august air force thread: contracted out

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Internet VFW > august air force thread: contracted out

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Helldump Immunity.: Aug 2, 2013; Fuck you

bill is in the mail.

# ? Aug 1, 2014 18:36

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 14:34

Prop Wash: Jun 12, 2010

Laughing out loud every time I see e-3s listing lovely year old mustangs on the base swap site

# ? Aug 1, 2014 20:33

Prop Wash: Jun 12, 2010

And then crying because whatever new car I buy has to have room for a car seat

# ? Aug 1, 2014 20:34

Helldump Immunity.: Aug 2, 2013; Fuck you

Prop Wash posted:

Laughing out loud every time I see e-3s

# ? Aug 1, 2014 21:02

Rekinom: Jan 26, 2006; ~ shady midair gas hustler ~

~ good hair ~

~ colt 45 ~

Prop Wash posted:

And then crying because whatever new car I buy has to have room for a car seat

I would say most people generally require enough room for a car seat.

# ? Aug 1, 2014 21:50

Booblord Zagats: Oct 30, 2011; Pork Pro

Rekinom posted:

I would say most people generally require enough room for a car seat.

Pretty sure he's lamenting the fact he needs something with more than 2 seats

# ? Aug 1, 2014 21:51

KirbyKhan: Mar 20, 2009; Soiled Meat

Every year I dread seeing the new AF thread. This time I am happy. On the 8th will final out. 28th will be my DoS. In August 2016 I will was my hands of IRR. I feel... Happy.

# ? Aug 2, 2014 00:23

invision: Mar 2, 2009; I DIDN'T GET ENOUGH RAPE LAST TIME, MAY I HAVE SOME MORE?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203461070179758

lol

# ? Aug 2, 2014 01:57

Mr. Nice!: Oct 13, 2005; c-spam cannot afford

invision posted:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203461070179758

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTOKJTRHMdw

# ? Aug 2, 2014 02:12

Rekinom: Jan 26, 2006; ~ shady midair gas hustler ~

~ good hair ~

~ colt 45 ~

Booblord Zagats posted:

Pretty sure he's lamenting the fact he needs something with more than 2 seats

clearly my deadpan internet comments need some work

# ? Aug 2, 2014 03:11

Prop Wash: Jun 12, 2010

Rekinom posted:

clearly my deadpan internet comments need some work

Well you've got ten hours of orbiting to think of a better one!

# ? Aug 2, 2014 04:45

Hotel Kpro: Feb 24, 2011; owls don't go to school; Dinosaur Gum

I made it like 23 months without the Air Force making me drink my problems away. But gently caress it, it's a losing battle.

# ? Aug 2, 2014 07:11

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

Glad my previous community is making all the right decisions...

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-spy-plane-reportedly-violated-swedish-air-space-to-escape-russian-fighters-424d05e11bd5

I blame the leadership... that community is so narrow minded, micro managed and second guessed that they don't ever plan for contingencies/what ifs/diverts.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 03:52

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

I really wish I could read the post-mission writeup on that one.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 04:04

Prop Wash: Jun 12, 2010

xaarman posted:

Glad my previous community is making all the right decisions...

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-spy-plane-reportedly-violated-swedish-air-space-to-escape-russian-fighters-424d05e11bd5

I blame the leadership... that community is so narrow minded, micro managed and second guessed that they don't ever plan for contingencies/what ifs/diverts.

oh, I thought you were talking about Laughlin banning FAIP mafia swag and shots at first

# ? Aug 3, 2014 05:00

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

Prop Wash posted:

oh, I thought you were talking about Laughlin banning FAIP mafia swag and shots at first

Whatever, yeah it's dumb but I just don't care enough to get spun up about it.

The T-1 is a pretty sweet gig, it's the closest thing to having your own personal jet in the AF. The only draw back is the location.

edit: for those of you unaware...

xaarman fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Aug 3, 2014

# ? Aug 3, 2014 05:41

Helldump Immunity.: Aug 2, 2013; Fuck you

People still go to the base clubs?

# ? Aug 3, 2014 05:53

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

Every 6-12 months there's a new command push for them. At UPT bases, it's mandatory that track night and graduation night are there, so they have something 2 of every 3 Fridays going on.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 06:04

Helldump Immunity.: Aug 2, 2013; Fuck you

I think the only time I'd go to the O Club was when it was mandatory.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 07:12

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Helldump Immunity. posted:

People still go to the base clubs?

