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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:What I really like about that guy is his writing style. He takes something that is often very dry, and makes it enjoyable to read. If my math teachers had done this with geometry and algebra, I might care about mathematics. I see your Beagle, and raise you a Blinder. 
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Feb 7, 2013 16:28
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Gotta start the new page with a plane!
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StandardVC10 posted:Many years ago in the mid-nineties I was a preteen train nut. During that time there was a magazine we got at my house, called Railpace, which once featured a picture of a big, many-wheeled boxcar looking thing that was actually supposed to hold a missile in it (not sure if they were ICBMs or smaller stuff) I can't completely remember the intended purpose of the exercise, it might have been tactical dispersal or it might have been moving the missile from one base to another. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeper_Rail_Garrison_Car
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Feb 8, 2013 00:33
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Godholio posted:Might. You don't retire a leg of the triad on a "might." Unless that leg is Minutemans. The only purpose they serve currently is first strike, which we would never do, and soaking up warheads. As to the other conversations above, it is vital to have firebrand "nuke em till they glow, and then bounce the rubble" types in the deterrent forces. A large part of deterrence is making the enemy believe that you are not only capable, but WILLING to push the button once their missiles fly. Those same people should obviously never be allowed near the actual button, but they damned sure should be in the chain of command, in case the rational people get turned into their constituent molecules by a decapitating strike. It really is loving crazy, but it seems to work.
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Feb 10, 2013 17:48
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Nukes, Japan could do if they had the will. Giant transforming robots? I think if they had the technical ability, the island would already be a smoldering wreckage from the resulting AI war.
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Feb 21, 2013 03:43
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In an effort to re-rail the thread: Thuds give me a stiffy. If they don't have a similar effect on you, go back to the veganism thread. 
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Feb 22, 2013 23:49
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grover posted:To use a car comparison, visibility in a Honda S2000 with the top closed isn't too bad if you're a driver with short legs and the seat is slid up, but it's simply godawful if you're tall and have the seat slid full back- the windows are the same, just the perspective is different. Aircraft are generally engineered to have very specific Design Eye Positions, or ranges of positions. Many aircraft are even equipped with eye position indication, so that the pilot can get himself in the position intended by the manufacturer for optimum sight lines out of the aircraft. It is my understanding that military aircraft have tighter tolerances, because of the reliance on HUDs, however, the F-35s HMD might negate that a bit. However, there is still ZERO chance the design eye position was not looked at, or not taken seriously during cockpit design; Your comparison with an S2000 is laughable at best.
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Mar 8, 2013 03:19
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evil_bunnY posted:I don't understand what's not to like when you have planes that are basically designed from the ground up to climb like hell and shoot bombers. It's a royal pain in the rear end, in terms of maintenance, security, and logistics, plus, with decent search radar, you're going to know about inbound aircraft early enough that you don't need to panic-launch your interceptors from giant roman candles, in the first place.
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Mar 31, 2013 23:54
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Baconroll posted:Yes it was carrying nuclear depth charges - The Ministry of Defence finally admitted this, Almost everyone with a navy worth mentioning was armed with tactical nuclear weapons at that time. It's like being surprised that the Bismarck might have had armor piercing ammunition loaded when she went down.
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Apr 2, 2013 00:33
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Slamburger posted:I built a model Hind as a kid, and I remember when I was putting together the troop transport section something seemed really off in the scale compared to the cockpit and I thought it was just a shoddy model. Spetsnaz fold up small.
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May 17, 2013 18:12
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NightGyr posted:If I'm a billionaire, I know what I'm getting transported in. There is not a helmet or earplug on the planet that is going to prevent you from hearing a ringing for days after that ride...
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May 18, 2013 19:22
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Throatwarbler posted:Is this kind of an American-centric view of the mission of an armed helicopter? I thought the AH-64 was designed for a pretty specific mission - to act as a really fast column of specialized anti-tank platforms (a "tank destroyer", if you will The problem with the Mi-24 is that it's performance envelope puts it squarely into the engagement envelope of MANPADs. The US abandoned the AH-56 for the same reason. A big, heavy, fast helicopter sounds like a wonderful idea, until you begin to engage an enemy with a weapon purpose-built to defeat it. The AH-64, and the Mi-28, ascribe to the "Stand way the gently caress off and lob guided missiles at the problem" approach, rather than the "I am a fling-wing IL-2, and wish I were at Stalingrad," approach.
