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iyaayas01 posted:
Here's my theory on why LSI and to a much lesser extent spiral development on new platforms went so bad. Granted this is going to be very bias towards industry so take it for what it's worth. The big LSI programs, Deep Water, FCS, and to a lesser extent GMD, were the result of a culmination of three factors: A once a generation DoD budget growth that ushered in near double digit growth rates for almost a decade. A development model and contract scheme that not only further disconnected the service program managers from the issues of the program itself but also created fewer budget barriers of cost escalation as the result of requirements creep due to the cost plus nature of these contracts. Contractors' business incentives to accept new requirements for the purposes of pleasing the customer and increasing revenue/earnings in the process. The 2nd and 3rd point compound on one another because as requirements change the additional cost is flowed to subcontractors, which not only causes schedule delays but also makes the program cost a lot more. It also doesn't help that given the nature of cost plus contracts that the LSIs (or primes for the matters) don't reign in out of control subcontractor costs, there's simply no incentive to do so. This is not the case in fixed price contracts because any slippage from the subcontractors results in an earnings hit to the prime. In each of these big LSI models and to a lesser extent in several of the larger spiral development programs like Global Hawk, we've seen the program cost double or even triple in size because the services want these systems to do more things, they see their baseline budgets continue to increase, and the contractors see an expansion of capability and size of program to be good things. Unfortunately history has shown us that once these programs start seeing high double digit or triple digit cost growth they never get anywhere close to the production quantity originally called for. Now I can't say from a net present value perspective what makes more sense to the contractor; milking a development program to the point where the development phase is double the cost of what was planned for the purposes of short term gain with the risk that the quantity produced will be smaller than planned, or keeping it on cost and schedule which in turn realizes the planned production quantity and opens up decades worth of high margin services and support contracts. Which one makes more sense is based much on what you assume the future looks like. There's a constituency out there who believe the services will scrap the PBP model and instead relegate contractor support to contractor-owned IP and shift the rest of the work to in service Depots. Clearly if this happens then the former situation makes more sense. Then again there are many who believe the services can try that and once they find that they're spending more money than before with less force readiness, then they may find the error of their ways.
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Aug 26, 2011 04:26
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Someone please tell me some anecdotes involving the TU-160  I mean, I know it's the Soviet answer to the B-1B, but it's just so much more  than you'd expect!
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Sep 14, 2011 21:48
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The nuke museum in AlbaQ NM was awesome. Check it out if you ever want to get your Cold War boner on hard    This is for you I like Turtles  Recovered from that Broken Arrow incident off Spain   Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's MIRV!  The Red Febtober        The nuke cannon!            There was no sign saying we couldn't ride the bombs!
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Sep 15, 2011 00:31
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Flanker posted:Hahahahahaha 
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Sep 15, 2011 01:44
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Cyrano4747 posted:No offense, but for the sake of whoever is grading your class, don't do this. When you had guys like Lemay and Thomas S."Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win" Power running around, Dr. Strangelove doesn't look that far off.
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Sep 15, 2011 04:42
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. It's kind of the Cold War version of trying to base your Holocaust paper off of Schindler's List.
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Armyman25 posted:When you had guys like Lemay and Thomas S."Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win" Power Pretty sure I mentioned it before in this thread, but when Curtis loving LeMay calls you a sadist and thinks you're no kidding insane, you just might be too crazy to be in command of a superpower's nuclear forces. Fun fact...some people think that Ripper in Strangelove was based on LeMay, but he was in fact based pretty much solely on Power. Turgidson was the character who was satirizing LeMay.
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Sep 15, 2011 08:42
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Armyman25 posted:"Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans and one Russian left alive, we win" Holy gently caress that's an actual quote. 
Arrath fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Sep 15, 2011 |
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Sep 15, 2011 08:59
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Flanker posted:Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's MIRV!
