Old War/Dad Power: Clancey chat (both types)

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Old War/Dad Power: Clancey chat (both types)

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Guest2553 posted:

Homeboy got fired.

Every time a western nation does some dumb-gently caress thing like this, it makes me wonder with horror how hosed up the Soviets were to have lost to us.

There was an autobiography from the mid-'80s that has thus far furiously resisted all my efforts to google it, written by a Red Army officer who decided he'd Had Enough Of All This and defected by just sort of... walking to the American Zone and turning himself in at the embassy, as I recall. His stories of how ludicrous it was growing up under Stalinism would have been laughed off the Sci-Fi Paperback section at an airport newsstand during the Red Scare, they were just so completely gobsmacking in their absurdity. The whole thing was full of lurid bureaucratic stupidity, but the one story that's really stuck with me was how he worked on a collective farm as a kid and was tasked with driving a tanker truck to the regional distribution center to pick up the thousands of gallons of liquid fertilizer the government required all the farms to use, and as soon as the hundreds of trucks left the facility they would drive around the nearest hill and line up to dump all the poo poo in the river, because it was so toxic that if they tried to put it on their fields it would burn out the soil and they'd never be able to grow anything there again. Millions of gallons of intensely poisonous helljuice dumped directly into a river-- which was a sterile, foul-smelling sludge ditch for many miles downstream-- multiple times a year because if anyone involved had refused to go pick the poo poo up they would've been gulag'd in a heartbeat.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2020 03:17

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:30

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

joat mon posted:

The 'Liberators'; My Life in the Soviet Army, By Viktor Suvorov?

It was definitely The "Liberators" and may also have included Inside The Soviet Army, thank you!

It's been like 35 years, I might have actually read both of them at the same time and they seem to cover some of the same ground. As a teenager I was obsessed with the different ways different governments manage to make the same stupid mistakes for different reasons, I devoured that sort of thing.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2020 04:35

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Murgos posted:

I mean, yes? However, from a military PoV advertising that one of the USN's most important capital ships was going to be out of the line for a while was a big NOPE DON'T DO THAT though. That kind of readiness information is very much classified and need to know.

My Trump hating brain assumes that the Captain and his chain of command tried to quietly handle this but then someone up high, Trump or a crony decided it would look bad for a carrier to come out of service due to the 'democrats new hoax' and refused to grant permission to head to home port.

A career USN officer doesn't get to the level of Captaining the most capitaliest of capital ships by being hasty and lacking in judgement or careful consideration; there is an absolute zero chance that he didn't exhaust every possible avenue of getting this horrifying situation dealt with outside of of public view. Releasing a public plea was clearly a last-ditch desperation effort to save his crew even though he knew in advance it was going to cost him his assignment, and quite likely his entire career. Captain Crozier is, unimpeachably, a hero.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2020 02:30

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Lou Takki posted:

Exactly my thoughts as well, my only real question is who made the call to boot him?

"Will NO one rid me of this TREMENDOUSLY troublesome Captain?"

mlmp08 posted:

https://twitter.com/tomheartstanks/status/1246868485143023616?s=21

Nobody's ever gonna see these in public if USAF is making the drone pilots stay home too.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 01:23

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

If anyone wants to go full Cold War Punisher, there's that one comic series where someone built a superduper secret airbase in the Mojave Desert by constructing a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier on top of the only mesa for miles around and Frank just hops in a Corsair II and flies it around for a while like fukken GTA: Area 49 after he gets tortured by having a bag full of piss strapped over his head.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 04:15

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

mlmp08 posted:

Or the comedy of errors that is recent Russian naval ops/accidents.

I'm fairly sure the Admiral Kuznetsov on its own is only slightly less of a source of air pollution than the entire PRC. From photos that thing looks like it's powered by burning plastic soda bottles and surplus Adidas crossfit shoes.

Also didn't it have a deployment recently where it literally lost 25% of its fighter complement to mechanical failure?

# ¿ Apr 8, 2020 04:07

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

William "Tecumseh For Some Reason" Sherman: Problematic Fave

# ¿ Apr 9, 2020 05:54

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

You could send Marines to Okinawa on the USS SAPR.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2020 12:31

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

PeterCat posted:

Cold War cover of Infantry magazine.