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May 19, 2013 07:06
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)that can be thrown headlong at a Soviet tank thrust into the Fulda Gap. For most countries who aren't planning for such an eventuality it seems like the Mi-24 model might actually be a bit more useful.
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mlmp08 posted:Actually, the vast majority of countries are strapping weapons to utility choppers. It's WAY more cost effective and multi-mission capable than a dedicated attack helicopter. If you absolutely positively must have helos that can just murder ground units, built an attack helicopter. If you need helicopters that can switch hit between attack, transport, CSAR, RECCE, and so on, don't spend all your money on attack helicopters. Additionally, if you need unarmed helos, you can disarm utility choppers and use them. You can't very well disarm an Apache and use it for poo poo other than crummy, expensive recon when compared to other platforms. There has never been a case of "The USMC is different for being differents sake" bigger than the UH-1Y/AH-1Z program. The entire rest of the fleet uses UH-60 variants, and Boeing already helped the UK rate the AH-64 for sea duty. It's such a hilarious waste of money...
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May 19, 2013 07:11
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Diplomaticus posted:Small nitpick -- when I was in college at FSU (Tallahassee) the forestry service had two de-gunned Cobras. So it sort of depends on the audience. To be fair, FireCobras only exist because the Army surplused them. Also, the powerplant and transmission/gearboxes are nearly identical to a UH-1, so maintenance costs are minimal, comparatively. The Cobra is a poor example.
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May 19, 2013 16:40
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MJP posted:And a keyboard overlay too. I had Red Storm Rising as a kid, it's what got me into all this crap to begin with. "Wow, this computer game was based off a book? Maybe I should re-" Fifth grade. Otherwise completely accurate to describe me, as well. 
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May 22, 2013 17:47
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Mortabis posted:Flight Sim X was fun when you could get over the astonishingly horrible performance, which if I recall correctly was still bad on my high end computer four or five years after it came out. FSX should be a graduate-level course in how not to design software.
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May 23, 2013 03:17
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mlmp08 posted:Look. A useless thing happened. In other news, single-engine powered-lift is still a dumb loving idea.
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May 24, 2013 22:20
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Warbadger posted:Another great video from the Middle East thread. T-72s were originally designed by Roscosmos, in an effort to put tank turrets in space.
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Jun 2, 2013 23:37
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Cyrano4747 posted:When is the last time the US lost an armored vehicle in a non-recoverable location? WAG: Vietnam.
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Jun 3, 2013 22:01
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iyaayas01 posted:
"The explosively formed penetrator incorporates a center core for hard target lethality, while the fragmentation ring effectively defeats soft targets, and their ancillary equipment." You know. The meat. 
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Jun 8, 2013 06:55
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CBU-97/105 can be delivered by just about anything in the USAF inventory, including F-16s, F-15Es, A-10s, etc etc.
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Jun 9, 2013 06:35
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NightGyr posted:We're building a plane we don't know how to fly or arm. drat this rushed production thing is messed up. I don't like the F-35 program much, but this statement is ignorant of how modern combat aircraft are developed. These kinds of trials are completely normal in every way.
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Jun 9, 2013 16:33
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iyaayas01 posted:And it's worth mentioning that the Raptor can carry the exact same amount of SDBs (8, 2 BRU-61s worth) as the F-35 is going to be able to internally. Except it can do so while supercruising at 50K+ feet. So again, thanks Gates. Its almost like we decided to cancel the good airplane, and buy the cheaper, inferior substitute, which then ended up being more expensive! Isn't procurement fun?
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Jun 9, 2013 17:23
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Throatwarbler posted:What does the super Tucano do that the F35 doesn't? Loiter. For CAS and COIN, the ability to be low and slow, and actually look for targets, is a huge advantage. That's why, every time you hear someone say that the F-35 is going to replace the A-10, I encourage you to LAUGH IN THEIR FACES.