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Sep 15, 2011 11:01
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BarkingSquirrel posted:That MIRV is so fuckin' happy. Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me? Bomb #20: Of course. Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts? Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions. Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist? Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist. Doolittle: But how do you know you exist? Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious. Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist? Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am. Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists? Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.
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Sep 15, 2011 17:21
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Whoaaaah. Dark Star. You have some heavy-duty reference chops! I need to show that movie to my buds.
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Sep 15, 2011 17:55
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BarkingSquirrel posted:That MIRV is so fuckin' happy. Wait, aren't the MIRVs the cone-shaped objects around the happy part? They had one of those from the old Peacekeeper missile at the Air Force Museum in Dayton (didn't see it the last time I was there). Even though I knew it was deactivated and all the stuff that makes the big boom was taken out, the thing still kind of gave me the creeps. Just knowing this little black cone thing could have taken out a several mile diameter area of the Soviet Union if it was ever used.
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Sep 16, 2011 03:28
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Flanker posted:AQ, NM NUKE-SEUM PHOTOS I'm just glad I'm not the only lovely photographer who couldn't deal with the weird lighting in there. But yeah, that place is awesome. It's very obviously new and underfunded but awesome regardless. I bet it kicks a lot more rear end in 10-20 years.
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Sep 16, 2011 03:31
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Dirk Diggler posted:Wait, aren't the MIRVs the cone-shaped objects around the happy part? They had one of those from the old Peacekeeper missile at the Air Force Museum in Dayton (didn't see it the last time I was there). Even though I knew it was deactivated and all the stuff that makes the big boom was taken out, the thing still kind of gave me the creeps. Just knowing this little black cone thing could have taken out a several mile diameter area of the Soviet Union if it was ever used. Technically speaking, yes, since the "RV" in MIRV stands for "Re-entry Vehicle," but usually the whole thing is referred to as a "MIRV'd warhead." The smiley thing is the bus, which maneuvers around after release from the booster, positioning itself before each release so that when the re-entry vehicles/warheads are released they fall accurately to the target, since actual nuclear warheads are quite unguided.
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Sep 16, 2011 04:05
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iyaayas01 posted:Technically speaking, yes, since the "RV" in MIRV stands for "Re-entry Vehicle," but usually the whole thing is referred to as a "MIRV'd warhead." The smiley thing is the bus, which maneuvers around after release from the booster, positioning itself before each release so that when the re-entry vehicles/warheads are released they fall accurately to the target, since actual nuclear warheads are quite unguided. Take a moment to consider the engineering that goes into a device that shoots up in a huge rocket, flies halfway across the world, and plummets back to earth while acting as a flying revolver-cannon spinning as it drops and accurately dropping its secondary payloads onto its targets. drat.
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Sep 16, 2011 09:49
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Here's the public's best guess as to what they look like inside:
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Sep 16, 2011 23:25
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Boomerjinks posted:Whoaaaah. Dark Star. You have some heavy-duty reference chops! I need to show that movie to my buds. I saw Dark Star back when network stations still showed late-late movies, and I was wasted. I hadn't even acknowledged to myself that it was real, so thank you for validating that I'm not crazy. The movie is pretty hilarious.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:49
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grover posted:Here's the public's best guess as to what they look like inside: That should be Pu239 instead of U235. There'd be no reason whatsoever to use uranium and a number of reasons not to.
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Sep 17, 2011 01:16
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Phanatic posted:That should be Pu239 instead of U235. There'd be no reason whatsoever to use uranium and a number of reasons not to.
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Sep 17, 2011 01:53
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God drat the pusher, man.