Maxwell's didn't suck for SOS (I mean you're in Montgomery and even with the revitalization of downtown the only place really worth going to is the Aviator Bar, so if it's during the week or you're stuck in town for the weekend the club isn't a bad option...booze was cheap, they had a couple of decent beers on tap, and you got to watch commissioned officers make really hilariously bad life decisions). Also Sheppard's was literally right across the street from the place I was billeted at last time I was there, which came in handy the night I ran into a friend from college doing ENJJPT and downed god knows how many pitchers of Shiner only to wake up in a bed covered in Shiner-vomit the next morning. And Beale's was convenient when I was there for school, stumbling distance from the dorms.

Other than that, yes, I would only go to the base club when it's mandatory.

Although Barking Sands' Shenanigans isn't too bad...the view is awesome.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 07:56

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

Oddly enough, Tinker had the best o-club I can think of right now. Basically it was the only one where they didn't actively try to pretend it was some classy upscale something or other that nobody wanted to visit. It was just a chill place with a mediocre beer selection and a crud table. Really the only problem was that's what all the retirees wanted, so they outnumbered everyone 5:1 unless there was an official event. Which means Elvis on the stereo and they're chatting up the old woman bartender instead of letting her serve drinks. So everybody gave it a shot once and moved on.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 08:10

TheOtherGypsy: Apr 6, 2004

Since the club was always empty at Columbus, my class used it to our advantage when they forced us to live in the dorms. We'd bring our own kegs or garbage cans full of 40's. We'd usually get drunk enough where we'd eventually buy drinks from the bar, so it worked out for the girls that worked there.

Then we moved off base and spent our weekends getting kicked out of Cowbells.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 09:54

Softface: Feb 16, 2011; Some things can't be unseen

xaarman posted:

Glad my previous community is making all the right decisions...

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/u-s-spy-plane-reportedly-violated-swedish-air-space-to-escape-russian-fighters-424d05e11bd5

I blame the leadership... that community is so narrow minded, micro managed and second guessed that they don't ever plan for contingencies/what ifs/diverts.

Hahaha, I remember coming in to work after this. Basically everyone on board misread what was going on, panicked, and bugged out, leaving us to stop a gently caress-up from becoming an international incident.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 16:17

xaarman: Mar 12, 2003; IRONKNUCKLE PERMABANNED! READ HERE

On board the plane, squadron, Offutt or ...? Do we know eachother?

# ? Aug 3, 2014 17:30

Softface: Feb 16, 2011; Some things can't be unseen

Doubtful, I'm up in Alaska with the 381 IS.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 18:11

smertrioslol: Apr 4, 2010

The L club in Kunsan stays open and gives you beer until 4am. Maybe longer! That's the latest I've managed to binge drink before getting thrown out. So the usual drinking path goes something like drinking and volleyball, drinking in Gunsan City and getting turned down by Korean chicks, drinking at the hooches and getting turned down by decent looking AF girls, finally ending up at the L club drinking and getting turned down by the wookie AF girls.

# ? Aug 3, 2014 23:08

OMFG PTSD LOL PBUH: Sep 9, 2001

Yo, if it wouldn't ruin this dudes career to be associated with us I'd totally try and get this guy to join GiP, because his writing is extremely my poo poo. Peep it, Air Force Homo's. There's one of us with a tiny bit of rank, a few loving synapses working that aren't stuck in an if-then rape loop, and he even manages to be somewhat self aware and humorous.

Lt. Col loving A. Unicorn, USAF

Dan Ward posted:

Outrageous Waste�America�s Secret Strategy for Military Deterrence

What if the Pentagon�s cost overruns are on purpose?

In 2009, I published an oddball little piece of nightmare fiction entitled �Acquisition as Deterrent.� In this admittedly oddball story, the unnamed main character has a terrible dream in which he discovers a disturbing secret �

That the schedule delays, cost overruns, excessive complexity and ineffective performance frequently associated with American military technology projects are deliberate, not accidental.

�Decades ago, we made a strategic decision that American military weapon development projects should be expensive, complex and lengthy,� an imaginary 12-star general explains. �The more time and money we spent, the better. We did this in order to discourage other nations from imitating us.�

�It�s a brilliant strategy, really,� the general continues. �By spending billions of dollars and countless decades building hugely complex weapons systems�some of which never work and others of which barely work�we send a not-so-subtle message to our adversaries. �You can�t do this.��

�Heck,� he concludes, �we can barely do it�and we�re the United States of America.�

Five years later, I�m beginning to wonder if it wasn�t a dream after all. What if American military strategy involves deliberately overspending for the sole purpose of placing weapons out of reach of the rest of the world?

What if we spend decades and billions on cancelled and troubled projects, creating the appearance of difficulty and incompetence, in order to deceive our enemies and dissuade them from building advanced jets, tanks and ships?