Man, they were a decade ahead of their time; if that didn't have a date or context I would absolutely have thought it was the cover of a TSR sourcebook from 1983.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2020 02:13

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

quote:

F15EX

Was it named by Elon Musk?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2020 22:12

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

ManifunkDestiny posted:

https://twitter.com/Moonboost2/status/1250141567840550921

That looks like an autonomous military terrorbot from Transmetropolitan, something that's forcibly inserted in the enemy's rear via rocket and stomps around on spider legs with a loudspeaker blasting "ANGER DUCK DICK!" [brrrrrrrttttt] "ANGER DUCK DICK!" [brrrrrrrttttt] targeting random people and objects.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 21:28

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

bewbies posted:

It was always crazy to me that the Brits used the Spitfire on carriers. Like, the only bigtime WWII fighter less well suited for that role was probably the 109...which the Germans also tried to use as a carrier fighter.

The Bf109T and Ju87C were feckin' useless in Iron Storm.

Don't diss Royal Navy carrier action too hard, though; the Allied aircraft responsible for the greatest sunk tonnage of Axis ships was a lovely canvas-skinned kite from a bygone era.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2020 06:25

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

I've seen the claim about the Swordfish being King of Torpedo Bomber Mountain in several different places, but don't really have any skin in arguing about it aside from making an offhand comment and any hard numbers that could be dug up for other aircraft would definitely be interesting to see; apparently they got outsized numbers not only by wrecking shop on U-Boats in the Atlantic and anything floating during the Norway campaign, but also by running the scoreboard up on German and Italian supply convoys in the Mediterranean, where the squadrons based on Malta were sinking something like 50,000 tons every month on average for three years or so.

Arglebargle III posted:

Lol if you aren't developing submersible aircraft carriers.

Bruh-- the CVS-101 deployed almost 15 years ago.

C.M. Kruger posted:

Ah, the IJN Habukkake.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2020 02:50

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

FuturePastNow posted:

lol that it has the catapult harness catcher things so it can still launch ancient planes

The VF-1 series were pretty much transforming F-14s with the serial numbers filed off; Macross came out in 1984 and the Nimitz Class was still using bridle catchers at the time, so in-universe Valkyries/Veritechs launched exactly the same way, with steam catapults and shuttles that attached to the front landing gear.

In space.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2020 12:10

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

LOL that behemoth is actually named Kiev in-universe, but it's 15.3km long. They're city ships.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2020 23:44

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Blistex posted:

\/\/ Could you post the text?

If you want to get around a news site's paywall (or simply don't want to give them ad revenue), paste the URL into archive.is to get a snapshot of it. http://archive.is/GAMrN

# ¿ Apr 28, 2020 07:50

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Somebody Awful posted:

Venezuela's claiming Colombia sent a group of "terrorist mercenaries" to "murder leaders of the revolutionary government".

That barely even registers at all on the poo poo That Seems Unreasonable For Central/South America scale. The CIA has done way dumber and way worse just by accident.

# ¿ May 4, 2020 07:55

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

https://twitter.com/Weissenberg7/status/616678473940213761

# ¿ May 8, 2020 05:09

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/5543/the-navy-is-quietly-arming-its-supercarriers-with-anti-torpedo-torpedoes

quote:

It may sound like a concept, but this system is already deployed and operating; the Navy has quietly fielded it on half of America�s supercarriers. The first test unit was installed aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in 2013. During these initial carrier-borne tests, SSTD was launched against and intercepted seven target torpedoes. The trials proved that the whole system as an integrated unit worked and since then many improvements have been made. Now, just a few years later, USS Nimitz, which just came out of an extended overhaul period, is the 5th supercarrier equipped with the modular system.

Eventually the Navy plans on fitting all its major surface combatants with SSTD, with a target date of 2035 to accomplish that goal. It will be interesting to see if the Navy attempts to integrate the system aboard the stealthy Zumwalt class, a ship which will by very nature of its mission be prowling in submarine infested waters. Then again, they may not even attempt to such an installation at all, just as they have omitted a traditional CIWS from its design. In the meantime America�s carriers will continue to be outfitted with these new torpedo defenses as they receive major service and upgrades. It's very likely �Gator Navy� LHDs and LHAs will be next.

# ¿ May 11, 2020 03:52

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

PittTheElder posted:

Won't lie, that looks like a sweet rear end post hanging way off the side there. Any navy folks know what they're there for?

Fire control system for the Sea Sparrow emplacement directly above it.

# ¿ May 11, 2020 08:24

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

The general consensus these days seems to be that fallout shelters were obsolete in both the U.S. and S.U. almost as soon as they started becoming popular given the sheer saturation level of Satan's Flashbulbs by the early '60s, but how long after a proper Bugger All This For A Lark, Then M.A.D. exchange would anyone who had a shelter in or near a major city have to stay buttoned up before it was ~safe to come out for a look around, assuming their hidey-hole wasn't just dug up in the first place in the days when the two major playors were still settin' big'uns for ground level?