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Jun 13, 2013 13:07
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Throatwarbler posted:The F35 has killed pilots? Strike and CAS are not the same thing. Also, if your mission goal is bomb truck for a permissive environment, then why the hell is the thing (kinda) stealthy? If you have to hang all the ordnance required to accomplish the mission outside the LO portion of the fuselage, thereby loving the RCS, then all the effort you spent making it stealthy is wasted, when performing that mission. They've managed to build an aircraft that does everything an F-16 will, for six times the cost.
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Jun 13, 2013 14:09
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Throatwarbler posted:Because the plane is already there so why not? Well, ya, if you have 'em, use 'em, but what mission, exactly, did we need a VTOL/Supersonic/LO/light fighter/light strike/carrier-capable/jet/clusterfuck for in the first place? Why didn't we just buy more F-22s, which are vastly more capable aircraft, and supplement them with more advanced F-16s for permissive-environment bomb-truck duties, and spending the savings on a real replacement naval strike fighter to supplant the Superbugs?
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Jun 13, 2013 16:23
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This is probably relevant to the gaming discussion, here.
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Jun 13, 2013 20:28
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Throatwarbler posted:We had this discussion before, there's also ADATS which is a laser guided missile that can be both anti air and anti armour. I'd really love to see exactly what the ADATS warhead is like. Anti-Aircraft warheads are generally some variation on an annular fragmentation warhead, to maximize the area impacted by high-velocity shrapnel, which is bad for airplanes, whereas an antitank weapon uses a glorified shaped-charge to direct a LOT of energy into one spot, to punch through armor. AT weapons would of course be devastating to aircraft, but I would imagine their PK would be kinda terrible, unless the guidance was spot-on, every time.
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Jun 17, 2013 23:29
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Vindolanda posted:Nazi remnant state Bf109s. I was going to say A6Ms, but ya, otherwise accurate.
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Jun 18, 2013 12:06
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FrozenVent posted:Also can that jet skim a lake to fill itself back up? Lolno. That would be loving amazing, though.
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Jun 29, 2013 22:39
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dumb question about Nuclear subs: do their power plants use uranium enriched past 20%? If so, would Canada having nuclear submarines be a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? Real numbers are of course classified, but most public sources ascribe US submarines using 90%+ pure U235. The S9G in the Virginia class is designed to go thirty+ years between refuelings, and might be in the high ninety percent range.
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Jul 18, 2013 20:44
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Munnin The Crab posted:Going back to sub chat for a minute, a combination of watching Das Boot again and dicking around in Silent Hunter has got me wondering about how quickly modern subs like the Astutes and Virginias move through the water while submerged. Obviously the time for surfaced to submerged is going to be shockingly less than say a TypeVIIc, but once you're actually under the water I've been under the impression that moving up and down the water column has more to do with pumping ballast around than engine power? Is that the case, or can you just angle your diveplanes down and kick the reactor to flank speed and force yourself deeper? I don't think there are any solid numbers on it, but I'd be somewhat surprised if a modern nuclear submarine could come anywhere near the crash-dive times of a WWII diesel/electric. Nuclear submarines spend so much of their time already-submerged that a crash dive simply isn't terribly useful, anymore. Also, a Virginia or Astute is much, MUCH larger than any common WWII submarine. Virginias are ~7900 tons, Astutes are ~7400, and a Type VII was ~870. So, huge mass differences probably means unlike dive times. Also, modern nuclear submarines are generally ballasted to neutral buoyancy, and then "flown" through the water using control surfaces. The Alfas were extremely special machines. Built with a titanium-alloy pressure hull, and utilizing a liquid-lead bismuth cooled reactor, they were absolute maintenance nightmares, but extremely formidable at sea. (When they weren't broken.) The wiki page is pretty informative.
