TE8w But DoD decided the chemical laser was a dead-end, and diverted the funds to developing solid state lasers like JHPSSL and SSLTE, with the aim to put a 100kW class combat laser into the F-35 and AC-130. I honestly can't argue with that; by the time ABL is operational, solid state lasers will be, too. One of the biggest issues with chemical lasers is that they suffer from plasma blooming- superheating material from the target expands from the hole, causing a lensing affect that fucks with the laser, and atmospheric lensing, where the beam's intense heat distorts the atmosphere. Solid state lasers are pulsed (the prototype pulsed 400 times a second) so that each pulse is extremely powerful, reduces atmospheric lensing, and eliminates plasma blooming since the gas has time to exit the cavity. One of the 100kW prototype solid-state lasers shot through 2" of steel in less than 3 seconds! 100kW has been long considered the low-range for laser weapons. It will be extremely effective against missiles and aircraft, due to their lack of armor and thin skins. And it exists today. Power and miniaturization aren't problems; the biggest hurdle right now is cooling it.
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Jan 24, 2012 00:59
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Also maintenance. As you said, by the time they had a couple of them operational, there would be significantly smaller, cheaper technology available that could fit into something more economical than a 747.
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Jan 24, 2012 04:44
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"Sorry babe, my ride is here..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPUPOTczy7I&feature=related Preoptopus fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 24, 2012 |
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Jan 24, 2012 05:34
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grover posted:the biggest hurdle right now is cooling it. You'd think being mounted on an airframe moving at hundreds of miles per hour at 20,000 feet or more would make cooling a non-issue, but then again we're talking about a laser and not a piston engine.
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Jan 24, 2012 06:14
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Plinkey posted:Maybe if you use this:
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Jan 24, 2012 07:21
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Preoptopus posted:"Sorry babe, my ride is here..." The first guy to get grabbed by this was an AF lieutenant. He got an Air Medal for it.
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Jan 24, 2012 07:56
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So, here's a thing that was brought to my attention: Kacie Marie at the Yanks Air Museum Perhaps borderline  if you work someplace really, really square.Then that led to this: Secrets in Lace Pinups A little more Dames and warbirds, gentlemen. Enjoy!
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Jan 24, 2012 23:22
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CroatianAlzheimers posted:Dames and warbirds, gentlemen. Enjoy! You are a gentleman and a scholar. In return, have a Skyraider!  (2000x1248)
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Jan 26, 2012 03:28
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Thought I'd post this here as it is kind of aero-AI. Saba  Saba is a beautiful small island about 28 miles south of the far more famous St. Maarten in the lesser anitlles/west indies. Thankfully, for those that know it, it is relatively unknown by the mass populous as it doesn't have the famous beaches of many of its west indies cousins. It does have absolutely gorgeous scenery, marine life to die for (incredible snorkeling and scuba), incredibly steep and tight roads, and potentially the shortest runway commercially in service in the world. 1300' long with shear drops to the Caribbean sea on either side (bottom right of photo).  The Mrs and I spent the last 2 weeks there visiting family and thought I'd take a video of our DHC-6 (De Havilland Canada Twin Otter) taking off from its semi-famous but extremely short 1300' runway. About 13.5 minutes later, we land in St. Maarten (SXM) right over the famous Maho beach. Time for landing would have been approximately 10:48AM local time. http://youtu.be/D4IZArYZo5Y (First and last couple minutes are probably the most interesting if anyone doesn't want to bother watching the entire flight) I also noticed that the wiki link for the DHC6 features as its main photo the very aircraft (PJ-WIS) that this video was taken from. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Canada_DHC-6_Twin_Otter
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