Rob Rockley posted:

So previous F-19 discussion made me wonder - clearly the public knew about the existence and true nature of the stealth aircraft programs in the US by 1985, even if nobody knew the details of what the aircraft actually looked like and were capable of. How did people learn about the program, what did the general public think about it in the 80s before the F-117 got revealed, and did the Soviets know anything useful and consider stealth technology as a credible threat?

You can tell by the vidya games and breathless Popular Mechanics articles of the time that right up until the F-117 was on the cover of all the magazines almost everyone assumed it would be an F-19 type murder-frisbee with rounded lines and gentle curves, which would be an actual dogfight-capable strike fighter that could drop bombs and launch standoff weapons while maneuvering like any other fighter.

Nebakenezzer posted:

That little poo poo's gonna drag his drat sleeves across the board and ruin it in the late game.

BadgerMan45 posted:

Those kids playing scrabble have a really extensive vocabulary for their age.

I was, like, 10 when my family first started nervously glancing at the exits any time I suggested playing Scrabble; to the end of her days my grandmother was the only one who always jumped at the opportunity to learn some new words, and the only one who always had a reasonable chance of beating me in a two player game. Three or four players run the good tiles out faster, and it's easier to gang up on whoever's in the lead.

I scored 329 points on a single play once, about halfway through a three player game, and I will resent until I'm wrong side of topsoil that the friends I was playing with both quit at that point instead of letting me see what absolute bullshit final score I could rack up.

# ¿ May 14, 2020 01:17

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

I can't imagine there's any ulcer medication left within two hundred miles of DC, national security briefings have got to be a Strangeloveian nightmare.

# ¿ May 16, 2020 03:32

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

If you used Sprint x 17 for surface-to-surface it would go from Mar-a-Lago to Mare Marginis in about an hour and 45 minutes. Not quite Futurama Speed, but still a bit much for most non-apocalypse applications.

PeterCat posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeBF5Fez1HE

Bruh... if you're expecting a nuclear event, and I cannot emphasize this enough, do not fukken look directly at it.

# ¿ May 16, 2020 10:16

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

david_a posted:

Don Rosa retired due to severe vision problems so probably not

Seems like more of a Richard Scarry joint anyway but he�s dead

He's not dead, he just retired to the Berenstein Bears universe. The worm in the Tyrolean hat and lederhosen handles his affairs here.

Murgos posted:

If you want any clearer indication that Trump is not on our team he has been pushing to get us out of Open Skies since he took office.

Open Skies is one of the most lopsided in the US favor treaties we have with Russia.

# ¿ May 21, 2020 23:34

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

priznat posted:

The embassy in Ottawa is like someone parked a battleship next to the Byward Market.

hahahaha holy poo poo

Mazz posted:

I've said this before but that feeling in your stomach from something like a low and fast B-1 will stick with you for a long time. I'm sure it's less greatwhen it's daily but still, one of my favorite things.

I was chillin' in an open-topped deer blind back when ABIA was still Bergstrom AFB, when an F16 rear end-blasted overhead with visible rings in its exhaust, low enough and fast enough that a moment after it GTFO'd the tops of the trees started waving around. poo poo does things to your innards.

I could no-poo poo resolve rivets in the wings, is how low it was.

# ¿ May 22, 2020 12:22

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

That F-15 sled is some straight up Gundam poo poo, and now I'm wondering how anyone at DOD managed to keep Lockheed and/or Boeing from getting a multi-billion dollar contract for Base Jabber or Dodai procurement.

shame on an IGA posted:

Pretty cool airshow here, shame nobody got to see it

https://mobile.twitter.com/USNavyCNO/status/1265417439673831426

The P-8 should have shown its respect for the amicable escort by suddenly rocking its wings in a friendly manner.

# ¿ May 29, 2020 04:49

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Platystemon posted:

That�s just a Wednesday for Norilsk.

quote:
Heavy metal pollution near Norilsk is so severe that it has now become economically feasible to mine surface soil, as the soil has acquired such high concentrations of platinum and palladium

[Pollution Level: Cautionary Science Fiction Short Story]

# ¿ Jun 5, 2020 09:07

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

EvilBlackRailgun posted:

And that's... what, exactly.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2020 04:35

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Carth Dookie posted:

Sloppy and inefficient. Better to use nuclear salt water and mix it in a combustion chamber and expel it through a nozzle like a traditional rocket to have one long continuous nuke explosion power it

Wikiwikiwiki posted:

Terrestrial testing might be subject to reasonable objections; as one physicist wrote, "Writing the environmental impact statement for such tests [...] might present an interesting problem ...".