Making the unaffordable status quo appear inevitable creates a strong disincentive to hostile actors, so there is a genuine national benefit to convincing the world advanced weapon systems cannot be built in less than 25 years, even if we could actually do it in 18 months.

I like to think this brilliant strategy has a cool codename like Operation BLOAT, short for Budgets Limit Opponent�s Acquisition of Technology. If BLOAT is real�and I hope it is�it explains why Allied pilots never had to engage Taliban pilots in dogfights over Afghanistan and why Al Qaeda never built a fleet of stealth bombers and submarines.

In fact, Operation BLOAT ensures the U.S. military will never again face a Soviet-size opponent equipped with a full set of tanks, jets and ships.

Any large nation who tries to follow America�s example will have great trouble fielding new gear, particularly if they steal our designs and try to build knock-offs. Meanwhile, smaller nations and assorted terrorist groups won�t even try in the first place.

Thus, instead of confronting massive militaries, U.S. forces only have to fight small units equipped with little more than AK-47�s and improvised explosives. Such combat is ugly to be sure, but it�s better than a full-scale World War III.

If BLOAT is not our actual strategy, it should be. The defense acquisition community has a longstanding track record of development projects that �require more than 15 years to deliver less capability than planned, often at two to three times the planned cost,� according to a 2011 Harvard Business School report.

Since that�s how things are going anyway, why not do it on purpose and reap the strategic benefits? I don�t see any problem with that logic.

Also, as my original nightmare story pointed out, BLOAT is entirely consistent with Sun Tzu�s dictum to �appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.� Who am I to argue with Sun Tzu?

Just as nuclear missiles accomplished a Cold War deterrent mission without ever launching, today�s wildly expensive and delayed acquisition programs make the world safer without ever delivering a thing.

The trick, of course, is to make sure nobody suspects the real motive, which is much easier than it sounds. All the Pentagon has to do is inject enormous delays and cost overruns into otherwise top-priority projects�done!

The risks inherent in these delays are tolerable because nobody else can even attempt to build a comparable system�and if they did, they�d fail too. No need for the U.S. to deliver the latest weapon system on time, because nobody else will have one either.

In fact, the safest approach is to never deliver anything at all, leading the way for friend and foe alike to also deliver nothing. Acquisition malpractice? More like acquisition best practice. You�re welcome, America.

Ironically, the best way to keep BLOAT secret is to publish data about cost overruns and schedule delays. No reasonable observer would believe the Pentagon wasted that much time and money on purpose, particularly since a virtual Greek chorus constantly bemoans the outcomes of weapon system acquisition efforts.

Want to further solidify the secret? Launch a perpetual series of blue ribbon panels, Government Accountability Reports and academic experts recommend solutions which are either ignored or implemented without effect. Mission accomplished.

Thoughtful critics might object that the Taliban and Al Qaeda would still not have jet fighters even if the F-35, for example, had entered service on the original timeline (2010) and budget ($200 billion).

For that matter, even at half the cost and half the time of the original estimates, a comparable airplane would have remained out of reach for Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues.

Such an analysis weakens the Vast Conspiracy theory, but as any conspiracy nut can attest, facts that weaken the conspiracy theory actually strengthen the conspiracy theory. Welcome to my nightmare.

Looking for a fact that actively reinforces the conspiracy theory? A recent story by Bill Sweetman of Aviation Week shows the F-35�s impact is precisely what we would expect from a BLOAT strategy. �Leaders of smaller air forces are worried that they could be priced out of flying fighter aircraft by rising acquisition and operational costs,� Sweetman writes.

He goes on to observe that �countries that once fielded large forces are recognizing that they cannot cover all their historic missions as they switch to the Joint Strike Fighter.�

It�s a brilliant move, really. If the JSF is the only jet in the sky, that makes it also the best jet in the sky. Thus, an enormous price tag could contribute more to air superiority than stealth, supercruise and thrust-vectoring combined.

Of course, if the costs, delays and assorted fiascoes associated with defense acquisition are part of a purposeful misinformation campaign, inspired by Sun Tzu�s observation that all warfare is based on deception, then we must assume that high-speed, low-cost acquisition projects are possible and exist somewhere, presumably supporting operations where a deterrence strategy is ineffective.

In order to avoid undermining the BLOAT strategy, these efficient projects would need to keep a low profile since their existence would definitively prove the conspiracy is real. Strap on your tinfoil hat, because here comes proof.

According to GAO report 07-620, the Special Operations community consistently delivers new gear without encountering the same types of budget and schedule problems that plague their non-special counterparts. How do they do it? By instituting tight budgets, short schedules, a commitment to simplicity and a close connection between developers and users.