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Sep 17, 2011 02:47
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Sad stuff: 3 dead, 56 injured in horrific Reno, Nev., air show crash RENO, Nev. — A vintage World War II-era fighter plane plunged into the grandstands Friday during a popular annual air show, killing at least three people, injuring more than 50 spectators and creating a horrific scene strewn with body parts and smoking debris. The plane, flown by an 80-year-old pilot, spiraled suddenly out of control and appeared to disintegrate upon impact. Bloodied bodies were spread across the area as people tended to the victims and ambulances rushed to the scene. Maureen Higgins of Alabama, who has been coming to the show for 16 years, said the pilot was on his third lap when he lost control. She was sitting about 30 yards away from the crash and watched in horror as the man in front of her started bleeding after a piece of debris hit him in the head. "I saw body parts and gore like you wouldn't believe it. I'm talking an arm, a leg," Higgins said "The alive people were missing body parts. I am not kidding you. It was gore. Unbelievable gore." Among the dead was pilot Jimmy Leeward, 80, of Ocala, Fla., who flew the P-51 Mustang named the "Galloping Ghost," according to Mike Houghton, president and CEO of Reno Air Races. Renown Medical Center spokeswoman Kathy Carter confirmed that two others died, but did not provide their identities. Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority, told The Associated Press that emergency crews took a total of 56 injury victims to three hospitals. She said they also observed a number of people being transported by private vehicle, which they are not including in their count. Kruse said of the total 56, at the time of transport, 15 were considered in critical condition, 13 were serious condition with potentially life-threatening injuries and 28 were non-serious or non-life threatening. "This is a very large incident, probably one of the largest this community has seen in decades," Kruse told The Associated Press. "The community is pulling together to try to deal with the scope of it. The hospitals have certainly geared up and staffed up to deal with it." The P-51 Mustang crashed into a box-seat area in front of the grandstand at about 4:30 p.m., race spokesman Mike Draper said. Houghton said Leeward appeared to have "lost control of the aircraft," though details on why that happened weren't immediately known. KRNV-TV weatherman Jeff Martinez, who was just outside the air race grounds at the time, said the plane veered to the right and then "it just augered straight into the ground." "You saw pieces and parts going everywhere," he said. "Everyone is in disbelief." Tanya Breining, off Hayward, Calif., told KTVU-TV in San Francisco: "It was absolute carnage. ... It looked like more than a bomb exploded." Another witness, Ronald Sargis, said he was sitting in the box seat area near the finish line. "We could see the plane coming around the far turn — it was in trouble," Sargis told KCRA-TV in Sacramento. "About six or seven boxes down from us, it impacted into the front row." He said the pilot appeared to do all he could to avoid crashing into the crowd. Response teams immediately went to work, Sargis said. After the crash Sargis went up a few rows into the grandstand to view the downed plane. "It appeared to be just pulverized," he said. Leeward, the owner of the Leeward Air Ranch Racing Team, was a well-known racing pilot. His website says he has flown more than 120 races and served as a stunt pilot for numerous movies, including "Amelia" and "Cloud Dancer." In an interview with the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner last year, he described how he has flown 250 types of planes and has a particular fondness for the P-51, which came into the war relatively late and was used as a long-range bomber escort over Europe. Among the famous pilots of the hot new fighter was WWII double ace Chuck Yeager. "They're more fun. More speed, more challenge. Speed, speed and more speed," Leeward said. Houghton described Leeward as "a good friend. Everybody knows him. It's a tight knit family. He's been here for a long, long time," Houghton said. The National Championship Air Races draws thousands of people every year in September to watch various military and civilian planes race. They also have attracted scrutiny in the past over safety concerns, including four pilots killed in 2007 and 2008. It was such a concern that local school officials once considered whether they should not allow student field trips at the event. The competition is like a car race in the sky, with planes flying wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft. The FAA and air race organizers spend months preparing for air races as they develop a plan involving pilot qualification, training and testing along with a layout for the course. The FAA inspects pilots' practice runs and brief pilots on the route maneuvers and emergency procedures. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., issued a statement saying he was "deeply saddened" about the crash. "My thoughts are with the families of those who have lost their lives and with those who were wounded in this horrific tragedy," he said. "I am so grateful to our first responders for their swift action and will continue to monitor this situation as it develops."