# ¿ Jun 21, 2020 02:57

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Nebakenezzer posted:

Got a link from English Russia. Somebody made a fuckin' cool model:

Opening chapters of My Submarine Is Fight! lookin' pretty good so far.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2020 05:57

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Manned aircraft from a submarine carrier is a doofy idea outside of science fiction, but the advantages of remote-piloted submarine-launched cruise missiles that carry ordnance (and either Ohka their way into a target or ditch in friendly waters for recovery) seem so obvious for :nsa:

type stuff that I'd be surprised if some variation of it isn't either already in production or at least advanced design.

Somebody Awful posted:

Sounds like a solid case.

Alternatively, tow the Stennis out to deep water and direct the Doris Miller to attack it until all ammunition is expended.

Cut it out, man-- I'm too old to enlist in the Navy to get in on that.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2020 07:23

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Yeah, you're gonna need to get, like, an entire blimp if you want to be able to lift enough convential explosives to wreck the Super Bowl.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2020 14:40

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Xakura posted:

Exited for when lasers provide a perfect missile defence, and everyone has to learn to fight with guns again.

That's all well and good until the East Megians set off enough nukes to create a tsunami big enough to wreck the Atlantic Wall's laser defenses.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2020 04:41

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Well, now we know what McNally's sunk cost ceiling is for Professional Girlfriend Proxies.

Blistex posted:

Have been "Googling" a lot of stuff from this thread to figure out what you're talking about. A third of the acronyms on the last two pages come up with the intended definition. Another third led me to "Urban Dictionary", and the remaining third are apparently terms used in escort ads.

fellow Person Who Keeps DuckDuckGo Open In A Tab To Search For Unfamiliar Terms And Words Because Learning Is Fun And Reading Is FUNdamental

# ¿ Jul 5, 2020 14:03

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

Mortabis posted:

There's definitely a signalling value to education separate from the education itself, but it is worth considering that the relative value may vary between fields.

This, absolutely. For pretty much any kind of engineering, you're gonna want a solid degree from a solid institution of higher learning, because lives and careers are likely to depend on that new hire maintaining a certain level of accredited competence.

For Economics, you can safely hire a chimpanzee with a dartboard and save a ton of money on payroll expenses by buying bananas in bulk.

Space Gopher posted:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled ICBM chat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I55LkRz3Gok

I'm honestly surprised that the failuresplosion wasn't a lot bigger, I'd always assumed just the propellent alone on an international murder weapon of that size would be enough to clear sinuses 20 miles away if it YOLO'd all at once.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2020 10:57

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

The San Diego CBS affiliate posted:

As of 4 p.m., Federal Fire San Diego was the lead agency for firefighting efforts according to a statement from the Navy.

�Currently there are two firefighting teams fighting the fire aboard the ship,� said Federal Fire San Diego Division Chief Rob Bondurant. �Federal Fire is rotating their crews aboard the ship with U.S. Navy firefighting crews from the waterfront to fight the fire in order to find the seat of the fire and extinguish it. Also, Navy Region Southwest tugs are also continuously combatting the fire from the bay�

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/uss-bonhomme-richard-on-fire-at-naval-base-san-diego/

# ¿ Jul 13, 2020 01:45

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

I feel bad for the Captain of Bonhomme Richard; it has got to look extremely lovely on a service record to have lost a ship to a peacetime dockside refit fuckup.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2020 03:18

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

To be at least somewhat fair, the rum is no longer mandatory pathogenic self defense in the era of germ theory and effective water filtration equipment. The Rrrrroyal Navy doesn't need to procure mass quantities of limes anymore, either.

mllaneza posted:

Nobody wants to hear about your weekend.

You are incorrect. :whip:

# ¿ Jul 19, 2020 14:54

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

PittTheElder posted:

I had a random thought about magnetic anomaly detectors; given that the detection range cannot be very far (it's cube root of distance for magnetism right? Does anyone actually publish numbers?) do planes just cruise as close to the surface as possible when using them to search?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2020 05:36

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 16:30

Proper Kerni ng: Nov 14, 2011

aphid_licker posted:

the Zappelin

trademark that you son of a bitch

# ¿ Jul 25, 2020 04:53

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