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Jul 22, 2013 12:23
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:each Astute class comes with a Holtzmann drive and Guild navigator. Would an English Guild navigator float in a tank full of tea? THE TEA MUST FLOW
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Jul 23, 2013 20:41
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mlmp08 posted:The USAF shot a HARM at US ada in OIF 1. Not just at ADA... http://bentcorner.com/in-harms-way/
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Jul 31, 2013 19:29
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Dead Reckoning posted:After the latest round of sexual assault scandals, the Air Force had a service-wide inspection and purge (under the umbrella of Morale, Welfare and Health) of any material that could possibly be considered unprofessional or offensive. This included bowdlerizing historic nose art even on pictures of WWII/Vietnam aircraft being displayed in squadrons. You can read the full results here. My personal favorites include "Electro Static Discharge (ESD) Picture (Crude, Offensive) Picture of a drawn penis discharging in Zeus' face" and two dozen Anime figurines confiscated in PACAF. In that list, the confiscated a men's health magazine from a Launch Control Center... ...I no longer regret my decision to stay out of the military.
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Aug 5, 2013 19:55
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Mortabis posted:RNZAF is the only air force in the world with a flightless bird for a logo, and it's quite fitting actually considering that it has no fighters anymore. The RNZAF: the only flying Kiwis.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:39
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I think the recommissioning of the Iowas was mostly for propaganda purposes, and was hideously expensive for the benefit, but I also don't think they should be underestimated. A surface action group based on an Iowa would have been a hell of thorn in the side of any Soviet surface operations, particularly if shielded by a CVBG. The armor on the Iowas probably would have allowed them to soak up quite a bit of damage, as well, while simultaneously distracting Soviet Naval Aviation from the carriers. The tin cans protecting the BB, probably not so much... All in all, not defending the idea, but it wasn't completely without merit.
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Aug 18, 2013 19:20
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iyaayas01 posted:2 weeks?
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Aug 19, 2013 16:56
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For PGMs (such as they were) during the Cold War try a little over 2 days. Seriously, the planned expenditure rates were off the charts, and then realize that in every single conflict (even the relatively low end ones like OEF) we have exceeded our planned munitions expenditure rates (particularly for preferred munitions like PGMs) and had to scramble to get more into theater. I'm not saying everything would be out after a couple of days but to use a naval warfare example just a couple of sustained saturation attacks against a CVBG would've left its escorts dangerously low on Standards.
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LP97S posted:Also, the Air Force was so pervasive in their hatred of the A-10 they actually did almost get the Army to take them instead. I can't find the link now but there was a move in the 80's to revise the Key West Agreement and have the A-10 included as an Army air asset like the AH-64. Then Desert Storm happened and the plan was scrapped because the Air Force Fixed that.
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Aug 21, 2013 00:11
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NerdyMcNerdNerd posted:Well, I don't either. But it's possible we could see such a conflict sometime during the aircraft's service life, and I'm fine with the military replacing it's aging airframes with new tech. Something like a modern day equivalent to the F-16 would have been great. A capable, flexible plane that doesn't break the bank. Name me the last time that anyone designed a multirole aircraft that went on to be a huge success. Go ahead, I'll wait here. ... Back? So soon? Now, go and look at all of the really, REALLY successful designs of the last 75 years. A-4, F-4, F-16, F-15, hell, the goddamned JU-88. What do they all have in common? They were designed to a very specific mission, and to excel at it. The A-4 was built to carry a pilot and a nuclear bomb, and thats it. Turns out it's a great light attack aircraft, and maneuverable enough to serve as a fighter aggressor aircraft. The F-4 was a fleet defence interceptor that just happened to be an excellent multi-role strike fighter. The F-15, same, despite being developed with "Not a pound for air to ground." The F-16 was developed as a pure daytime air superiority fighter to tangle with MiG-29s. Turns out to be possibly the worlds best light multirole fighter. But not a single one of these was designed by a committee, and asked to do everything for everyone. Funny how that works, isn't it?
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Aug 22, 2013 02:40
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Godholio posted:The controllers and surveillance team don't need to be on board, realistically. Put them in a trailer, save a poo poo-ton of space, now pick an airframe based on range/loiter capability and the ability to generate enough power to run whatever radar you throw on it. 787. lolololololololright
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Aug 24, 2013 04:32
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