Fortunately, mainstream acquisition programs seldom follow that route, otherwise BLOAT would quickly deflate.

The existence of BLOAT as national policy is strictly speculative, but the data seems to support the theory. However, if the security reviewers approve this article for publication, then you�ll know BLOAT is not really the heart of our national defense strategy, because nobody would ever let such an important secret into the public sphere.

Or maybe that�s precisely what they want you to think. Maybe allowing this to be published enables the secret to hide in plain sight, because releasing this article proves BLOAT isn�t real � which proves it is real � which also proves it isn�t. I think you know what I mean.

Dan holds three engineering degrees and is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. His book FIRE: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation, is scheduled to be released by HarperCollins on April 29. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Air Force or Department of Defense.

Maybe I'm just too high this morning, but goddamn it's hard to argue with much of this at all. I realize there's a lot of satire and tongue-in-cheek here, but there's a lot of loving :stare:

worthy truth too. The mark of a truly well written piece of opinion, honestly.

Thought I'd share.

Now go fly, fight, and gently caress yourselves.

OMFG PTSD LOL PBUH fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Aug 4, 2014

# ? Aug 4, 2014 12:46

KirbyKhan: Mar 20, 2009; Soiled Meat

Obama Africanus posted:

Now go fly, fight, and gently caress yourselves.

On it. I final out this Friday. I woke up an hour after work started, sent a text. My people thought I was already out. My nonmil room mate thought that was incredibly sad, while I've never been happier in my life.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 14:35

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

Found a real winner today.

http://afcca.law.af.mil/content/afcca_opinions/cp/spielman-38285.u_-_corrected_copy.pdf

# ? Aug 4, 2014 17:23

Helldump Immunity.: Aug 2, 2013; Fuck you

Casimir Radon posted:

Found a real winner today.

http://afcca.law.af.mil/content/afcca_opinions/cp/spielman-38285.u_-_corrected_copy.pdf

quote:

She told him to put his flight suit back on, but he instead took off his boxers, stating, �That just happened.�

# ? Aug 4, 2014 17:29

Godholio: Aug 28, 2002; Does a bear split in the woods near Zheleznogorsk?

Awesome. She even mocked his babbydick.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 17:40

Rekinom: Jan 26, 2006; ~ shady midair gas hustler ~

~ good hair ~

~ colt 45 ~

This whole thing seems crazy, but then I remind myself, this kind of poo poo has probably worked before and we're just hearing about the one time it didn't.

Kind of like how you have to drive drunk like 50 times before you actually get caught one day.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 17:44

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

There was another one that involved a sham marriage and aggravated assault but the girl wasn't appealing the assault charge so the juicy details of that part weren't included.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 18:00

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Rekinom posted:

This whole thing seems crazy, but then I remind myself, this kind of poo poo has probably worked before and we're just hearing about the one time it didn't.

Kind of like how you have to drive drunk like 50 times before you actually get caught one day.

An ENJPPT student went around to chicks in at the college in Wichita Falls showing them his dick while he was wearing AF PT shorts and asking for critiques about its size.

So yeah, people at least think it works.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 22:01

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

Somebody here has to at least know somebody who knows this clown.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 22:14

Eugene V. Dubstep: Oct 4, 2013; Can't post for 8 years!

Casimir Radon posted:

Found a real winner today.

http://afcca.law.af.mil/content/afcca_opinions/cp/spielman-38285.u_-_corrected_copy.pdf

christ, what a psycho

# ? Aug 4, 2014 22:32

Casimir Radon: Aug 2, 2008

at the date posted:

christ, what a psycho

It's not exactly CHRISTOPHER B. JAGASSAR (Put sea creatures in his girlfriends vagina ATTN: Future prospective employers) but it's pretty awful.

# ? Aug 4, 2014 23:45

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Today I put something I "learned" at SOS to use in the real world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZOKDmorj0

# ? Aug 4, 2014 23:58

Dead Reckoning: Sep 13, 2011

iyaayas01 posted:

Today I put something I "learned" at SOS to use in the real world.

Ctrl-click to launch the missiles works in Reapers as well as TAV?

# ? Aug 5, 2014 01:23

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# ? Apr 23, 2024 14:34

iyaayas01: Feb 19, 2010; Perry'd

Dead Reckoning posted:

Ctrl-click to launch the missiles works in Reapers as well as TAV?

lol

pew pew pew

nah just some boring poo poo about DSCA. Although actually I suppose it says something that the one thing I've used from SOS I learned from an Army Guard Major

# ? Aug 5, 2014 01:47

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