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Sep 17, 2011 04:28
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The nice thing about going to a major university is that they have inter-loan agreements with a bunch of libraries. So even if you go to a local branch, chances are that you can get drat near any book ever published sent there within a couple of weekdays. Including Sled Driver. Who's up for a Lets Read thread?
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Oct 10, 2011 18:39
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Intel5 posted:The nice thing about going to a major university is that they have inter-loan agreements with a bunch of libraries. So even if you go to a local branch, chances are that you can get drat near any book ever published sent there within a couple of weekdays. Every time this thread pops up, it's a good day. Let's read, for sure. Can't get enough of the bad old days.
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Oct 10, 2011 18:48
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Seconding the Let's Read. Also since this thread resurfaced I figured I would ask these 2 questions: 1) How does the B-2 yaw? It obviously doesn't have a rudder. 2) Prior to the introduction of the Harpoon, what weapons were going to be used on navy planes against ships? Did they even have anything or did they just plan on using their own ships to shoot it out?
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Oct 11, 2011 21:52
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Insert name here posted:Seconding the Let's Read. To answer question one, in a very non-technical way, it essentially uses drag, or differential drag. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_wing#Yaw_control
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Oct 11, 2011 22:05
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Insert name here posted:Seconding the Let's Read. Various Air Dropped bombs and Torpedos. Read about the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Midway, The Battle of Coral Sea, The Sinking of the Bismark, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, The Battle of the Philippines Sea, and many more WWII naval battles. Let me look up some Early Cold War stuff for you. Edit: it looks like the Harpoon was the first US Air Launched Anti-ship missile with extensive service. Edit 2: Oh ya there was this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Tim_(rocket) Flikken fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Oct 11, 2011 |
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Oct 11, 2011 22:46
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You left out the inspiration for Pearl Harbor: the british attack on the Italian Navy at anchor.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:49
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Smiling Jack posted:You left out the inspiration for Pearl Harbor: the british attack on the Italian Navy at anchor. I didn't forget it, I just forgot what it was called.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:50
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So did I. 
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Oct 11, 2011 22:51
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Smiling Jack posted:So did I. It began with a "T" now if we only had access to some massive source of information at our fingertips than can easily be referenced we might discover this name. Hey IYAAYAS would you like to weigh in?
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Oct 11, 2011 22:55
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Were the Falklands the first conflict where air launched anti ship missiles were used? The Argentinan Excocets were a very big deal and did some significant damage (Sinking HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor). The conflict really exposed how lacking the air defenses on the ships were, with a couple others getting sunk by A4s dropping bombs on em.
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Oct 11, 2011 22:59
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priznat posted:Were the Falklands the first conflict where air launched anti ship missiles were used? The Argentinan Excocets were a very big deal and did some significant damage (Sinking HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor). More like WW2. The Germans produced the Henschel Hs 293 and the Fritz X, radio controlled missiles which were dropped out of a bomber and then guided by the bombardier down to their target. They actually sank the Italian battleship Roma after the Italians surrendered and the Roma was sailing to be turned over to the Allies, and they nearly sank the cruisers Savannah and Uganda and the battleship Warspite. Technically, they were more like guided bombs than missiles since they didn't have propulsion besides gravity, but still, that's pretty impressive.
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Oct 11, 2011 23:16
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Flikken posted:It began with a "T" now if we only had access to some massive source of information at our fingertips than can easily be referenced we might discover this name. I can't go into great detail but I do remember it was Taranto. I believe the Brits attacked with 21 Fairey Swordfish off the HMS Illustrious and thrashed the Italians. Fake Edit: Found the wikipedia article, I don't have any more information than it does but here you go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto
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Oct 12, 2011 01:38
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priznat posted:Were the Falklands the first conflict where air launched anti ship missiles were used? The Argentinan Excocets were a very big deal and did some significant damage (Sinking HMS Sheffield and the Atlantic Conveyor). "Six better fuses and we would have lost". The Falklands War was a very, very close run thing for the British. They came quite close to not being able to kick the Argentinians off of the islands.
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Oct 12, 2011 02:04
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Smiling Jack posted:"Six better fuses and we would have lost". It was definitely pretty close one. Also interesting that the Sea Harriers managed a 24-0 K:L against the variety of Argentinean planes (Super Etendards, Mirages, A-4s etc). Most likely because the AIM-9L was the poo poo.
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Oct 12, 2011 02:23
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BadgerMan45 posted:I can't go into great detail but I do remember it was Taranto. I believe the Brits attacked with 21 Fairey Swordfish off the HMS Illustrious and thrashed the Italians. I knew it was something like that. But I guess I confused it with that Canuck city that has a similar name priznat posted:It was definitely pretty close one. Also interesting that the Sea Harriers managed a 24-0 K:L against the variety of Argentinean planes (Super Etendards, Mirages, A-4s etc). Most likely because the AIM-9L was the poo poo. I think if the British would have hosed up the landing or got driven out of that sea space they would have started hitting the Argentinean military infrastructure within Argentina and still kept the islands. Flikken fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Oct 12, 2011 |
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Oct 12, 2011 04:34
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Who knows, but if things had gone poorly it would have been big trouble for Thatcher most likely.
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Oct 12, 2011 04:50
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gohuskies posted:More like WW2. The Germans produced the Henschel Hs 293 and the Fritz X, radio controlled missiles which were dropped out of a bomber and then guided by the bombardier down to their target. They actually sank the Italian battleship Roma after the Italians surrendered and the Roma was sailing to be turned over to the Allies, and they nearly sank the cruisers Savannah and Uganda and the battleship Warspite. Technically, they were more like guided bombs than missiles since they didn't have propulsion besides gravity, but still, that's pretty impressive. Technically speaking anything without a means of propulsion is not a missile; therefore the Fritz X would most accurately be described a guided glide bomb (since it did have aerosurfaces intended to extend its range, as opposed to a regular guided bomb that only has aerosurfaces to stabilize and guide it). The Hs 293 did have a rocket engine and would therefore be a missile. However, that was the only use of an air launched anti-ship missile prior to the Falklands. The only other uses since were the attack on the Stark and the strikes by U.S. Navy fighters in the Gulf during Preying Mantis. Smiling Jack posted:"Six better fuses and we would have lost". Just wanted to emphasize this. It really was. However, the fuze issue wasn't about the fuzes malfunctioning; they were performing as designed, the Argentinian pilots were releasing them from too low an altitude that did not give the fuzes time to arm. Even then, the Antelope was lost without having any bombs detonate during the attack (although they did admittedly detonate after the fact due to actions taken by EOD). Flikken posted:I think if the British would have hosed up the landing or got driven out of that sea space they would have started hitting the Argentinean military infrastructure within Argentina and still kept the islands. With what? "Martin's bomb"-esque Black Buck Vulcan raids that take most of the strategic air assets the U.K. possesses just to deliver a few unguided bombs or a Shrike missile? Harrier raids with limited striking capacity that would bring the carriers closer to Argentina? There really weren't very many options for an extended air and/or sea campaign against the Argentinean mainland.
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Oct 12, 2011 07:19
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C-130 with a bunch of pissed off SAS troopers landing in Rio Grande to kill all the Super Etendard pilots! (this almost happened)
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Oct 12, 2011 07:24
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Holy poo poo, I had no idea that Operation Mikado was really a thing. But I think that kind of illustrates my point, seeing as how it would've involved 55 SAS troopers taking on three battalions of Argentinean Marines (not to mention the fact that it was entirely likely that one or both of the C-130s would've been shot down prior to landing). "Violence of action" and all that, but goddamn, those are some pretty steep odds.
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Oct 12, 2011 07:39
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When SAS troops say a mission is loving retarded you know its a bad idea. Even for special forces those guys are nuts.
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Oct 12, 2011 18:12
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